What a crazy ride we have had the last two weeks! However, things have been a bit boring on the healthcare front which I am extremely grateful for!! The kids like to take my phone and take random pictures occasionally. I actually like this picture because it reminds me that they can get along and be happy together sometimes. I am looking forward to summer, but not the sibling fights that come along with so much togetherness--ugh!! At least they are happy in this picture:
There is a safety guy at Aaron's work. After hearing about Aaron's thumb 'incident' with the mandolin he took it upon himself to write up a safety information sheet on how to properly use a mandolin. He then taped up copies of these safety sheets on the back of bathroom stall doors so when people 'had a minute' while using the toilet they could read all about it. What people didn't know is that Aaron was the inspiration behind these safety sheets. That meant when they asked Aaron what he did to his thumb and he told them, they would then asked if he had read the safety sheet in the bathroom and how he had let that 'incident' happen. Hahahaha! Aaron was not amused. I made Aaron bring home a copy of one of these sheets so I could laugh at it and then I could actually hang it in our kitchen to help remind Aaron of proper mandolin use--haha--just joking. I think it is funny that on the sheet there is actually a cartoon picture of a guy on a toilet in the corner:
The guy even made a special safety sheet just for Aaron where it looked exactly like this one only it included the phrase, "Don't be an Aaron!" at the bottom of the paper. They hung up his special sheet in his cubical just for him. Haha!
As for Aaron's thumb it is healing great! It still is tender, but it looks so much better than it did as you can see:
We finally got Sarah's liver biopsy results Friday. We were getting nervous since it took them two weeks to finally get the finished result of her biopsy. I had started calling them everyday for an update so I was relieved to finally hear back from them Friday. The liver biopsy results showed some non specific inflammation in the liver sample. It also showed some inflammatory cells around her bile ducts which can mean one of three things. It is just leftover from her supposed 'gallstone episode' back in February, or it can mean she has a current infection of the bile ducts (cholangitis), or there is an autoimmune response going on. To try and figure out which one of these possibilities it is, she will have repeat blood work done to check her liver enzyme levels in two weeks. Whatever that shows they will zero in on a diagnosis and go from there. Sarah's had a bit of a rough year. I thought she was handling things great until she had a mini breakdown on Sunday. I felt bad for her. It really has been a tough year between her root canals, hospital stay with ambulance ride, and liver biopsy I can see how she could have a fed up moment. I just held her for a little while, told her I loved her and we both prayed things would get a bit easier soon. I am keeping my fingers crossed it will be a quick fix and she (and the rest of us) can move on.
Josh had his end of year band concert. I think the band sounds great, however, his band teacher has been insufferable this year. I am sad Josh won't be taking band again next year since he really does love to play. However, working with his teacher has been difficult. Here's the concert band:
Josh is the 6th trumpet player from the left side:
You can see Josh better in this picture as they were walking off the stage. He is the super tall kid in the middle of the picture:
It is sad this was Josh's last concert...
Aaron got to take a work trip to Washington D.C. He stayed in a hotel right across the street from the Nationals Baseball stadium. Luckily, they were playing a game one of the nights he was there so he talked his other two work people in to going to a game one evening. This was the view from their seats:
Here is one more picture Aaron tried to get a picture of the top of the Pentagon as they were driving by it. You can't see it very well, but he assures me it is there:
While Aaron was gone on his trip I had to work one evening. Thankfully, G&G T were able to come and
referee I mean spend a fun night making sure the kids were
not playing ultimate wrestling and tearing my house apart while I wasn't there fed and loved.
Sarah was showing me some of her dance poses when Aaron said he could do that, too. So they both tried this pose and to not hurt anybodies feelings I think it was pretty close in who could do it better--haha! I am just glad Aaron didn't hurt himself trying to copy Sarah.
Aaron made some stuffed burgers last Sunday for dinner. Josh wanted to help out so Aaron was showing him some secrets of the smoking trade. The burgers were pretty good. They were stuffed with caramelized onions, bacon pieces and bleu cheese crumbles and then cooked on the smoker. YUM!!
Last Sunday Matthew had his Seminary Graduation. He was so excited! Here was the invitation:
The program:
Matthew's name under Clinton 25th Ward:
They had the graduates separate and sit according to their wards. Luckily, Matthew's friend Ashlyn sat by him and helped rein in his excitement. As they got closer to the 25th ward Matthew started excitedly yelling. Luckily, it didn't take them too long to get to our ward. After announcing Matthew's name he bounced across the stand he was so excited. It was fun to watch him. Here's all the kids from our ward who graduated seminary. Matthew's in the red tie:
Wahoo!
Later that evening one of Matthew's friends, Kloe came by and dropped of an invitation to her graduation along with some goodies. She has been a great friend to Matthew throughout high school. Matthew was excited to see her and made sure to give her one of his graduation announcements, too:
I can't believe graduation is coming up. It's really becoming REAL. That's crazy!
Anyway, Daniel had a band concert last week. He still enjoys playing the saxophone and actually tried out and made the Jazz band for next year. He is pretty excited about that. Here's his class:
Here's Daniel after his band finished playing:
Josh had a track banquet last week. It was just for students, at least that is what Josh told us, so we didn't go. He did bring home this certificate to show us that he Lettered in Track and Field this year which is pretty awesome. Wahoo, Josh!!
This past week Noah had an Egg Drop challenge. It is a challenge where you try to design and build a container that will protect an egg from dropping it off the school roof. It was optional so when Noah didn't say anything about it I thought he didn't want to participate. It wasn't until later on in that week that I noticed my eggs started disappearing. When I went outside I found quite a few smashed eggs on by back porch. Noah finally confessed saying he had been trying to make an Egg drop container that would protect the egg, but each attempt hadn't worked yet--thus all the broken eggs on my back porch. DOH! Sophie didn't mind them, though. Every time she went outside to potty she got to lick up a nice snack....
Anyway, now that I knew Noah was interested in participating I helped him make an egg drop container. To make sure it would protect the egg he dropped it off the second story a few times and the egg survived the fall each time. His egg drop container was a roll of toilet paper with the egg put in the middle of the cardboard roll if that makes sense.
The egg drop container worked perfectly at home, however, the day off the egg drop challenge it was raining pretty hard. Noah left the toilet paper container outside which ended up super soggy and didn't protect the egg when it got dropped off the school roof, unfortunately. Noah wasn't too happy about that, but what can you do?! At least it worked at home and next year hopefully it won't be super rainy and/or he will not leave the toilet paper roll outside to get soggy.
Sarah had a dance performance last week. She loves getting dressed up with her costumes, hair and makeup and I must say I don't mind helping her out with all of that either!
I only got this picture of the girls lining up to do their dance, though:
They did great.
Two Saturdays ago Josh and Daniel decided to go do baptisms for the dead at the Ogden Temple. Unfortunately, it was the Ogden Marathon that morning so the downtown Ogden traffic was ridiculous. When they finally made it to the temple they were disappointed to find out it was closed because of the marathon--DOH!! They decided to drive up to the Brigham City temple instead. When they got up to the temple there weren't very many people in the baptistry which was awesome. Josh got to baptize Daniel. When they went to do confirmations a few different temple workers asked Josh at different times if he wanted to do the confirmation prayer. It was until Daniel told them Josh was only 16 that they looked at Josh again. They all figured Josh was a returned missionary because he was so big and looked old. That was funny. Another funny thing was that a girl from a different group was there and asked for Josh's phone number. Wahoo picking up chicks at the temple. Josh is a pretty smooth operator--haha! I think they had a good experience that morning which I am glad for. Josh even took Daniel out for ice cream afterward which was really nice.
This last Saturday Daniel went to do Baptisms for the Dead with a friend. I was the chauffeur so I just got to watch, but it was still cool to see your own kid and a friend do baptisms.
Josh while at work had a lost wedding ring turned in to him to be put in the lost and found. Luckily, the owner came by a week later and claimed the ring. She was so glad to have it back she gave Josh a reward which was pretty cool. Josh didn't mind either.
Last Wednesday the Young Women had a recipe night. We had all the girls make a recipe preferably with their moms and bring it to Young Women along with their moms, too. We were hoping for a favorite family recipe or a recipe with a backstory to make it interesting. We all got to sample the recipes and then make copies of the recipes to put together in a book to be bound later. Since the other leaders got to be there with their own daughters they let me bring Sarah with me even though she is not quite young women age yet. For our recipe Sarah chose to make zucchini bread so that's what we did. We didn't have any zucchini, but thankfully, I have a teen driver that loves to drive so when I gave him money to pick up some zucchini from the grocery store for me, he was more than happy to help. It was fun to have Sarah at the activity with me. I can't believe she will be in Young Women in January. Hopefully, she will be excited about that.
Sarah's school class had a 40 book challenge this year. Each of the kids were challenged to read 40 different books from different genres--historical fiction, fantasy, biography, science fiction, etc. If they completed the challenge they got a prize at the end of the year. Sarah loves to read so this wasn't too bad of a challenge for her. She finished up her 40th book the week before the deadline. The prize for finishing the challenge was they got to go to the Clearfield Aquatics Center to swim for a couple hours during school. Sarah was so excited to go. Her friends finished their 40 books as well so she had lots of fun at the pool with her friends. I think it was an awesome challenge and hopefully got her interested in different genres that she wouldn't have read otherwise.
Noah's class has had an end of year school countdown. I volunteered last Monday and the countdown activity of that day was an ice cream party. All the kids got to choose what kind of ice cream they wanted and one syrup. Then if they passed off their times tables they got to choose a few extra toppings. Noah had passed off all his times tables so he made sure he loaded his Sundae down with lots of stuff like maraschino cherries, strawberry syrup, chocolate syrup, marshmallow syrup, and put it all in a waffle cone. I got to help scoop ice cream and serve the orders. It was a bit chaotic, but the kids all loved it. I still can't believe it is the end of school this week. I am definitely not ready!!
Before each summer Aaron likes to try and take a day off from work that we can spend together before all the kids are out of school all day long every day. Aaron took off a day last week and we have fun just being together. We didn't get too much off the to do list done, but it was fun just to spend the day together.
Sophie has been two months past due to get groomed and she was looking pretty straggly:
She smelled, looked and felt so much better after visiting Jackie the groomer as you can see:
Last Friday Noah had his Robotics Club show off for parents. Unfortunately, I had to work so I missed it, but Aaron was able to make it. Noah loved working with the Sphere robot this term. Here he is showing Aaron some of the stuff he was able to make it do:
They helped program them using the iPad which was pretty cool:
Here's a video of how Noah programmed his robot and what he got it to do:
Noah told Aaron he liked programming more than building which made Aaron pretty proud. Maybe a future computer engineer possibly?!
We did get this in the mail for Josh. He has kept his grades high this year so he qualifies for membership in the National Society of High School Scholars. Wahoo! I just hope he can keep his grades up this term since summer fever has set in and Josh is less interested in doing school work!
After much procrastination we finally got the garden in this last Saturday. Aaron did a great job. However, I think he maybe should have considered a career in plumbing. He has certainly mastered that plumber's crack look--haha! I have censored the picture, but there is definitely a plumber's crack behind that smiley face. I didn't quite have enough spackle to fill that crack! The kids thought it was hilarious to see Dad's plumber's crack so they took a picture and it is now set has the iPad's home screen. DOH!! Aaron was not amused, but the rest of us were....
We stuck around for Memorial Day weekend. We got some of the to do list done. Yesterday morning all the kids woke up and wanted to celebrate the holiday so the ate some cake and potato salad for breakfast. We really know how to party at our house--haha! As for the rest of the day we had a family day. We had planned to go hiking, but it was so rainy we decided to do something else. We ultimately decided on going down to the Church History Museum down in Salt Lake. We parked and walked around Temple Square looking at all the beautiful flowers.
We then spent some time at the Family History Center. Noah was so excited to finally be old enough to have his own account. While Noah was getting his account set up the rest of the kids enjoyed looking at their family history and all the people they were related to:
Noah was excited to finally be able to join in the fun:
We finally made it to the Church History Museum. It was interesting as most of the exhibits we had been to the actual place last summer so it was a nice refresher. They had museum helpers all throughout that spent some time explaining different things which was interesting to listen to:
For some reason my phone camera wouldn't focus, but here's the mock set up of Liberty Jail. We were just at the physical Liberty Jail last summer.
After that Aaron and I took the kids out to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants--The Old Spaghetti Factory. We LOVE this place. This was the place Aaron took me out to on the night he proposed to me 19+ years ago. The kids LOVED the food.
Of course the kids couldn't pass up a photo op at Trolley Square:
On the way home we stopped by Diesel Sellerz which is the home for the TV show the Diesel Brothers in North Salt Lake. Outside the store they had some cool vehicles they had built.
Aaron and the kids had fun looking at them since they enjoy watching the TV show.
We didn't see any of the main characters from the show, but it was still fun to stop and look at the vehicles and go inside the store to check things out:
Matthew is really graduating from high school. He will do the graduation ceremony, but won't actually receive his diploma until he turns 22, but we are still celebrating it as his graduation. This whole graduation stuff is all new for us so we are learning as we go. He has been so excited this past week. Here's my handsome graduation boy's announcement:
Front:
Back:
Sarah's dance studio is having a photo challenge. You can submit up to 10 photos and they will be judged by a 3rd party as to which one is best. There are some prizes to go along with the different places. Sarah wanted to participate so we went one afternoon last week in-between the rain storms to a barn that is close by. I took a few pictures of Sarah and then submitted them. We had fun taking the pictures together. We are keeping our fingers crossed we can win some prize, but even if we don't it was still fun to do together. Here's my cute dancer girl:
