A very special day for tucker (and us)

I've been working on this project going on the 3rd year. Someone gave me an application for the Marty Lyons Foundation. (Marty Lyons use to play for the NY Jets). The foundation grants wishes to children with chronic illness/disabilities, etc. So we received the application and wished for a hot tub for tucker. he loves very hot water and relaxes so much in his bath, so we figured a hot tub would be awesome for him. The hydro therapy would great for his muscles. So i sent in the application and he was approved. very cool. but for some reason, actually getting the hot tub proved to be the hard part. they had to solicit to vendors to get one donated and finally this spring of '07, Costco dropped off the hot tub at our house. From there we had to get an electrician to install it; which ended up taking 5 months due to his busy schedule and our townships strict rules. paperwork kept being returned and then when we'd fix it another 2 weeks would go by before they'd return it again for some other reason. anyway, we finally got through all that and then got it inspected. everything passed inspection and we were good to go. so jeff started to fill up the hot tub, only to find out it had a leak! (trust me, this kind of stuff ALWAYS happens to us. there is no easy way to get things done around here).

so i contacted the company who made the hot tub and they gave me a local number to call to have it looked at. i kept calling the company and leaving messages and they'd never call me back. finally i got a real person on the phone and explained why i was calling. she says to me, "we don't service that tub anymore". so i said, is that why no one from your store is calling me back? and she said, yeah, probably. so i yelled at her. i said, "that's a great way to run your business". know what she says back? "why thank you". i was so disgusted i slammed the phone down. (um, just a little frustrated here). so i call back the hot tub company again and ask for the manager. i explain to "Brian" about everything that we've been through, all about tucker, the waiting, the leak, etc. i finally said, "look, its not like me and my husband want to go out there and have a glass of wine while soaking in the tub. this tub is for my special needs child and we've been waiting an awful long time for this". within a few days another company called us and the guy was here and fixed the leak last thurs. the weekend was busy so we didn't get to use it - but tonight we did!

jeff carried tucker out. dillon got the cover off, the radio going, the jets going, turned the lights on, got tucker's tubes out, etc. i brought out towels (and a beer!) and got into the tub. we weren't sure how we were going to get him in, but it was really easy to place him on the side and i grabbed his legs and then jeff eased him down. boy was tucker wide eyed when he felt the water! you'll notice in the pictures, he's got his mouth open. he does that when he's sleeping or very curious about something!

we sat in there for about 20 minutes. as he started to relax, i did some easy stretching on his arms and legs, which tend to be very tight. he enjoyed it so much! i enjoyed it so much, because i've worked hard on getting this accomplished for him. all the paperwork, phone calls, trips for permits, etc. it was nice to be able to have this done for him. it made me happy.

that would be dillon, my younger, creative and eclectic son (who does that sound like? lol) sitting in the kiddie tube in the hot tub!