Faith's Monumental Visit to South Dakota

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When I received my niece, Sydnee's graduation announcement in the mail, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to visit my brother and his family for the first time at their home in Spearfish. I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see Mount Rushmore, which I had never seen before!  My nephew in Nebraska was graduating that same weekend, and my sister Dawn and I tried to put together a plan where we could go to both of their graduation receptions. I knew though, that Faith would feel left out and would want to go, too. I also knew it was going to be difficult to find someone to look after Faith over Memorial Day weekend.  Our finalized plan involved Dawn traveling to South Dakota with me and Faith and then her flying to Nebraska by herself. Faith and I would then drive back to Bismarck by ourselves.  3 adventurous travelers  I must admit, as the trip got closer, I started to get a little anxious about how Faith was going to do with so much drivi...
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Faith's Trip to the Salon

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Faith loves getting her hair cut. Well, she may not like the actual cutting part since I have to hold her head down or to the side so her hairdresser can cut where and how she needs to cut. Sometimes she is very squirmy, and her head is all over the place, especially when she's talking and excited. 

She does love getting her hair blow-dried though. But I do think a lot of Faith's excitement about getting her hair cut has to do with the person who does her hair. Her name is Julie and she's my stylist too.

Julie is sweet, kind, pretty, and very talented as well. We found her when Faith's occupational therapist recommended a salon in Mandan. That was Faiths' first haircut at a salon. Rob's parents were in the country, so Jean came with us. Faith was so good, and the hairdresser did a great job with her. I think she only charged us like $5.00 or something. (Then Jean gave her a $5.00 tip).

I then decided I wanted to get my hair done at the same salon. The lady who cut Faith's hair was unavailable, so I agreed to go with Julie - whoever that was. As usual, when getting my hair done by someone new, I was a little nervous. But Julie made me feel right at ease. She mentioned church a couple of times and it seemed she was a Christian. 

The next time Faith got her hair cut at that salon it was with Julie. It was no problem for them to move the salon chair out of the way and put Faith's wheelchair in its place. They were so accommodating to Faith's needs. Julie also took special care to cover up as much of Faith's chair as possible so as not to get hair all over her chair.

Julie has since gone out on her own and we have followed her to her new shop. This is probably a good thing - it's nice and private without other people around so Faith can be as loud as she wants. She gets pretty excited when she sees Julie. 

After her haircut is all done, Faith makes sure to repeatedly tell Julie she has to sweep all the hair up off of the floor. Faith really does not like messy floors.

Yesterday, we cut a couple inches off of Faith's long, thick hair. Hopefully this will make it easier to wash and help it be less snarly. Sometimes as soon as I touch a comb to her hair, she's telling me, "That hurts" and then in the middle of combing her hair she tells me we need to take a break. 

Because of all her complaining while getting her hair combed, her dad always wants her to get it cut as short as possible Once he was at Julie's shop and asked Julie, jokingly (I think), to cut off all of Faith's hair. Julie said she would never do that. We are really, truly thankful for such a great stylist!

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