Giffords out of hospital

According to multiple media reports, Giffords will move from the rehabilitation facility at the Houston hospital and stay with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, in League City, Texas. Her outpatient care will continue from home.

“Congresswoman Giffords has shown clear, continuous improvement from the moment she arrived at TIRR five months ago,” TIRR Memorial Hermann’s chief medical officer, Dr. Gerard Francisco said according to a local Texas ABC News affiliate. “We are very excited that she has reached the next phase of her rehabilitation and can begin outpatient treatment. We have no doubt that she will continue to make significant strides in her recovery.”

{mosads}The news comes only a few days after the first photos of the congresswoman were released to the public since the Arizona shooting rampage in which Giffords was shot in the head. The congresswoman was photographed outside smiling with dark hair while wearing glasses.

The shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., on Jan. 8 left six dead and 13 wounded, including Giffords.

Since then Giffords’s recovery has been praised as something akin to a miracle by both her doctors and others. In a recent interview with NBC’s “Today Show” President Obama praised her recovery progress.

“It’s a genuine miracle to see where she was just a few months ago and where she is now,” he said in the interview.

Still, her staff has been hesitant to predict how much progress she will continue to make or whether she will be able to fully return to lawmaking.

—This story was updated at 6:04 p.m.