I had a great time visiting Arkansas for the holidays.  I got to see a lot of my family and friends.  It was great to see and hang out with all of my family and friends.  I also had a great time spoiling my new little niece Presley.  She is absolutely adorable and the apple of my eye.  I can’t wait to see her again.

My family and I had a great Christmas.  Each Christmas seems to get better than the last one.  I am very blessed to have such a great family and group of friends to share the holidays with.  I got a really neat present for Christmas.  It came from my little best friend Sarah from New Jersey.  A lot of you may remember Sarah from us performing therapy together at KKI.  Anyway, Sarah sent me a little photo album/scrapbook titled “Learning to Walk Together”.  It is full of pictures from us doing therapy together at KKI.  It was my favorite present of my whole Christmas.  It means so much to me and something I will cherish the rest of my life.

I am currently writing this post in the St. Louis airport.  I have a layover here for my trip back to Baltimore.  It is snowing really hard here in St. Louis.  I am hoping that I get out in time before the airport closes.  I do not want to be stuck here.  I am sure things will work out.

I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.  I am very thankful to have all of you in my life.  This time each year reminds me of how blessed I am and how much I have to be thankful for.  Thank you so much for being by my side with the continued outpouring of thoughts and prayers.  God Bless!

Matt C

It has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to post on here.  Being without a computer and having a course load of finals has left me with little time to post.  I have had a lot of neat things going on of late consisting of therapy, speaking, and snow.

Therapy has been going really well.  I am continuing to do therapy four days during the week consisting of both water and land therapy.  I can see continued progress with each day of therapy.  My therapists’ Kelly and Mike have been great and continue to push me and come up with creative therapy exercises.  I have been working really hard on my core.  It is vital to my walking and something that I don’t always work out as much.  We are still working on taking steps.  We still have a long ways to go in my therapy, but we are a lot closer than we were yesterday.

I had the opportunity to speak to a middle school last week.  A friend of mine, Lori, who works for the Shriver Center at the college I attend wanted me to share my story with a group of 8th grade students.  I shared my message of achieving your goals and reaching your dreams, no matter the obstacle in your path.  I encouraged them to work hard in school, be leaders, and live life to the fullest.  The students seemed to respond well to the message.

I am so happy to be in Arkansas after all the snow we received this past weekend.  In Baltimore we accumulated over two feet of snow.  I have never seen so much snow.  I rode around in my truck and snapped a few pictures.  Although it was pretty, it got ugly really fast.  I am glad to be away from all of it.

I have been extremely busy with school and therapy.  It is great to finally have a break and be back in Arkansas.  It is great to see all of my old friends and family.  I hope all of you have a safe and happy holiday.  Thanks a lot for all of your support… I am blessed to have you by my side.

Matt C