PT Results & Camping

We already knew Jake made huge progress during his intensive PT session, but got the official results that proved it on Monday. It's pretty amazing how much stronger his left leg got in just six weeks. One part of his workout each time was a leg press machine, here are his results:

June 16th

Both legs - pressed 25 lbs, 50 reps

Left leg only - 8 lbs, 45 reps

Left side (worked his hip) - body weight, 15 reps

July 28th

Both legs - pressed 62 lbs, 60 reps

Left leg only - 25 lbs, 60 reps

Left side (worked his hip) - 15 lb, 30 reps

I look at the numbers and am pretty amazed. Especially when I compare them to workouts I've done, I never do 60 reps of anything! He showed improvement in several of his timed tests as well. He didn't shave off as much time as he could have (he still wasn't back to 100% after last weekend when he got so wiped out) but he did better nonetheless. We are really, really proud of his hard work. He is now on break from PT until the end of October when he'll have another one-week intensive session.

On a completely different note, we went camping this weekend with 110 people from cub scouts. It's an annual family camping trip and something we look forward to every year. Jake was especially excited since we didn't get to go last summer. This year having become a Boy Scout, he was going as an advisor/teacher to the younger cub scouts. (For those of you who may not be familiar with scouts, cub scouts is for boy's grades 1-5 and boy scouts is for middle school and up.) We were a little hesitant not knowing how Jake would do navigating the uneven terrain, dealing with the higher altitude/cold nights, and getting less quality sleep. Despite that and a forecast showing 60-90% chance of rain all weekend, we decided to go anyway and figured worse case we could come home early if necessary.  

Jake got around surprisingly well. Every time I turned around he was headed off somewhere with one of his friends. It was a strange mix of emotions. Being proud as I watched his growing independence and confidence while at the same time worrying about him being ok and having the stamina to keep up. When we're not at home, I am so tuned in to constantly watching him, it felt strange to just let him go. He truly amazed both Todd and I. It was also great to see him wanting to help at every opportunity he could. He wanted to carry stuff up from the car and setup the tent. When Luke's group started working on fire building, he helped set up the examples of how to get one started. I was assisting with the dutch oven desserts, and he came and asked if he could help out. Some of this was because he needed to do some specific camping tasks to earn his next rank in Boy Scouts, but a big part of it was he simply wanted to be part of things.

At the end of the weekend, we are so glad we had gone. Both the boys had a great time, Luke even commented as we were going to bed on Friday night that he had missed camping.We didn't end up getting much sleep (especially Todd and I), came home exhausted, but had a great weekend. It was so nice to spend time in the mountains hanging out with friends doing things we used to do. We also got very lucky and had no rain. :-)