Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017!

I'm joining in on all the 2016 reflections that are popping up everywhere...  

So 2016 has not been an easy year, and I'm honestly glad to see the back of it. It's been a busy year of building trust with the children's therapists, and learning who is there for us rather than just for the fees. We've been able to establish new, albeit exhausting, routines of appointments in Adelaide and have seen some successes, particularly with Toby. It's been a year of pain and heartbreak with realisation that Aerynn's diagnosis are not what we had hoped. We've added her to the family's autism ranks, learned new words (retinitis pigmentosa) and accepted that we are inevitably staring down the barrel of a terminal diagnosis, so making memories is becoming very very important for us.

Moving forward into 2017 I hope to leave the mess that 2016 has become behind. I hope to build a more positive space where the children can learn to trust their education and learning environments again as we embrace unschooling/homeschooling. It really is the best option with our rigorous therapy and appointment schedule. I hope to continue to make as many visual memories as possible for Aerynn. Lots of things for her to remember as her vision progresses to whatever RP will take it to be. A year of growing supports as we now have a fantastic therapeutic and medical teams working together for the children's benefits, training our beautiful service dog, and we have our big adventure in August with the trip to Queensland and our first real holiday in over a decade.

That beings me to the word I am embracing for 2017. It is going to be a year of change. Lots of adjustments as we work our a positive way forward. Change, however, has many negative connotations so it doesn't feel right. Instead I'm going to be working on making all these changes that we have ahead into adventures. Lots of little adventures into the unknown as we make the best of what life has dealt us. So bring on 2017 and the ADVENTURE that it is to share with us :)

Happy new year everyone xxx