This is going to be a very short post, because we honestly didn’t do very much exciting; I barely even took any photos. But, we did get a lot of resting and catching up on things done during the week.
Matt’s knee continues to heal. He did get his stiches out the Friday before this week. At the two week mark, Matt should have been able to increase the bend in his knee from 35 degrees to 60. He hit that benchmark a couple days early and continue to work on it. When he had his check-up, he was really excited to show his doctor the progress. In very German fashion, he flatly said: “Do not do that. You must stick to the regime as this was a very complicated surgery and you will cause damage.” Ok then. I know its very frustrating for Matt to still be so reliant on the crutches. When researching knee surgery recovery, he found that after ACL surgeries, you tend to be a lot further along at this point. He thought this would be the case with his surgery and its not been. He has been such a good sport and is not complaining, but I do know this has been just as mentally and emotionally hard for him, as it has been physical.
This week, he did have his first physical therapy appointment and the physical therapist was much more receptive to the progress Matt has made so far. He was much more optimistic about the recovery and starting next week, he will go twice a week for seven weeks. As a sign of his progress, Matt also went back to work this week and worked almost every day.
From Monday-Wednesday, Brooklyn was trying out for softball. She gave it up shortly before we moved to Germany and hasn’t shown any interest since in playing. She surprised us a couple of weeks ago when she said she wanted to try out for the High School team. In the month leading up to try-outs, she attended several practices and team conditionings. The tryouts were only supposed to last two days; but they ended up pushing it to a third day so the coaches could make their decision, and Brooklyn ended up making the team! She is really excited, especially because she will be the back-up pitcher. This was her preferred position, but not one that she got to play as regularly as she wanted back in the U.S. Since the school district covers the entire continent, we will be doing a lot of traveling this spring to her games. We already have the game schedule and know we will be driving all over Germany and Italy. Luckily, (or maybe unluckily), the UK teams will travel to Germany this year for their game.
Friday was my day off and Matt was working. This has never happened before so a friend and I decided to take a day trip to Rastatt, on the western border of Germany. We toured the baroque palace, walked through town, and had lunch. We joked that our kids would have hated it- they would have- so we were glad to cross it off the bucket list without dragging non-compliant participants around. It turned out to be a beautiful, sunny (but cold) day.
We ended the week with a visit from our favorite dog friends, Paisley and Toby. They came to stay the weekend while their parents were skiing and they were so sweet, as usual. We made it out to dinner on Friday AND Saturday (we are really living it up!), but I only remembered to take a picture of one Aperol (the most important item, anyways).
Gilcrests Abroad 