The Last of the Last Adventures Life Update

Well, I know that Wednesday is supposed to be 'Wedding Wednesday' and I promise to keep more with that in the future, but I can't talk about our wedding plans without updating our story.

If you've been around on the blog for a while, you'll know the term 'Last Adventures.' If not, I'll catch you up a bit. Long story short, my fiance (eek! still crazy to say!) had his left foot amputated due to a rare joint disease. To keep our friends and family updated, we started a Facebook Page to keep them updated on not just his progress and surgery, but also a bucket list we created of things to do with his left foot before his amputation. We called it the 'Last Adventures of Joe's Left Foot.' Hence, the term, 'Last Adventures' is my blog category for all of the different parts of the story. Well, Joe's story went viral and was featured all over the world on different news avenues (see what I mean here) and it's been a really amazing opportunity for him. Not to mention, some really cool documentation on it.

In case you want to get the full story, check out this video made by our church, Lifepoint.

At first, I tried to keep up with everything on the blog. But to be honest, I kind of stopped talking about it because it all became so natural. It's just a part of our daily lives, and it's second nature to us now that we don't really even think twice about it. So now it's been over a year since my last, real update.

Well, this summer has been three years since Joe's amputation, and to say he's doing great would be an understatement. While the first two years were a little rough with his additional surgeries, he is now pain free and running, playing rugby, snowboarding, wake boarding, everything you can imagine. Looking back at past blogs, we have come such a long way. It hasn't always been easy, but it's definitely been worth it.

Our big news is that this coming 2017-2018 Winter, Joe is making a run for the 2018 Paralympics in Snowboarding! Crazy, right? He's always had a passion for snowboarding and and he's amazing at it, and that hasn't changed at all since his amputation.

This past winter, Joe had the chance to ride with an Adaptive Snowboard Team in Copper Mountain, Colorado. While there, the manager and trainer told Joe that he was at the Paralympic level and invited him to join the team.

Well, he's going for it! And I couldn't be prouder.

Joe will be moving out to Copper Mountain, Colorado for the winter season to train (Don't worry! I'm staying in Fredericksburg!) and will be traveling all over the world over the next few months competing in World Cups. The ultimate goal is to qualify for the Paralympics in March in South Korea.

So from here, we are asking for your prayers, support, and encouragement for Joe (and myself!) as we start on this amazing, yet somewhat scary adventure. We are so excited but it is going to be a crazy few months!

We'd love to have ya'll follow along on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/rightfootedjoe/ as he will be posting to keep everyone up to date.

Joe started a RallyMe page as well to help raise funds for this adventure. Please don't take sharing the link the wrong way, we don't expect anything, but I wanted to include it in case anyone felt led to help support his dream: https://ussa.rallyme.com/rallies/8033/rightfootedjoe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your continued support over the past few years. We wouldn't be here without it. It means so much to us. We have so much to be thankful for, and so much to be excited about, (especially the wedding!) and can't wait to see where life takes us!