Parade, Shaming, WSU Prep, Half Way, Bowling, Temple, Camping, P-Day, Camp K, Girl’s Camp Lunch

Our Ward/Stake Girl’s Camp was two weeks ago.  Aaron was asked to provide some pulled pork for lunch for our ward.  He was more than happy to help.  He smoked several pork shoulders overnight.  When it finished the next morning he pulled it off, seasoned it and we drove it up to Heber Valley Camp to deliver it for Thursday’s lunch.  They had been camping (albeit staying in cabins) since Tuesday morning. This had been Sarah’s first time going to a Girl’s Camp and actually staying away from home.  The first year she was in Young Women it was cancelled due to Covid.  The second year (last year) the actual camp had flooded and was forecasted to rain the whole week.  The leaders decided to move Girl’s Camp to the Stake Center and just hold ‘camp’ from 8 am to 9 pm every day inside the Stake Center.  So when this year’s camp actually happened Sarah was pretty excited.  I was sad I wasn’t in Young women to go with her, but bringing lunch up I would still get the chance to check in on her and make sure she was doing okay.  She seemed to be doing great which was good.  Aaron and I helped get things set up for lunch and dropped off the food.  We then left and on the way down we stopped by Dairy Keen in Heber for our lunch.  We didn’t eat lunch with the Young Women because we didn’t want to intrude.  Aaron was more than happy to get his Train Burger since he hadn’t had one for years.  G&G T used to have a cabin at Timberlakes which is right next to the Heber Valley Camp.  When we would visit the cabin stopping by Dairy Keen for a Train Burger was a staple part of every visit--haha!  It was fun to stop by for a quick lunch on our way back home.

Earlier that week the Deacon’s Quorum had an appointment to do Baptisms for the Dead by proxy.  However, Noah missed that appointment since he got home from Weber State Prep too late to go.  He was sad he missed out, but luckily, I was able to get an appointment later on that week for him which landed on Thursday afternoon.  Aaron and I came home from lunch in just enough time to pick up Noah to take him over to do Baptisms for the Dead at the Ogden temple that afternoon.  We let Noah log into his Family Tree Account and find the names of some ancestors that needed baptism.  He then looked at how he was related to them and their birthdates and places where they lived.

We thought it might be a good activity to do for Noah since he had been asked to be a youth speaker in sacrament meeting that Sunday.  His topic was to be on the importance of the youth doing family history and going to the temple.  This was his very first talk to give in sacrament meeting and he was pretty nervous.  He wrote a lot of his talk himself.  We did help a little, but the majority was done by him.  He did great giving the talk.  He said he was really nervous, but you couldn’t tell.  After giving his talk he sat quietly on the stand for the rest of the meeting--so I now know that is possible--haha!  Noah has a hard time sitting still....However, in Noah’s defense, he is usually sitting by Daniel during sacrament meeting and Daniel likes to tease, poke and prod him to annoy him and Noah does the same thing in return to Daniel.  Needless to say we aren’t the most reverent family at church.  Good to know they have the typical brother relationship--haha!  

Way back in 1982 the movie The Man From Snowy River came out.  Aaron LOVED the song 'Jessica’s Theme' that was in the movie.  Way back when he was a teenager he was really jealous of all the guys that could play it on the piano and woo the girls with that particular song.  Since Aaron doesn’t play the piano he decided to live vicariously through Noah and asked him to learn that song.  Noah has just started learning it, but it sounds good for just starting out.  Aaron just wants Noah to have a leg up on wooing the ladies I guess--haha!  Too bad this particular song is 40 years old and I don’t think many kids Noah’s age would recognize it at this point--haha!

On Facebook I follow a pet shaming page.  It is a really funny page.  People post about the crazy things their pets do that needed shaming--it is purely FUNNY SARCASM.  I got to post on that page this past week.  This is what I said:

Sophie is a stinker.  Don’t let her fool you.  She is really well fed--even on the verge of being a CHONKY Girl, but she is always up for more food.  Her preference seems to be ANY food you are currently eating.  Our zucchini plants in our garden are going crazy so I have had zoodles (zucchini noodles) with marinara sauce and parmesan cheese for dinner a few nights this week.  Although I DID NOT share any of my food with her it didn’t stop her from staring me down the whole entire time I was eating my dinner.

It felt like this:

Our city days celebration was two weekends ago.  Daniel got to help out a bit with different activities since he is on the city youth council.  That Saturday was the parade.  It was crazy because we only had one kid with us.  Daniel was in the parade and Sarah was still at Girl’s Camp.  Noah was our lone candy gatherer.  We did join up with the Einzingers and watched the parade together.

 

The city youth council got to be in the parade and ride on this cool vehicle.  Daniel is one of the people sitting on the top of the vehicle and hooked Noah and Drew up with a few handfuls of candy.  Wahoo!

There were quite a few parade entries.  A favorite was the trash can cleaner company since they sprayed everyone down with clean water on such a hot day.

The day before I got to give everyone haircuts.  Daniel even let me cut his hair.  You can tell how long it was since you can see his cool tan line from his long hair used to be.

That evening we met up with the Einzinger’s again to listen to the live band and watch the fireworks.  Drew loves Daniel and was his buddy the whole time we watched fireworks.  Here is Drew sitting Daniel’s lap watching the fireworks together:

Speaking of Daniel...I had to get the oil changed in one of the cars and Daniel’s car needed the emissions done so we could renew the registration.  I made him go along with me to get both done.  I was on pins and needles to see if Daniel’s car would pass emissions.  It is an old car so you just never know.  Thankfully, it passed and after dropping a ton of money we can keep driving both cars.  I really hate paying for such things, but such is life.  Looking on the bright side--IT PASSED and so we are good until next year on Daniel’s car.

Sarah had a great time at Girl’s Camp.  She shared some pictures with me:

They got a chance to go on a sunrise hike, but had to wake up at 4:30am in order to catch the sunrise.

They made some plastic grocery sack mats to give to the homeless for a service project.

She said she loved Girl’s Camp.

Sarah and Noah are finishing up Weber State Prep this week.  They have mostly enjoyed the 6 week STEM--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math program.  It was held Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 2:30pm.  They got to go on different field trips and have guest speakers.  Noah’s classes ranged from Engineering, Logic, Problem Solving, Career Awareness, and Sarah’s were Technical Writing, Computer Science, Statistics, and Career Awareness.  Occasionally I would get some pictures of them while they were there.  Here’s a picture of Sarah.  You can just see the side of her face, but it was her:

Here’s one of Noah and friends:

Josh hit his half way mark TODAY!!  I can’t believe he has been out for a year!!  It has gone both fast and slow.  To celebrate I sent him ‘half a package’.  We used the set price mailer box where you can fit anything and everything that will fit in it for $16.  Inside I sent this envelope:

And this letter that explains what ‘half a package’ meant:

He got half a sock, half a glove, half of three Twix candy bars, half a box of pancake mix, half a box of Ritz crackers, and some gift cards.  Since we are celebrating the half way mark everything was cut in half--haha!  We talked to him yesterday, but he hadn’t gotten the package yet.  I am sure there will be some eye rolls when he does, though--haha!  I am excited to see him in less than a year now!!  Wahoo!!

Our local grocery store has fuel reward points you can earn with every purchase.  I had been saving them up and wanted to fill both our cars up--the van and the Camry--the next time they both needed to be filled at the same time.  That happened last week.  I was coming back from Ogden when the van said I could go 15 miles before I would run out of gas.  I called Aaron and told him to meet me at the gas station so we could fill up both cars and use my $0.80 cents off a gallon reward.  Somehow Daniel got looped into coming as well--doh!!  It took all three of us to cycle all three cars through the gas station pump to fill them up.  I am sure we looked ridiculous, but hey, we saved $0.80 cents off 35 gallons.  We needed to take a small loan out to pay for it, but we saved.  I am kidding about the loan part.  Gas is so expensive right now so any way to save it great--even if you have a freeloading kid coming along, too.  They limited the rewards to just 35 gallons.  So we ran out of reward cents while filling Daniel’s car.  He did get 5 gallons in paid by us before we ran out of reward fuel gallons and filled the rest up on his dime.  Here’s the painful total--and that is with $0.80 cents off a gallon:

Matthew got to have his first Special Olympics bowling competition this past Saturday.  He was so excited.  We were able to get a quick picture of him here before he bounded off.

It was fun to watch him take his turns:

He ended up getting a Silver medal and will be able to participate in the state competition in August.  He was so excited.  He made sure he wore his medal to church on Sunday to show everyone:

Matthew loves being a teacher in primary for the 10 and 11 year old class with Aaron and Brother Griffeths.  He doesn’t even try to hide his excitement, either.  Sometimes he can be quite loud at church.  We try to keep him quiet, but there’s only so much we can do.  It does make us feel better when we get a text like this from the Primary President:

He can be a handful, but at least he is enthusiastically happy about everything.  I got to substitute in his class this past Sunday.  He really does love primary, but occasionally needs to be reminded that the singing time games are just for the kids and not the primary teachers--haha!

The Deacon’s Quorum is getting ready for their first overnight campout next month.  Noah is really excited about that.  This past week’s activity was learning how to set up and take down tents.  Looks like they had fun:

The Priest’s Quorum went on an overnight campout this past weekend.  Daniel got the time off of work and was able to go.  Here’s the group of guys that went:

From the pictures they shared it looks like that had a good time:

Daniel did say he almost had a bad accident.  He tied his hammock to a skinny tree which tipped over and almost hit him in the head when he tried to lay in his newly tied hammock.  Whoops!  I guess he now knows to look for some thicker trees to tie his hammock to going forward:

Daniel said they went to sleep around 2 am and then Daniel and his friend woke everyone else up at 5:45 am the next morning by goofing off and laughing.  Don’t worry Daniel caught up on his sleep all the rest of that Saturday afternoon when they got back.  Sophie loved having someone to snuggle with for a few hours:

Josh has been enjoying his last few P-days.  Last week he went mini golfing with another set of Elders. 

Yesterday he finally got to go to a really cool museum he has been wanting to see for a few months.  A couple sets of Elders all went.  Here’s a few pictures he sent us after his visit:

It is nice to see him in pictures!

Yesterday Matthew got to start his 3rd week of Camp K this summer.  This week is a travel camp so he will be doing activities outside of Camp K.  He was so excited.  We had to divide and conquer yesterday to get everyone where they needed to be.  Aaron had to drive the carpool group to Weber State Prep.  I had to drive Matthew down to Camp K both at the same time.  We also got to FaceTime Josh while we were both driving.  Technology is great!  Here’s Matthew after he got checked in to Camp K and I was heading out.

Yesterday evening we had a rare evening where all of us were home.  We decided to head over to Lagoon for a few hours.  We first cooled off after riding the Log Flume ride:

Here’s Sarah, Noah and Daniel going up the steep hill before the fall on the other side:

Aaron and I had a whole log to ourselves. 

We then did Rattlesnake Rapids and got SOAKED!!  Here’s Sarah afterward.  The two light spots on the back of her jeans were the ONLY dry spots on her.  I looked the same as well.  At least we were cooled off by then--haha!

Girl’s Camp seemed to be a success.  The following week Sarah and three other girls from Girl’s Camp who didn’t usually hang out together decided to go to Lagoon together and then out to dinner.  They had a great time and I am glad they were able to spend time together.  Sarah sent me this picture of when they were at Lagoon together.  Trust me there were three other girls there, too!

Camp K, July 4th, Parade, Date, Checks, Hamburgers and S’mores

We have been just doing our thing.  Matthew was excited to attend another week at Camp Kostopolos two weeks ago. Camp K is a camp for special needs individuals of all abilities ranging from wheelchair bound to cognitive disabilities to other special needs.  It is an amazing program that Matthew has participated in for over 10 years--minus the two years they didn’t hold camp due to Covid.  Anyway, this time it was 5 days of Travel Camp.  In the past they will go to different spots around the area and camp for 5 days--like Zion National Park, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, etc.  However, this year was different. It was still a Travel Camp, but they stayed local.  He spent every day down in Utah County, but instead of camping at a campground in a tent, they came back to Camp K at night to sleep in a cabin.  I am guessing since they are just barely up and running again this year after a two year Covid break, they probably wanted to play it safe due to the still unpredictable nature of Covid.  Matthew was excited either way.  When I checked him in he was bouncing off the walls.  He kept running around trying to chat with all the camp leaders to tell them he knew all the roads they would need to take and that they needed to consult him, The Human GPS, so he could tell them which roads to drive on.  They knew exactly who Matthew was because as soon as we walked through the camp to check in A LOT of the camp counselors kept saying, “Hi, Human GPS!!”  I am assuming he left an impression from his last residential stay two weeks ago--haha!  Here’s Matthew as I dropped him off:

Matthew’s house manager at his group home has accepted another job and will be leaving.  We are sad to see him go because he was so good and patient with Matthew.  The new lady taking his place seems very nice and good with Matthew.  Hopefully, she will be just as patient because Matthew is a bit high energy/maintenance--haha!  We had Matthew’s annual meeting with his disabilities providers.  We reviewed his last years goals and revised some goals set some new ones.  He is really enjoying his independence.  The decision to have him move out was one of the toughest decisions Aaron and I have ever made, but it had really been one of the best decisions for Matthew.  He is thriving!

Last weekend we had a double date with G&G T.  We went out to dinner and then to see the play ‘Legally Brunette’ at The Desert Star Playhouse.  It was a fun night.  Here we are the play:

Grandma T even got to participate when the actors came out into the audience.  One of the guys put a lei around her neck.  It was funny.  We had a fun night.

Daniel’s car has a slow oil leak.  It still runs fine, but you just have to check the oil level a bit more often than usual.  I guess the last time Daniel checked the oil he forgot to put the oil cap back on.  He realized he was missing the cap when he checked under the hood during a break at work and there was oil spilled all over everything under the hood.  DOH!  Good thing we found the cap on the floor of the garage still intact. Fun times....Needless to say his oil level was low--haha!

Meat prices have been so high lately.  Aaron did find a good priced brisket two weeks ago.  So he picked it up for Sunday dinner.  However, a brisket is a ton of meat.  Ever since Josh left we don’t go through nearly as much food.  So after Sunday dinner there was still quite a bit of meat leftover.  Aaron was awesome and made some beef enchiladas with it that were really yummy:

It was finally Sarah’s turn for a physical/check up from the pediatrician.  She is doing great.  She is 5’and 5.5” which she found disappointing.  She wants to be taller than me, but hasn’t hit that quite yet.  She finally finished her second round of the Hepatitis B series immunization.  She didn’t get an immunity to the first round so she had to repeat the series again.  Hopefully this time she will have an immunity.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  She made me get her ice cream on the way home since she had to get shots, too.  She is just like Noah and Daniel!  We stopped by and tried the new strawberry Frosty from Wendy’s.  I highly recommend it--it’s pretty good!

Sarah also had a visit to the dentist.  I am trying to get everyone’s check ups in during the summer so they don’t have to miss any school.  She is doing great and had not cavities which was good news.  She also found out that she is in Weber State Prep with the dentist’s son.  They are in different cohorts, but still chat quite a bit.  That was a random coincidence.  Sarah is loving her ballet Pointe Class.  She is starting to build up some calluses on her feet which are sore but worth it.  Noah, Sarah and I also got to have an orthodontist appointment together.  I feel like I really stick out at the orthodontist’s office since I am about 30 years older than everyone else there....Oh well it will be worth it when I finish with my braces--at least I keep telling myself that--haha!

Noah had a young mens activity last week.  They did a Nerf Gun battle.  Noah was having a lot of fun and got really into it.  That was until he was ducking down during an attack and bonked his head into a metal chair.  He came home with a nice bruised goose egg on his forehead:

He said he had fun, though.  The picture doesn’t do it justice--it looked pretty ouchie.

Noah is still undecided if he likes Weber State Prep.  But he is enjoying the field trips.  He did a bottle rocket field trip last week and today he gets to go to the Hill Air Force Base museum.  Sarah got to do the Rock Wall last week on her field trip.  I think Weber State Prep is an awesome program and I am glad they get to participate.  Noah also is loving learning how to cook.  He made a double batch of cookies and they didn’t last very long in the house.

Josh’s companion did a video for a Chicago Facebook page for the church.  While watching the short video I spotted Josh alongside his companion walking in downtown Chicago.  It wasn’t hard to tell which one Josh was--haha!

Speaking of Chicago did you know that the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day off takes place in Chicago?  We watched it as a family just to see if we recognized any landmarks.  We did send Josh a picture of this beach on Lake Michigan to see if he recognized it.  He is currently serving in a Young Single Adult ward and they do play beach volleyball occasionally.  He said he didn’t recognize it, but who knows.  Here’s the scene from the movie with the Lake Michigan beach:

Josh got a new Mission President and Companion this past week.  He is sad to see President and Sister Shumway leave, but excited to get to know the new President and companion coming in--President and Sister Chase.  They had their first meeting a few days ago.  I did get to see a picture from the Illinois Chicago Mission Facebook page.  Again Josh isn’t hard to spot. You just have to look at the tallest kid usually on the back row and 99% of the time it’s him--haha!

July 4th was this week.  We celebrated by doing our usual things.  We went to the parade in the morning and then the local city celebration where we played BINGO.  We didn’t win anything this year, though, but it was still fun to play.  Then we had a yummy dinner and watched fireworks.  In the morning we had to get up early to get Sarah ready to be in the parade with her dance team.  Daniel wore some patriotic red, white and blue that just so happened to by a Ferris Bueller’s Day off shirt--haha!

Speaking of Daniel he has been working a ton.  He got in over 40 hours last week and is hoping to get quite a few hours this week.  He likes getting the big paychecks.  On his off times between shifts it is usually just me and Daniel since Sarah and Noah are at Weber State Prep from 8-3:15ish.  Last week we went and played some Pickleball.  We also went to the library to check out a few books, but we got to play a game of Battleship they had laid out, too.  Then Daniel was able to go out to lunch at Cafe Rio and Aaron and me.  Even though he is getting the big paychecks he still expects Aaron and I to foot the lunch bill which we do--haha!  

Anyway, back to the 4th of July...Here’s all the girls that Sarah got to be in the parade with:

We were ready for the parade to start:

Matthew was a good candy collector, but got super excited when someone came through that he knew like this Sheriff on the motorcycle who gave him knuckles while saying, “Hi, Matthew!”  We still don’t know who he is, but obviously he and Matthew know each other--haha!

Here’s my cute girl in the parade:

Afterword, we headed over to the city celebration and played BINGO.

We also ran into our friends the Einzingers who hung out with at BINGO for a while which was fun.  After bingo was over we started heading home and walked by this working life size replica of Lightning McQueen.  That was pretty cool to see:

 G&G T were able to join us later for hamburgers and then outside around the fire pit for some s’mores:

Then we went over to watch the fireworks.  

All of us were pretty exhausted and short tempered with each other by the end of the day, but it was a good day.

Sarah had Girl’s Camp bright and early the next morning.  We had packed and dropped off her camp gear the previous afternoon on the 4th.  She met over at the church at 7 am to leave for Heber Valley Camp.  She was excited to go since this will be her first time ‘camping’.  Yes it will be in a cabin, but I am just glad she is able to go since the previous years were shut down due to Covid.  I am sure she will have a good time.  Luckily for me they asked Aaron to provide lunch for the girls today.  That means Aaron has been smoking 4 pork shoulders for pulled pork sandwiches since yesterday afternoon on his smokers.  Aaron and I will get to drive up to drop it all off today and hopefully be able to check in with Sarah.  I am sure she is doing fine, but I will feel better to see her with my own two eyes.

The first night she was gone I went to tuck in Noah for bed with Sophie.  After tucking in Noah, Sophie went and jumped on Sarah’s empty bed and didn’t move until I went and picked her up.  I think she misses her.

Sophie loves this pumpkin toy.  She has already pulled out the squeaker part and some of the stuffing, but she still carries it around everywhere.  What a weird dog!

In our family’s spare time we have been watching the show Stranger Things.  It has been interesting.  I am undecided whether I like it, but the rest of the family loves it.

As for me I finally made an appointment with the dermatologist for a cancer screening.  Skin cancer runs in our family with one person even having the very beginning stages of a melanoma.  It was caught before it was bad so that was good.  However, that means that the family history is now there.  As humiliating as it is to be checked over I am glad I got it done.  There was only one suspicious mole which was removed.  I got the biopsy back and thankfully it was benign.  I need to be better at wearing sunscreen, though.  Here I am in my make-up-less glory waiting to be looked over:

I am so glad that is done and that everything looks fine.