Quinceanera, Thanksgiving, Brakes x2, Chores, Pizza

I am behind!!  Here’s highlights of what has happened the last almost three weeks.  Aaron had Veteran’s Day off from work, but the kids still had to go to school.  Aaron and I did a day date.  We decided to check out the Costco down in Salt Lake.  It is the largest Costco in the world so we wanted to see what it was like.  The place was massive!!  They had whole size pigs and lambs for sale from the walk in fridge area.  They had a ton of everything.  It was crazy!!  We did get our Thanksgiving turkey there so it wasn’t a wasted trip.  Afterward we had lunch at the Spaghetti Factory.  We both ordered the Spinach Tortellini with Alfredo sauce--yum!!  We even got to sit in the street car to eat. We had a fun day just spending it together.  Here we are in the street car:

The next day we went out to lunch with G&G T and then to the Desert Star theater.  We watched the show ‘A White Christmas Story’ which was a spoof on the show White Christmas and a Christmas Story.  It was pretty funny.  We had a good time:

Sarah was invited to a Quinceanera.  Her friend from school was turning 15.  She now lives here in Utah was originally from South America.  It was a HUGE party with a TON of family and a TON of friends.  Sarah didn’t quite know what to expect, but luckily, Josh has been to a Quinceanera party in Chicago.  Sarah was able to ask him about it during a P-day call and he told her what to expect.  Sarah went and hung out with friends and danced from 5-11pm.  She had lots of fun and got to eat a lot of good, authentic food.  Here’s the fancy invitation Sarah got: 

Sarah before she left to go to the party:

She was pretty worn out by the end of the party.  She had worn boots and had some nice blisters by the time she got home from all the dancing.  She had a good time.

Matthew is teaching primary and absolutely loves it.  He team teaches with Aaron and Brother Griffeths.  He really enjoys all aspects of primary, but his favorite is singing time.  Matthew will get so excited and yell out the answers to all the questions so, occasionally, Aaron has to remind him that it is actually for the primary kids and not for the teachers.  He also loves the songs with actions.  He got to choose what action they did for ‘Do As I am Doing’ and was pretty excited about that.  I found this meme and just laughed because Matthew has some pretty sweet moves--haha:

The following Monday was a pretty busy day.  It started out with attending Daniel’s CCR meeting.  It is a meeting with the school counselors to register for the next year of school.  They present all the class options and then let you choose which ones to take.  I can’t believe we are registering Daniel for his senior year!!  That is crazy.  Anyway, Aaron and I were with Daniel and helped him sign up for classes.  After that I had to drive down to the new prison to get my new ID card.  I still work for CNS, but will be doing clinics for the STAFF (not the inmates) at the new prison.  In order to do that I needed a Department of Corrections ID.  I have been trying to get this done for quite a few months.  They would send me the paperwork to fill out and when I turned it in, it would either end up lost or they would tell me they sent the wrong paperwork and I had to fill another stack of paperwork out.  It was a bit frustrating.  They have relocated the prison and are trying to move everything over to the new location so things have been chaotic for them.  I was glad to finally get a chance to get my new ID because it has taken quite a while to get to that point.

When I got back from the prison I had to check Noah out of school to take him to get his braces fixed.  Saturday he had broken the bracket off that holds the main wire in place on his bottom jaw.  I had to get him in that day or wait a week so I raced back from the prison and got him there in time.  Phew!  After Noah’s orthodontic appointment I had to go and pick Matthew up and take him to his psychiatrist appointment.  It was just for a follow up visit and to renew his medication prescriptions.  We had to restart a med he had been weaned off from because he was struggling for a bit.  However, after restarting the medication he is doing a lot better.  That was super busy day, but I was glad to get everything accomplished.

Two Sundays ago Sarah was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting.  She spoke on her favorite Conference talk from this past Conference. She did great.  Daniel also got to teach the lesson in the Priest’s Quorum that Sunday, too.  It was interesting to see how each of them prepared.  Sarah started on her talk as soon as she was asked a few weeks ago.  Daniel waited until Sunday morning to prepare his lesson.  What can you do, though?!

It was Thanksgiving this past week.  We also had to get Josh’s Christmas package put together and mailed by the end of the week.  You can see Josh’s Christmas box on the table.  You can also see Noah helping Aaron prepare the brine for the turkey:

Then Aaron worked with Daniel to change the front brakes in the Camry.  Here they are finding the tools they need:

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I made the kids help me clean since we were hosting dinner.  Noah cleaned out and reorganized the pantry.  Sarah cleaned out and wiped down the fridge.  Daniel started on organizing the cupboards, but didn’t get very far before he had to go into work.  Here’s the middle of all the chaos--Sarah emptying the fridge and Noah pulling everything off the shelves in the pantry:

Thanksgiving was great.  We had G&G T and my sister Johanna and her family over.  We only had 13 people this year, but it was good.

Josh was able to call us that evening, too.  Matthew doesn’t always get a chance to talk to him so he was excited to see him.  Josh was able to do some service that morning then eat a Guatemalan Thanksgiving dinner that evening with a family in Chicago which was nice to hear.

The next day Aaron and Daniel got to change the rear brakes on the van.  Yes, both cars needed new brakes at the same time.  Bleh.  At least it is all done and hopefully, will last awhile.

This is what happens when you leave your phone unattended by a teenager....

Josh’s Mission President and Companion will post pictures of the Zone Conferences on Facebook.  I had to laugh when I saw this picture.  Josh and his companion were at this Zone Conference.  They are both super tall and not hard to spot in the pictures--haha!

Josh called last Monday afternoon which meant the kids all got to talk with him.  Aaron even joined in the call from his car at work:

Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving none of us felt like making dinner so we stopped by to pick up some pizza from our favorite pizza guy:

We had Sarah’s CCR meeting this past week.  I can’t believe she will be in high school next year!!  She got to hear all the class options from her counselor.  She won’t actually register until the spring when they have their back to school night for incoming sophomores.  However, it was good to see all her options so she has time to think about which ones she wants to take.

We finally cleaned off our ceiling fan in our bedroom which had quite the accumulation of dust on it.  I don’t know why it catches so much more dust than anything else.  Anyway, I found this meme and thought it was hilarious.

These past two weeks have been pretty boring for us. I had surgery two weeks ago to correct a problem I have been dealing with for a few years.  The surgery was more invasive and painful than I thought it would be.  I didn’t realize it would take me so long to recover so I have been down/taking it easy for a lot of the last two weeks. However, today I am happy to say that I am finally starting to feel more like normal.  In this picture I am waiting for my IV to be started and to be taken back to the OR.  I told Aaron after I had changed into the hospital gown and cap that I was bringing sexy back--haha!

IEP Meeting, Halloween, Pumpkin Walks x 2, Date Night, Temple, Sadie Hawkins, Paint Night, Snow

I am late on the Blog update.  Here’s what we have been up to the last two and a half weeks.  Sophie is doing a lot better.  However, right after she tore her nail off, she wouldn’t leave it alone.  The vet said if she wouldn’t stop licking it to get her a cone of shame.  She HATED it, but it did its job.  To help we also wrapped it in bitter, blue coban to help her leave it alone, too.  After a few days we took it off.  She limped for a few more days, but now she is back to normal.  Even though the toenail is still completely gone, it doesn’t seem to be painful anymore.  She still tried to snuggle despite her cone of shame getting in the way--haha!  She seemed pretty interesting in watching what I was watching--haha!

Poor doggo!

Sarah and Daniel had a city youth council activity Monday, October 24.  The youth council helped put on a pumpkin walk with trick or treat stations for the city. Daniel’s station was supposed to be haunted.  He waited until the last minute to tell me he needed a white sheet for his costume.  Well I didn’t have one so we improvised and came up with this.  He cut eye holes in it and wore sunglasses.

The decorated the walkways of a city park they put up a ton of luminaries, painted pumpkins and carved pumpkins.  You could walk around and see them all.  Sarah’s station was a Jurassic Park station.  She dressed up as a dinosaur.  Here’s her trick or treat station with some fellow youth council members:

Here’s Daniel at his station. He did have other youth council members there with him, but we only got a picture of him.  Looks like he cut a hole for his mouth, too.

Noah dressed up as an old man and walked around with us and got candy.  It was fun!

G&G T stopped by during the week and dropped off some Halloween goodies for all the kids.  I love that they have that tradition every year!  Here’s Noah with his treat cup:

Every year we try and make it to the Syracuse Pumpkin Walk as a family, too.  It is supposed to be in the evenings when it is dark and all the pumpkins are lit up, but the only time we could go was during the day after I got home from work Saturday.  Daniel had to work so it was just Sarah, Noah, Aaron and me.  

We love seeing all the pumpkins.

Here’s a few of our favorites:

One perk of going during the daytime is that we were the only ones there.  It was pretty awesome!!  I am sure it looks a lot better at night, but this wasn’t too bad, either.

Later that evening I wanted to go to Frightmares.  Noah, Sarah and Daniel decided to go hang out with friends instead so just Aaron and I went.  It was weird being there without kids.  It was REALLY COLD, too, but we still had fun with just us two.

We were there for a few hours and went on quite a few rides.  We wanted to go one last time before they closed for the season so I was glad we made it.

By the end we were FREEZING!  We came home, turned on the fireplace and made some fancy hot chocolate with whipped cream and a cookie--YUM.

The next day we carved pumpkins.  I got a cool new pumpkin carving set.  All pieces were like cookie cutters that you hammered in with a mallet.  That made carving them so much easier.  Everyone was able to carve their own pumpkins without using a knife.  

We carved them Sunday evening so Matthew could be there with us, too.

Here’s the results:

The next day was Halloween.  I really missed not going to the elementary school halloween parade this year....We did get to talk to Josh that morning on his P-day.  Later that evening after pizza we picked up from Daniel, the kids got ready to go out trick or treating.  All Little Caesar’s employees were required to work Halloween night since it is their busiest night. That, unfortunately, included Daniel who was scheduled to close that night so he didn’t get home until late.  Sophie still HATED her costume, but I made her wear it.

Sarah the dinosaur:

Noah the old man:

Matthew the pickle:

Daniel the Little Caesar’s employee--haha!  This picture is from last year because we didn’t take a picture of him before he went to work that afternoon/evening.

I know Matthew is 21, but he still LOVES to go trick or treating.  I had Sarah and Noah take him around to a few houses in our neighborhood that know Matthew and then they came back home.  Afterward Noah went out to do some more trick or treating with friends and Sarah went to a friend's house for a party.

It was a good night!  After all the trick or treaters were done we took Matthew back to his group home.  He had a fun night.

The next day the kids had no school.  I was able to get a baptismal appointment at the Brigham City Temple (the Ogden Temple was completely booked) so we went and did Baptisms for the Dead.  Aaron had to work and Matthew was going to go to the Day program so it was just us four:

I never took pictures of the kids this year so before we went into the temple I took a few pictures of the kids to put on my wall with the pretty foliage around the temple.  

We were able to do some family names which is always cool.

The high school hosted a job fair for the students last week.  Daniel, although he has been working at Little Caesar’s for over a year, wanted to see what else was out there.  He brought a stack of resumes with him and handed them out as he made the rounds of the companies that were present.  They did a speed dating thing, but only with job interviewing.  They only had a few minutes to talk to each employer about the jobs they had open.  Daniel went and is getting a few interviews from the job fair.  His picture was posted on the high school Facebook page.  It was fun to see Daniel in that setting!

This past week I was asked to do a painting activity with the young women in our ward.  It was for the two older classes.  I did a few pictures and I let Sarah choose which one she wanted to paint and this is the one she chose:

So we had about 20 girls that got to paint.  Hopefully they liked it!  Sarah said she liked it so I will hope the rest did, too.

Daniel had the Sadie Hawkins dance this past Saturday.  Their group went to Seaquest for the day date.  His date wasn’t able to drive so Daniel drove that evening.  Here he is before he left on the day date:

The theme of the dance was the 50s.  Daniel wore a white t-shirt and Aaron’s OLD leather jacket.  He tried to slick back his hair, but his hair had other ideas--haha!  Here he is before he went to pick up his date:

Here’s the pictures they got before the dance:

After the dance they all came back to our house to watch a movie.  Daniel’s date had a curfew of 11pm so her mom came and picked her up since she lives up in North Ogden.  Daniel got to be solo the rest of the evening.

Matthew had his IEP meeting via Zoom this past week.  I had to work up until 10 minutes before the IEP meeting started.  My plan was since it was over Zoom I could pull over in the car where I was at and join in.  However, when I pulled over I had absolutely no cell service so I had to drive until I did had cell service.  I ended up being a few minutes late, but it was just the part where they go over all the same procedural safeguards that I have heard for about 18 years now.  Matthew got to lead his meeting.  He had a few ’squirrel’ moments where he got sidetracked, but overall he did great.  He had his teacher with him, the others on the call were his support coordinator, the principal, the vocational rehab representative, Aaron and me.  

Things went well until my phone up and died five minutes before the meeting ended.  DOH!!  My phone has been on the fritz lately which was a bit frustrating.  I was able to hear most of the meeting, though.  Aaron was on for the whole meeting which was great!  He filled me in on the things I missed.  Matthew will get evaluated for job placement in January/February.  We are hoping to have him set up in a job before he graduates Vista in May.  He is so excited!!  Matthew also got a new housemate.  His name his Mason and Aaron and I got to meet him a few Sundays ago.  He is nonverbal and uses sign language.  Aaron and I know a little bit of sign language since that is how we communicated with Matthew for a time back when he didn’t talk.  It was around the time he was age 1-4 years old.  It is hard to believe he didn’t speak.  We have the exact opposite problem now--we can’t get him to STOP talking.  I guess he is making up for lost time--haha!  Anyway, we learned most of the sign language from watching the kids’ TV show 'Signing Time with Alex and Leah' and Matthew’s PECS system.  We know the basics like drink, yes, no, hungry, mom, dad, day, I, want, candy, all done, more, cookie, help, etc.  I might need to brush up on it now Matthew has this new housemate--haha!

Josh is doing well.  He got transferred out of the city into the suburbs.  He is missing being in the middle of the city and riding a bike, but is still enjoying things.

The mission home emailed everyone and told us in order to get their Christmas presents on time for Christmas they needed to be mailed no later than December 1.  DOH!!  I am late to the party.  Good thing tomorrow is Veteran’s Day and Aaron has the day off.  We will take care of Christmas for Josh tomorrow.  One thing we get to add to his Christmas is a new pair of glasses.  He took 3 pairs out on his mission and he broke the 2nd pair (the side arm snapped off) this last week and is now down to only one pair of glasses.  He really needs to see so we ordered him another pair from Zenni that will hopefully be done soon.  I keep telling him seeing is overrated--haha!

I am secretly a bit relieved he is not on a bike anymore after he sent us these short videos while he was riding in traffic during a heavy rain storm.....I am happy he has not been injured more often!

We have gotten snow a few times in the last week.  That is crazy!!  Bring on the sweatshirt weather!!