Yesterday Autumn and I visited our favorite coffee shop in town. As usual, the two corner window hide-outs were taken and Autumn decided she was going to ask the young lady currently occupying her favorite spot if she could join in. I love how bold she has become. The girl graciously allowed us to sit with her and we began another fun journey. Autumn had so many stories she wanted to share with her and the two of them chatted for a long time, perhaps almost an hour. Towards the end of their conversation, Autumn brought up the movie “Soul Surfer” and told this girl just how much she liked the movie and how scary it was that the girl lost her arm to a shark. Autumn has had a crazy fascination with that movie ever since she first saw it, she has talked about losing an arm and what that means and how frightening sharks can be. I have explained to her that there are about 350 species of sharks and only about 7 of them are actually harmful, but none of that matters, it only takes one! The movie is powerful and perhaps a bit much for a little one, but after everything she has had to tolerate in her five years of life, it seemed appropriate.

After allowing her to talk for some time, this girl in the coffee shop picked up the book she was reading and showed Autumn a photo of the girl Autumn had been describing! I love how connected we all are, perhaps less than 6 degrees if we had time to investigate each other’s connections. This particular book was about an Australian man named Nick Vujicic, who was born without any arms or legs. His story is simply inspiring and motivating. Over the course of his life, he has learned to do just about everything including scuba diving, golfing and surfing which he had learned from Bethany, the girl who had lost her arm to a shark. Autumn spent a long time looking at those pictures of Nick Vujicic, baby photos and beyond, she had so many questions.

I found this link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196755/The-astonishing-story-man-born-arms-legs--world-famous-swimmer-surfer-footballer.html

There are photos and videos of this man’s life, they are worth watching.

We had to spend most of the day at the hospital today…Autumn was in need of a blood transfusion. We met a sweet little girl who had been there for 10 days due to a burst appendix. She spoke only Spanish and it motivated the hell out of Autumn to speak as much Spanish as she could, it was adorable! They worked on arts and crafts for hours, it was more like preschool than anything and I was thankful. Autumn is always so full of energy after blood transfusions; at 9:30pm, she is still awake, yikes!