PC1

I meant to update this more often, this week, but technical difficulties prevented it, including not having the wireless internet work at the motel this weekend.
We saw Katie for the first time in seven months this weekend. She looked great - she has lost 30 lbs and it shows.
We were a bit apprehensive about this. First because of the expense - we weren't able to make any reservations until Monday, and we flew out on Thursday. This was due to two factors: the first was not finding out that she had graduated Discovery until two weeks before PC1, and the second was simply money. I had already decided to take out another 401K loan, and because of Easter it took over 8 days to get here - arrghh!!!!! And, of course, it ran quite a bit more expensive than we had anticipated (well, maybe that was the extra day in Las Vegas, or at least part of it).
So we flew out on Thursday to Las Vegas. Her school is about two and a half hours from there in Utah, and the drive is just stunning. Especially the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona - absolutely spectacular. I guess since she is only level 1 we did not get invited to therapy on Thursday like some parents there did, so we drove around a bit, and got some great scenic pictures, including some from the local overlook (which just happens to be the local makeout point as well :-) ). We then met some other parents we had talked to on the BBS for dinner, and got to meet her therapist for the first time - he is great.
On Friday we went to the school, had a couple of presentations from staff, then after we came back from lunch were greated with a scream as she saw us. Hugs, kisses, tears all around. I won't go into the seminar details, but there was some work done, we had dinner with her there, and then left.
On Saturday we were back for more, working through the morning with her, then having lunch, a tour, and finally, at 3 pm it was time for farewells - and yes lots more tears.
Meeting our family rep and therapist really helped, as did the tour of the facility, and talking to some of the other students. Seeing everything first hand really helped to bring things back in focus - Katie is doing great. She was so much like the little girl I used to know. There was no anger or exploding at all. She was still very clingy - and that is something we know to work on - part of the whole 'attention seeking' thing.
We did spend Sunday in Vegas, and just got back at 8 tonight. Then on Friday we drive back to Chicago for the next Keys. Barely time to breath - and my oldest graduates high school on 3 weeks!

M-