On June 22, 2005 we moved into our new home:
105 Old Spring Road
Coatesville, PA 19320
Currently all we have are the pictures we took before we moved in. You can see them here. If all goes well, we will be opening the pool this weekend. Bring your suits and dinner(!!) and swim for free!!
Hello Everyone,
For those of you who are actually reading my blogs, and/or are visiting the website for the first time, I must explain my webpage. Originally, this website was created to honor the memory of Eric’s brother, Brian, who passed away in Oct. 2001. So that’s why there’s a poem and memories of Brian on the “Jill” page. Eric is in the process of “redesigning” my page, so check back for updates. Thanks!
Weekend Update: Eric, Baby, Buster, Bodhi and I all “walked for paws” on Sunday to raise donations for the Chester County SPCA. The kids did great!!! We had lots of fun! Next weekend: Sat. morning I proctor the SAT’s for the first time at North Penn HS, then we go out to dinner with Eric’s family that night, for Mother’s Day. Then, I go over to my cousin’s for Mother’s Day brunch on Sunday! Fun, fun, fun!
Two days before Christmas and it certainly going to be a different Christmas for most of us. We are certainly going to miss Steve. Linda and Steve often came to PA for a few days and Sandy and I have talked about some of the funny stories that Steve related about his senior friends at work. Linda went out of the hospital for the first time today. She was accompanied by two therapists and another patient on a trip to a pizza parlor. She didn’t want to go but did because she felt she had to go to make everybody happy. She did ultimately have a good time. We didn’t want her to have her first outing to be the memorial on the 8th. Currently she feels that she is not making progress at the pace she did earlier. She is concerned that they are pushing her to get her out by Feb. 1. They told her that they would not push her out if she wasn’t ready. This was comforting to her but she still feels that she needs to be further down the road. We have been told that we will be trained over a period of 4 days in January on those things that we need to know in order to bring Linda to Thorndale. To say the least we are looking forward to Linda coming but we are scared. We are looking for a wheel chair van so we can go places with Linda. If anyone knows of one available let me know. The rehab. is ordering all the medical equipment and having it sent here so we can figure out what we need to do to accomodate Linda. Sandy and I will be having a quiet Christmas with Kevin and Jess, Eric and Jill. We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a safe New Year.
Hey everyone, thanks to Eric I can now add daily updates to The Riley site.
Another good day for mom…. she had a chat with her doctor today about how far she has come in the past week and a half and the possibility of her going home to attend the memorial service for my father (which we have no exact plans and dates for yet). She had no visitors during the day but enjoyed the time to herself to take a nice nap and rest up between her therapies. She washed her hair by herself today and is really looking forward to seeing her mom tomorrow. She is so excited for her to see how incredibley far she has come in such a short amount of time!
My mother, brother and I are working on arrangements for my fathers service so as soon as we have definites we will be sure to let you know.
We would also like to say thank you to everyone of you for your love and support throughout these difficult times. We especially thank Aunt Sandy, Uncle Ron, Grams and Aunt Pat for doing so much!
Keep the email and mail coming because it sure does bring a smile to my moms face at the end of a long, hard day. 
Sorry for the delay for the update. We were a little slow on setting up our account on the blog website.
As for Linda’s update; As of today Linda was able to “eat” some custard which is the first “solid” food in more than 34 days. She does not have pancreatitis as originally thought. The eye doctor saw her and wants to give her another month or so to give her cranial nerve time to allow the swelling to go down. The eye doctor said there is a way of putting a gold piece in her eye that will allow her eye to close once she initiates the move herself. Again he wants to wait until more of the swelling goes down before attempting any procedure. They are planning to try to irrigate the ears to increase her hearing but again they feel the crainial nerve is part of the problem. She is really enjoying the company she has been getting. She was very concerned about what people would think since her paralysis is noticable. Stacy and Shane have been going over in the evenings. They have been teaching her how to assist in the transfer from bed to chair. She seems to have a positive attitude. Thank you for all the prayers and visits and keep those cards and letters pouring in. Mom (Ruth) will be flying out of Philly for Boston on Sunday for about 9 days.
Sandy and I will do our best to keep this up to date and we hope we can do just half as well as Eric did in the first month.
For all of the latest and greatest updates on Aunt Linda’s condition, and/or information about the Riley family, please check out The Riley Page. I set up the page with all of the updates that I wrote up until November 11 in the left column. In the right column is a blog. The (we)blog is set up on blogger.com, which is accessible by anyone on the Internet. If you would like to be able to post to this blog, please just send me your email address. I haven’t talked with Shane and/or Stacey recently, but I’m hoping to get them posting pretty soon. As you can see on the page, my mother should also be posting updates.
I’m hoping that my mother will take over and keep you well updated on Aunt Linda. Thank you to all those who sent me notes of appreciation for putting the regular updates on my site. Believe me — it was the least I could do. The road has been bumpy, and it’s not going to smooth out any time soon, but we’ll all get through it together. Check in to this site for any/all updates about TheRuth’s in general.
On October 12, Aunt Linda and Uncle Steve were on their way home from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Aunt Linda was driving in the passing lane of a divided 4 lane road near Hamilton, Ontario, about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the trip. She somehow went off on to the left-hand shoulder. They believe that she then over-compensated and crossed over her lane, and then into the other lane of the road. They were then hit by another vehicle, and spun out. The car continued to flip, spin, etc., and then it vaulted at least once as it went into a gully, and landed directly on the roof of the car. The way the car landed made it very difficult to impossible to get Uncle Steve out of the passenger side. Both, Uncle Steve and Aunt Linda were wearing seatbelts.
Uncle Steve was dead on arrival at the hospital. It is believed he was killed on impact. Aunt Linda survived the crash, but was in serious condition upon arrival to the hospital. I will post updates on this page as to Aunt Linda’s condition.
On the eve of what would have been Brian’s 26th birthday, and the first anniversary of Grandpa Hill’s death, I just felt compelled to write a little note for the website. We had another death in the family this year — Grandma Ruth passed away on May 20, 2004. I remember 3 out of 4 of my great-grandparents. Great-grandma Brunault lived well into my life. Now, I only have one grandparent left. Without realizing it I created a title for this post that equals my current age. 29 years of life and deaths. Please see the previous post - Circle of Life for a little more about that last sentence. Now on to the fun stuff — Stephanie (cousin) gets married on August 7, and Jason (cousin) on August 21. Hope anyone that is reading this is well.
Well… isn’t technology fun?! I’m now going to be using a “(we)blog” to keep my home page current. I would also like to use this blog for its intended use. This means — instead of just site updates being listed, I will post miscellany that might be of interest to no one!! Hope my loyals like this, and tell more and more people that I have the best site on the Internet?!?!