Yes, we are posting this late, and out of order. By adding this, we add to the continuity of the story presented here. Sorry if this gets emailed out to you. I hope you are not too confused.
Happy New Year from the Royers!
2022 has been a year of change. We spent the first quarter changing the house in preparation for the baby. The office became the baby’s room. The downstairs junk collection of 17 years had to be cleaned out to become the office and a secondary play space.
On April 3 at 12:08 am, we welcomed Cassie June Royer into the family. The birth was peaceful at the Minnesota Birth Center. She weighed 8 lbs 0.5 oz and had a huge Royer head. A healthy mom and baby were home five hours after the birth, at 5am. At 9am, a sleepless Dave took Kate to her first running race at the U’s stadium, finishing on the 50 yard line.
Two weeks later, on the day after Kate’s third birthday, she started school, complete with taking the bus all on her own. Back in December 2021, Kate was officially diagnosed as autistic. That qualified her for the school district’s special education preschool when she turned three years old. At first, it was 75 minutes a day for four days a week. In September, that increased to two hours a day, four days a week.
Kate’s therapies completely changed over to Fraser this year. Fraser is an autism and special needs center. She now receives speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and food therapy all through Fraser. The therapists are wonderful and Kate loves it.
Between school and Fraser, Kate’s skills have exploded this year. She is currently a motor mouth with a reasonable vocabulary and new words every day. She can now jump and is getting faster, even though she still doesn’t have a real run. She is potty trained and can dress herself with prompts and minimal help. She is still g-tube dependent, but has all the skills to eat and eats up to 30% of her daily calories by mouth.
Cassie has grown and developed so fast. At six weeks, she was wearing six month clothes. Now, still at eight months old, she is in 18 month clothes. She crawls all over the house. She can climb our entire flight of stairs by herself. She pulls up to stand. She has started to cruise around the furniture. And she is a great eater. A mobile, eating baby is a completely different experience for us.
With Kate in school, she brings home lots of germs. The whole household has had numerous colds since April. Luckily, the kids have only had one fever a piece. Neither were much of a concern. A healthy baby is a completely different experience for us.
Kate is two years post heart transplant. She’s had the new heart longer than she had her own. She is doing wonderfully. In February, she had a small surgery to remove her broviac central line (a long term iv). It was her 12th time under anesthesia that ended 32 months of iv lines. We were also able to drop more meds this year. Now, she is only on two drugs, twice a day. Only one of the drugs is prescription. Holy cow, what a change.
Our fun activities changed to be a bit more tame this year, considering the needs of a newborn and a preschooler. We did get out sledding, attended a few Run Beer Repeats with Cassie, hit a few tap rooms with the whole family, ran two 5K races, and went to two Twins games, the Eagan 4th of July Festival, and the State Fair. Hope Kids had some great events we attended, including an Easter celebration when Cassie was six days old, a Royal River Cruise on the Mississippi, a fall festival, a trunk or treat event, Nickelodeon Universe where Cassie rode her first roller coaster at seven months old, and the final dress rehearsal of the Nutcracker. We took two hotel trips this year. The first was in July for a family wedding. We spent two nights in Mondovi, WI and two nights in Brainerd, MN. In December, we spent an overnight in Duluth for the Bentleyville Christmas lights.
On the business side, 2022 has also been a year of change. You may remember that we own and run our own small business, Climbing Penguin Inc. Last December, our tax guy of 16 years suddenly retired. If you have any suggestions for small business tax people in the Twin Cities, we would love references.
In general, life is good, crazy, but good. We are very blessed. Dave says his biggest accomplishment of the year is staying sane with two small children. Audrey’s was running a sub thirty minute 5K race when Cassie was six months old.
We would love to get together with more people in 2023. Weekend afternoons work best for us. We are flexible to the location. Feel free to contact us with a particular date and place. Hopefully we can get together soon.
Wishing you well,
Dave, Audrey, Kate, and Cassie Royer
P.S. Here’s some pictures from the year.
