Day In Court, Special Olympics, Graduation, Mother’s Day, Talent Show, Zoo Day, End of School, Concert

Wow things have been crazy busy around our house.  Here’s quite a few highlights.  We stopped by Costco a few weeks ago and picked up a street taco kit to try out.  It was good, but Aaron is not a fan of corn tortillas.  

Other than the corn tortillas it was good.  Did I mention Aaron isn’t a fan of corn tortillas?! Haha!  Josh is trying to tell Aaron that corn tortillas are the only way to eat authentic Mexican food, but he isn’t listening.

Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago.  Noah got me a beautiful rose and a huge bag of cinnamon bears.

Daniel got me a pretty bouquet of flowers:

The kids did make me breakfast in bed and it was good!

They all enjoyed some while on my bed.

Sarah got me a beautiful pair of dangly earrings.

Matthew made me a few things, too. The kids are all so sweet.  Matthew did this in Primary:

Here’s what Matthew made me:

I even got to chat with Josh.  It was a great Mother’s Day. 

 Later that Sunday evening we all got together and had a Mother’s Day dinner at my brother Bryan’s house with G&G T, Johanna and her family, too.  It was fun to visit.

It was also Nurse’s Week.  My different jobs didn’t do anything special, but a cookie store was giving out free cookies to nurses when you showed your work ID.  I picked up a yummy chocolate caramel cookie and enjoyed it by myself in my car so I didn’t have to share with anyone at home--haha!  Happy Nurse’s week to me!!

Noah finished up his soccer season.  He did great and is looking forward to when the fall season will start. Here’s his last game:

Matthew LOVES bearing his testimony and does it every Fast Sunday.  I try to encourage him to be reverent, but he is a wild card at times.  I found this meme and modified it to fit what Aaron and I feel when we see Matthew start walking up to the podium--haha!  He may ramble, but he always ties it back into a gospel principle and is done in two minutes so we feel like it’s okay.  Hopefully others feel the same way, too....

Speaking of Matthew he finally graduated from Vista Education Campus this past week.  He was SO excited!!  He was inviting all kinds of people.  Unfortunately, Vista was smaller so they just told us to only invite family and close friends.  However, Matthew did what he wanted anyway.  I must say, though, I was so impressed with the number of people who came to support him.  We were glad G&G T came:

His teacher was excited to see him graduate:

Aunt Johanna:

There were more people who came to see Matthew, but he was moving around so fast I wasn’t able to get a picture of them.  I am truly grateful and humbled for all those that came to support Matthew.

I am grateful for events like this.  Sometimes I can get caught up in the day to day frustrations and stressors and cannot always see the positives.  However, when I go to events like this that surround Matthew I am reminded of the infectious happiness for life he radiates and for all the people in his life that love him, have helped him and supported him throughout his life.  I am humbled at the love others have shown him and the joy they find in their friendship and acquaintance with him.  There are people that I have never met that will come up and ask me if I am Matthew’s Mom and then tell me how much they love him and love his zest for life.  I think Aaron and I will be known not as Aaron and Rebecca, but as Matthew’s Mom and Dad--haha!  His siblings even are sometimes known as Matthew’s brothers or sister.  Anyway, I am so grateful for all the wonderful people who love him and watch out for him!

After Matthew’s graduation we went out to dinner as a family to celebrate with G&G T and Katie, Daniel’s girlfriend.

His teacher has really enjoyed him these last two years.  They had a classroom talent show this past week. Matthew LOVES music--he always has.  His favorite past time is to listen to music from all genres (classic rock is his favorite, though) and look at Google maps.  He also has an amazing ability to memorize things.  His teacher realized this earlier this year and has been having fun with it.  So his talent for the show was to sing any song from any artist that anyone called out.  He did amazing.  His teacher sent me the clip.  It is two minutes if you want to watch:

His old high school teacher and her family:

She absolutely loves him and I am so grateful to her and all she did for him throughout high school!

When they called Matthew up to graduate he was so excited.  The teacher had something personal to say about each student.

Matthew’s bio from teacher via Youtube link:

The transportation guy from the school district came to see him graduate:

The Vice principal from Vista has always been close with Matthew and always watched out for him at school.  He was excited to see him graduate, too:

A bunch of the office staff from Syracuse high were there to see him graduate:

Happy Graduation Matthew!!

One of his good friends, Chloe, couldn’t make it to his graduation, but made him these cute Human GPS tee-shirts beforehand.  That was so sweet!!

I can’t believe his 18 years of school is now over.  It has been a wild ride--that’s for sure.  However, I am grateful to be a part of it and have a front row seat to see how Matthew has overcome so much and continues to learn and grow.  His vocational rehab and customized employment will soon be ending and he hopes to have a custom job by July.  He can’t wait.  I still can’t believe school is over for him.  It is scary to think.  I will miss the comfortable cocoon of school, but look forward to see him progress in life.

Here’s his first day of preschool to his last day of post high school:

Daniel is still working at Little Caesar’s Pizza and seems to like his coworkers.  He sent me this picture the other day:

Speaking of Daniel his day in court finally arrived.  Syracuse City doesn’t necessarily have a traffic school, but they do allow certain traffic violations to be seen in court.  Syracuse city doesn’t have in person court right now, but they do offer it through a Zoom like platform.  Daniel got an appointment set up to get online to talk with the city judge and prosecutor.  He was so nervous!!  Since it was online he only dressed up from the waist up while wearing basketball shorts from the waist down--haha!  Sophie was there for moral support:

It was interesting how they had it set up.  You would log on and then you had to wait until the court clerk called your name for your turn.  Meanwhile while you were waiting you got to hear the judge talk to all the other people before you in line.  Daniel got to hear about different domestic abuse cases, traffic cases, DUI cases, it was pretty interesting a eye opening to know that these things happen in our community.  When it was finally Daniel’s turn the judge acknowledged him and asked if he wanted to either represent himself, secure a personal lawyer, or get a public defender.  He looked like a deer in the headlights.  I told him to say he wanted to represent himself.  The judge then sent him to a side chat room to visit with the city prosecutor.  The city prosecutor talked to Daniel about his traffic violation and then told him he would need to go through the youth court to get it resolved so it didn’t go on his record.  He has until October to get that done.  Daniel should be getting an email from the youth court in the next week to determine what he needs to do to not have this violation go on his record.  She mentioned he might need to write an essay and do some volunteer work, but we will wait and see what the youth court will have him do.  It was and will be an interesting experience that’s for sure!!

Our city is having its city days festival in a few weeks.  They always have a photography contest.  When I remember I try to have the kids participate.  Sarah used my Mother’s Day rose and took some different pictures with it.  I love this one:

 Sophie continues to live her best life.  She sleeps a lot and we never know why she is so tired because she really doesn’t do much to be so tired--haha!

Sarah and Noah had their end of year band concert.  It is the last time they will play together in Jr. High.  Sarah will be in high school next year.  The Jazz band (Sarah) played first:

Then the beginning band.  Noah’s in the back on the marimbas:

Then the advanced band (Sarah) played:

Then they had all the bands join in to play one piece.  You can see Sarah on the front row and Noah on the back row:

It was fun to see how far the bands have come this year.

Josh got placed in a trio this past couple of weeks.  He got to help train a new missionary who was waiting for a Visa to go to Peru and the other missionary was going home in three weeks.   They had a lot of fun together.  The Mission President and Companion add photos of some of the meetings they have.  They did a Spanish Conference over zoom.  I looked and found their picture:

Matthew had his first Special Olympics Track and Field meet last Saturday.  He ran the mile, the 4x100 relay and participated in Shot Put.

He made sure to run the mile with his hydration back pack--haha!  He actually finished with the time of 7 minute 23 seconds and that included almost a lap of walking.  He can run pretty fast with his 'Daddy long legs' as he calls them.

He came in second place.  The runner that came in first had a 5 minute mile!!

Way to go Matthew:!

He loved doing the shot put:

He came home with two silver medals and one bronze medal.  He made sure to wear them to church on Sunday to show them off.  He was pretty proud!

Sarah got this award at school for a free $10 at Cafe Rio.  We were able to have a mom/daughter lunch date a few days later.  That was pretty awesome!!

Two Saturdays ago it was the Department of Defense Day at the Hogle Zoo.  I told the kids about it and they said they were interested in going.  However, the day of the Zoo they all had other commitments.  I still really wanted to go so Aaron humored me and we went together and had a free date to the zoo sans kids.  It was weird, but awesome! We got to see the lions:

The Great Apes/monkeys:

While we were seeing the polar bears one came right up to the glass.  We got to see it really close up which was cool!

We had a fun afternoon at the zoo with just us.

Sarah had her 9th grade dance last Friday.  She went with some friends and had a great time:

The theme of the dance was ‘A Night in Paris’.  They had fun!

The last week of school there were a few classes that were done at the high school and Daniel begged not to have to go because they weren’t even taking attendance.  So instead of class one morning we went and played Pickleball.  I did terrible so we stopped taking score.  However, after that I rallied, but didn’t know how much I rallied by because we stopped taking score--DOH!!  Anyway, we had fun.  Afterward we went to Walgreens to pick up some eye allergy medication and then grabbed some hash browns from McDonald’s.  We had a fun morning--more fun than going to class--at least I hope so!

Here’s all the kids first and last days of school this year.  Yes, I still included Josh because he is in the school of hard knocks in the mission field--haha!  The top pictures are the first day the bottom pictures are the last day:

Noah really had fun his last day of school:

At Sarah’s work they split everyone up into different Hogwarts Houses.  Each house does different things to get points for their houses.  One thing Sarah did to get points for her house was to get a picture of three people wearing your house colors.  As it happens when Sarah went to piano her teacher was wearing a Gryffindor shirt.  Sarah asked to get her picture and she grabbed her son and made him dress up in Gryffindor gear, too.  Sarah was able to get three people wearing her house colors and got some points for her house--wahoo!

The last few days of school Matthew’s class had an auction where they could buy things with the classroom points they had earned throughout the year.  Matthew decided to ‘buy’ a laptop with his points.  What??????  He excitedly sent us this picture after he bought it.  He brought it over to our house Sunday so Aaron could set it up for him.  It is an older laptop, but still a laptop.  How crazy is that?!

Saturday morning we got up extra early to visit the Saratoga Springs Temple open house.  Our original appointment time was 9:20 am, but Sarah told us she had to work at 11:45 so in order for us to get her back in time we needed to show up earlier.  We got the kids up an hour earlier and got there.  However, what I didn’t realize is that it wasn’t open that early so we had to wait in the car until it opened.  Daniel was not happy.  In fact he was ‘Chuckles’ and was pretty crusty because he had to get up extra early for ’nothing’--his words.  DOH!!  Gotta love parenting....

Anyway, we did make it through and it was beautiful inside.

We did get Sarah to work in time and then came home to plant the garden.  We are trying planting some strawberries and cilantro in addition to the regular tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupes, etc. this year just to see what happens.  Noah helped Aaron get it set up:

We then did some grocery shopping.  We got some raspberries and they are the biggest ones I have ever seen.  They were delicious and didn’t last the rest of the day.  Here’s a picture of one in my hand for scale:  

Sarah had an end of year dance party.  She got this award for ‘Best Ballet’ which is pretty awesome:

Matthew on his very last day of school.  It is bittersweet, but he is excited to get a job and his actual high school diploma.  We are proud of him and love him.