From Liz Alford

Ann and Rud,

Nan perrin emailed me the news about JT! i'm so sad for this! I also told my mother. what happen if i can ask? I live in olathe KS currently and not sure if i can come to the funeral. I wanted to give my regards and your in my heart. You guys have blessed me. You impacted our lives and we thank you for helping us. If it wasn't for you we would be behind!

Since i haven't kept you guys in the loop because it's just hard to communicate with family with how our lives are so busy. i thought i would take a few mins to write you. I mainly use face book to communicate with much of the family. it helps spread the word without making many of phone calls.

We moved to olathe and purchased a house. when gabriel had turned 5. is now turning 7 in march. Gabriel is doing good in school. He's in an Autism room and they get him involved in his 1st grade class as much as possible. Gabriel is talking and is talking a three word sentence. he can say i want help, i want more, i want yiayia (grandma in greek) i want smile, i want elmo. he has about 30 words in his vocabulary. We did get a spring board devices and he love it. Johnson county paid for a fence about two years ago to surround our back yard because we were having issues with him eloping. He is also spoiled and we put a wooden play set in there and he will go there twenty times a day. Currently i really don't know what our plans our. Matt was really unhappy with his job and he wanted to fullfill his dreams. He just started school again to get his master's program. . . . in florida to be a game designer. The program is a year. And he will start school tomorrow jan 8th. when he gr  aduate s we'll see where it leads us. We talk to matt many times throughout the day and we also do some video conferencing. Right now i've got repite care 99.75 hours a month. and i'm doing ok. we thought it would be best for all of us if Gabriel and i stayed in olathe until he got out of school. We didn't want to relocated, have adjustments, and also file with the state to get supports, find a new job for me, and school. it was just going to be too much. plus Matthew would be relied on to help since i didn't have support and take him away from his studdies. so in order for him to succeed in return have the family to suceed we decided to stay. it's hard sometimes due to the situation but i'll get use to it. oh yeah. i did get married to matthew.

You know how much i like JT. I wanted you to know that JT does reminds me of Gabriel and via versus. Gabriel loves Dum Dums! and every time he goes to the resturant he grabs the sucker and bits it and it ready for the stick to be thrown away the min he puts his hand on it and JT does the same.

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Liz