We've been having a busy time over the last few months.  We travelled down for final fitting and to collect the Snapdragon from Dragon Mobility in Cambridge at the end of April.

Louis really picked things up really quickly and with a bit of nudging and shoving we got him out of the door and into the car park.  Before long he was turning in circles and trying out his new chair.  

We've got out and about, practicing driving in the courtyard and car park, and getting out to parks and supermarkets, and Louis is having an amazing time exploring.  It does mean that getting anywhere takes a lot longer: not just getting in and out of car, but stopping to look at an interesting bit of wall, or a plant or a crack in the pavement. The important thing is that Louis is exploring the world and having a lot of fun along the way.

You can see more of this set of photos on Flickr. 

Last Friday I took great pleasure in telling everyone I met that my photo was in the Sun!!  Of course it wasn't Page 3, but it was a centre spread.  I also shared the page with Louis and Sean.

It was a great article and some great photos (although we really need to organise a decent family photo for the next time!)

What I particularly loved was that Louis featured on the homepage of the web version of the paper ...just below a photo of Doctor Who "babe" Karen Gillan!

Today we've booked our train tickets for our journey to visit DragonMobility in Cambridge to collect the Snapdragon!!!  

Louis will have a final fitting on 20th April and any tweeks and changes will happen that day.

We will then have a few days to explore Cambridge while chasing after Louis and trying to stop him shooting off into rivers!

It's all very exciting!!!

PS - You might want to go and buy The Sun tomorrow....!

It's the end of the year and we are still being amazed at people's generosity over the last couple of months.

We have a lot of people to thank.  Below are some of the donations from groups and companies.  There have also been a large number of personal donations from friends, colleagues and friends of the family.

The staff in the Constitution Directorate team at the Scottish Government have raised an amazing £250 from a Christmas raffle.

Some of the male teachers at Castlebrae Community High School were sponsored to grow facial hair in November Movember.  They raised a fab £118.

KG's coffee shop collected money for Louis over a couple of lunchtimes.  They raised £41.69.

Challenges Worldwide had a cake sale in their building and raised a fantastic £110.

Skills Development Scotland Arbroath Careers Centre staff donated £95.  Staff at the Dundee Careers Centre raised £100 by not sending Christmas Cards to each other (Christmas cards in Dundee must be really expensive! ;-)

Victoria Hospital outpatient's department staff have donated  a very kind £60 for Christmas.

Staff at Heriot-Watt University's School of Engineering and Physical Sciences (where Louis' dad works!) have donated an incredible £490

Timberbush Tours (who park their buses just next-door) kindly donated £100.  

The Burg Family sponsored bike ride raised an incredible £307.21.  As well as this, Mrs Burg's school, St Mary's Middle School in Puddletown had fundraising events and raised an amazing £436.44.

Thank you so much to EVERYONE who has helped us these last few weeks achieve the incredible!  You're all amazing.  

We wish everyone a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

100%!!!!

Thank you soooo much to everyone who has donated, helped run events, run around places or supported us in any way.  It has been quite incredible how wonderful everyone has been.  It has only been 10 weeks since we got our first donation on Just Giving and we couldn't have dreamed that we would have raised the money so quickly!

The Snapdragon has been ordered!  The parts have been delivered to the factory.  Now that we've reached our total they will be able to start making it!  It is a long process but hopefully it will be ready in 12-16 weeks.  No fast automated robotics like a car factory - everything is custom made to fit Louis and his particular needs.  

Any extra money raised will help us buy a couple of docking systems to clamp the snapdragon into our Motability car and Louis' school bus.  After that, any extra money will go towards the other young people like Louis who are trying to raise money with Turbo Trust for Snapdragons.

Thank you all so much!

Traumaqueen, paramedic, blogger and photographer extraordinaire is having a raffle on his blog.  He will take photos of anything suggested in the comments of his blog.  If you donate at least a tenner to Louis' fundraising then you will be entered into a raffle to win the image YOU request, printed and mounted and ready to display in your house.  Head over to Traumaqueen to add your photographic suggestions!

Yesterday we drew the winning tickets for the Edinburgh Council raffle. We raised a huge £503.00!!  Thank you so much to everyone for your generous support.

The prizes and winning tickets are:

• Christmas Hamper (winning ticket: yellow 124)
• Caterham Seven sports car hire for a day kindly donated by Open Road Hire (winning ticket: yellow 211)
• Voucher donated by Dusit, one of the top Thai restaurants in the country (winning ticket: pink 17)

Thank you so much to Anne, Alison and Jean from the Educational ASN team at Westwood House for gathering fantastic prizes and selling tickets to everyone.