Camping and Tasty Caterpillars, Court, Father’s Day, Spanish Conference, Syracuse Temple

We have had a crazy two weeks!!  It was Father’s Day two Sundays ago.  The kids got up early and made Aaron breakfast in bed and wrote him some sweet notes.  It was pretty great!  They had to get up extra early since we have the early church slot right now.  Josh even called that afternoon to talk to Aaron.  It was awesome!  I am grateful for Aaron.  He is a great dad and loves being involved in his kids’ lives!

Matthew even went with his staff earlier in the week and picked up a pretty nice BBQ kit for Aaron.  It had an apron, BBQ sauces, tongs, seasonings, etc.  He was so excited to give it to Aaron.  He called me earlier in the week to make sure I would be picking Matthew up from his group home Sunday instead of Aaron so he could keep it a surprise.  It was really sweet.

Matthew even made Aaron a homemade Father’s Day card with some candy. Matthew went all out.

Did I mention we had early morning church which doesn’t always mix well with late night Saturdays--haha!  After getting up extra early to fix breakfast for Aaron Daniel took a quick nap on the couch before he had to go and get ready for church that morning. Sophie didn’t mind and LOVED the cuddles.

We did have a Father’s Day dinner with my extended family Saturday evening.  It was nice to get together and visit for a bit.  I am grateful for my dad and how much he has helped and taught me.

Josh had a Spanish Conference in his mission last week.  I love that the Mission President and Companion always posts pictures.  It isn’t hard to spot Josh--the tallest on the back row:

Josh is the tallest in the middle:

We had a HUGE rainstorm with massive drops last week.  Usually our rainstorms are pretty light so this one was unusual.  Sarah and Noah went to stand out in it on our driveway for fun:

Noah got to go to a coin show with G&G T a few weeks ago.  He has been saving up some of his lawn mowing money to pay for some cool coins so he was excited to go. Noah also got to go to boys/Deacon’s camp two weeks ago.  He was pretty excited to go.  I am sad that scouting and scout camp are no longer part of the church.  They used to go camping a lot more, but he was still excited to go this time.  They went up by Echo Reservoir.  Noah was pretty excited when I dropped him off at the church.  It was going to be pretty cold so he packed some sweatshirts and coat at my insistence.  He thought he was going to be too warm, but he ended up being pretty cold.  See mom does know what she is talking about sometimes!!

They did some hiking and A LOT of snacking.  

Noah shared a tent with a friend and they took down so many snacks....Oh well that is what makes camping fun, right?!  Aaron joined him Friday evening because that was Dads time to come up and spend with their sons.  They had fun together.

This past week for the combined youth activity they went and visited the Syracuse temple site and visited with the missionaries there.  They were given the history of the temple site and then given pictures of what the temple will look like when it is finished.  Here’s what it looks like now:

Here’s what it should look like when it is finished:

It looked like a pretty cool activity.

Daniel completed his Youth Court/Traffic School to get rid of his accident ticket.  It was quite the process. He had to do a Zoom call with the city attorney who referred the case to the Youth Court.  The Youth Court had to reach out to make an appointment.  Daniel visited on a Thursday before a Court of his peers. They talked to him about himself, activities, high school then they got around to addressing why he was there.  They had him explain what happened in his accident and then told him what was expected of him to get his ticket taken care of.  He had to then attend an hour of Traffic School and write a two page essay about what he learned in Traffic School and how he would be a better driver in the future.  He then had to come back the following week to appear in Youth Court again.  They asked him to read his essay aloud and then talked to him about how he was planning to drive better in the future.  Then they let him go after he paid a $50 fine.  Since he is still a minor Aaron and I took turns being with him at every appointment.  It was my turn last week--haha!

He is officially a Traffic School graduate and has no ticket on his driving record right now.  Wahoo!

We have 3 teens in our house and these meme are more often true than not.....:

Sarah is participating in a 10 year study called the ABCD study.  They contacted me a few months ago to see if we could do a side study about Covid and its effects on Sarah, me and our family.  They had me fill out about a TON of questionnaires.  Then they asked for blood samples from me and Sarah.  They did cool tool that draws it from your arm.  It was really interesting and not painful at all.  This is what the blood collection kit looked like:

Daniel went with some friends and had a day at Pineview Reservoir.  Water really scares me so I made him promise to wear his lifejacket and to not be stupid.  He had a great time and everyone came home safe which I am glad about.  They didn’t do much swimming since the high there for the day was 68 degrees. They mostly just hung out on the beach and did some kayaking.  This summer has been really sluggish in getting warm.  I don’t mind, but if you plan on doing a lot of swimming it kind of hinders your plans--haha!

Noah is still enjoying Weber State Prep.  He had the chance to ride the UTA bus down the Natural History Museum with the second years two weeks ago.  It was one of their two field trips they will go on this summer.  They had a great time.

My nephew Kade came home from his mission two weeks ago.  We went to greet him at the airport.  It is making me excited for when Josh will be here in a week and a half!!!  Kade gave his homecoming talk in church this past Sunday we were able to attend.  It was great.

Sarah is still working at a local wave pool. However, the wave pumps broke down and the pool has been closed for the past two weeks.  She is upset she got all her hours cut, but understands.  Luckily, they got it fixed and she is back to working and earning the big bucks.

Speaking of Sarah she had Girl’s Camp this past week.  This was the first time she was going to be ’tenting’ it.  The first year she was in Young Women Girl’s camp got cancelled due to Covid.  The second year the camp flooded so she had to have Girl’s Camp at the Stake Center just during the day and go home to sleep at night.  Last year they did Girl’s Camp at the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Camp in Heber where they all slept in cabins.  So this year she finally got to experience the joys of ’tenting’ it.  She was excited to see her friends when we dropped her off that morning:

Aaron and I got asked to head up the food committee for Girl’s Camp a few months ago.  We accepted and got paired with another couple and a dad so there was a total of 5 of us on the food committee.  We had a few meetings the past two months and worked out all the meals and details.  We went shopping for all the food the Monday before Girl’s Camp.  Girl’s Camp started on Wednesday morning.  We got up there and set up our tent.  This is the very first time Aaron and I have ever shared a tent together.  We are not a camping family.  Aaron has gone on church campouts with the boys and I have done multiple Girl’s Camps, but we have never shared a tent at the same time.  Anyway, we all worked together on the Food Committee really well and things ran pretty smoothly.  Sarah seemed to enjoy her time at Girl’s Camp, too.  We didn’t see too much of her so I am hoping that was a good thing--haha!  Girl’s Camp ran from Wednesday to Saturday so we definitely got the full camping experience--haha!  One interesting thing about the camp we were at is there were TONS of caterpillars EVERYWHERE.  They would drop out of the trees and stick to your clothes.  They would fall on the tables, chairs, ground, etc.  It was a bit gross, but what can you do?!  Well Sarah and another girl got dared to eat a caterpillar for $20.  We were in the middle of fixing dinner, but they called Aaron and I over to watch.  I didn’t know if she would actually follow through so I wanted to see what would happen.  I guess the rules were they had to put the caterpillar in their mouth and chew four times before they could swallow.  Next they had to get checked to make sure nothing was in their mouth. After that they couldn’t eat or drink anything for a minute afterward.  Here they are questioning their life choices before putting the caterpillar in their mouths--haha!

Ewwwww!

Ready, set, GO!

There were a few dry heaves/gags:

Checking to make sure the caterpillar was fully swallowed after it had been chewed four times:

More gags/dry heaves:

Success and $20 richer, but it was still disgusting....

She is definitely related to Josh.  He got dared to eat a ketchup covered fish eye at scout camp for $5.  I guess my family is in to adventuresome eating as long as it doesn’t involve home made macaroni and cheese.....I don’t understand them, but whatever....

Later that evening after dinner the girls were getting ready to do campfire stuff.  I got the campfire started. Aaron was impressed.  He shouldn’t have been impressed because I do have some skills when it comes to camping!

Matthew has been keeping busy.  We are hoping to have his job set up sometime in July or August.  In the meantime we had his annual goals review with his Care coordinator, group home staff, group home manager, day program manager, Aaron and I, etc.  They let Matthew lead this meeting and he was pretty excited about that.  He did have a bit of a hard time staying on task, but did great.  The meeting was only supposed to be an hour, but with Matthew leading it, the meeting ended up being 90 minutes instead.  He had lots to say--haha!  Anyway, we set a bunch of new goals for this upcoming year.

Matthew started his second week of Camp Kostopulos this week.  This week it is just residential camp instead of travel camp. He was excited to be back and most of the staff remembered him from three weeks ago.  As we were checking in we heard lots of ‘Hey GPS!’ when we were checking in.

Usually I don’t hear much during the week he is there--which is a good thing.  However, he must be very convincing because his staff has sent me four pictures so far this week because Matthew begged them to.  I am glad to get the pictures and see he is having a great time.  He got to roast some marshmallows:

Catch some fish:

Hang out with some Camp K staff:

Go horseback riding:

He seems to be having a great time!

We went grocery shopping last week and were super excited to see the milk expiration date of July 8th.  That is the day Josh gets home.  I am so excited.  We bought two gallons of the milk with the expiration date.  Yay!!

Aaron has been getting ready to be the camp cook for AP (Aaronic Priesthood) Camp.  He got asked to ‘help’ cook for camp.  When he went to his first meeting he then found out he was actually in charge of planning and cooking all meals for all the stake boys aged 16-18 and their leaders which runs about 150-160 people for 5 days.  That was never mentioned when they first approached him to ‘help’ cook.  Ugh.  Anyway, he was shocked when he found that out, but he persevered.  He and another guy in our ward have been working closely together to plan and prepare for this Tuesday-Saturday camp for 150-160 people.  He has been cooking as much as he could beforehand and we have made so many runs to Costco and Sam’s Club for supplies.  I wish I would have taken a picture of my front room.  It was so full of food and supplies you could hardly walk inside.  Here’s what one of MANY trips to Sam’s Club looks like:

They dropped off a trailer in front our house so we could start loading it in preparation of AP Camp.

Here’s just a small portion of all the coolers they will need/use.  Aaron is quite stressed and overwhelmed, but I am sure he will do great.  He really does make good food!

In the last month every single Mancil has gone camping except for Josh.This summer has been crazy so far to say the least!!!  

Paratransit, Youth Court, Special Olympics, Planetarium, WSU Prep, Car Repairs, Dance Recital and Tryouts, Marching Band, Camp K, Birthday, Anniversary

We have been enjoying our summer so far.  Memorial Day we went down as a family and spent the day at the Clark Planetarium.  It has been a few years since we have been there so it was fun to visit again.  The kids really enjoyed themselves--so did Aaron and I!  They had some body sensing video games you could play.  We all played against each other.  Here is Daniel and Aaron competing:

Sarah and Noah:

Checking out the exhibits:

It was fun looking at all the different things.

They had an earthquake exhibit where you could jump and see how it rated on the Richter scale.  All of us got together and jumped at the same time.  Here’s the blip it made when we landed--haha!  You can tell the difference from when just Daniel jumped to when we all jumped together:

You could see how a tornado is formed:

The kids figured out if you touched the plasma ball and touch someone else you could shock them...sigh...

They have a sculpture called Newton’s Daydream that is a two story, 30 feet tall kinetic ball sculpture that was fun to watch.

Sarah got to try out a green screen and be a weather reporter.

Watching how tornadoes form:

They have a gravity floor interactive exhibit:

I got to try out the green screen.  I didn’t do very well--haha!

Things haven’t been all sunshine and roses, though.  The Honda Accord we just bought needed some repairs (water pump and timing chain) and is currently at the mechanic.  That’s when the other car's, the Buick, check engine light came on.  DOH!!  Luckily, the code just showed it was the spark plugs.  Daniel and Aaron changed out the spark plugs and fixed it.  I HATE car repairs!!  Here’s Daniel changing out the spark plugs:

Sarah had her dance recital this past week.  Here are some pictures from that:

Gotta love the duck face pictures with Sarah and Gabby--haha!  Sarah was doing a dance where she needed a mustache on her face so that’s why she has that.

One of Sarah’s dances she got to get a pie in the face.  It was her favorite.

It is fun watching her dance:

We were glad Grandma T. was able to come and watch.

The dance teacher made an individualized laser silhouette cutout of each dancer from a pose they did and presented it to the teams at the end of the performance.  That was pretty cool.  Here’s Sarah’s:

They also had dance tryouts this past week.  Sarah made senior dance captain on her team and is excited.  They will be going to Disneyland next summer and she is pretty excited about that!  Here’s Sarah at try outs:

Noah really wanted to do marching band this year.  Our local high school doesn’t offer it, but another high school that is somewhat close by did offer it.  However, after attending the informational meeting Noah realized he would not be able to attend practices due to attending Weber State University Prep instead.  There is a bright side though, there is a local community marching band available for all ages that just marches in the West Point parade that he signed up for.  I didn’t want him to go alone so he talked me into signing up with him.  He gets to play the drum and I am playing the flute in the parade.  We had our first practice last week.  I can definitely say I am very rusty, but it is fun to try something new.  Here’s Noah playing the drum during practice:

Last weekend we went out to dinner and a show with G&G T.  We enjoyed dinner at Red Robin and then got to see the show Back From the Future at Desert Star Playhouse.  It was a fun afternoon:

Now that Matthew will be getting a job soon he would need transportation to and from that said job.  I didn’t feel comfortable having him ride the regular city bus/train since he has no ’stranger danger’ and that 'everyone is there to help him' attitude I was very nervous about him riding any public transit alone.  Luckily, there is another option available--Paratransit.  However, it is a very intricate and lengthy process to get that service.  Our job coordinator told us we really needed to look into and get things started since it was usually a two to three month process.  I called the Paratransit office and they did an initial intake interview over the phone.  Then they sent out two HUGE application packets to us to be filled out.  One packet was supposed to be filled out by us, his guardians.  The second packet was to be filled out by his mental health provider.  I made an appointment with his psychiatrist and she was more than willing to fill out the other packet.  It was great she was willing since she has known him since he was 2 years old.  However, when we got started filling out the packets the questions on them were ambiguous and difficult to answer.  Even his psychiatrist had trouble answering some of the ambiguous questions.  We did our best.  Now that the packets had been filled out to the best of our ability we had to schedule an in person appointment so they could evaluate Matthew’s skills.  The appointment was to be roughly two hours where they would put Matthew through many different situations to see how he would react.  Their ultimate goal is to get everyone to ride public transportation NOT Paratransit if they are able to.  Well physically Matthew wouldn’t have a hard time riding the bus/train, but mentally his judgement is questionable so this made me very nervous.  A classmate at Vista (Matthew’s old school) was on a bus to her job when it broke down.  Luckily, she was aware enough to be able to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way to her job.  I can only imagine what Matthew would do if he were faced with that situation.  He would probably ask someone to call 911 or flag down a car for help or who knows what else.  Ugh!! That is why I really wanted him to qualify for Paratransit services.  Anyway, another thing to consider is if Matthew didn’t have transportation set up that would severely limit his already limited job options even more.  His job coordinator had told us that someone similar to Matthew got denied for Paratransit a few weeks ago and to keep that in mind that he might get denied.  So I made the appointment for a Friday afternoon because that was the only time we could all get together.  When we got there we checked in.  They then took us back to an office and interviewed me and Aaron and asked Matthew a few questions.  Then they took Matthew away to to a mock trip around the building to see how he would do on a regular bus trying to figure the route and transfers alone.  They had different pretend routes set up around the building to mimic real life travel situations.  While he was gone on his mock trip they interviewed me and Aaron even more asking very in-depth questions about his abilities and needs.  Afterward they took me and Aaron to a waiting room until Matthew finished his first mock trip around the building.  They then had him check in with us and then took him alone (without Aaron and me) on a Trax train to see how he could handle riding a more complex route--figuring out a destination, and the different lines and transfers he would need to get to his destination.  While they were on the train Matthew charmed and smooth talked the UTA employee into taking pictures of him to send to me.  What a crazy kid!  However, it was fun to see the pictures, but it shows that he is willing to trust anyone which is also scary.....

When they got done with that second round of trip evaluation they told us they were done with us that day and that they would let us know through the mail in a few weeks whether he qualifies for Paratransit or not.  We have been on pins and needles for the last 10 days.  I FINALLY got the letter yesterday in the mail saying that Matthew has been approved for Paratransit, but only conditionally.  If he has to make any trip transfers, if he has to cross a busy road (defined as a street with 5 or more lanes) to get to a bus stop, if the trip is unfamiliar, or if it is after dark these are the only ways he can use Paratransit.  Otherwise he will be expected to ride the regular city bus/train.  I am so grateful he got approved even if it is conditionally.  I can’t imagine him riding public transit all alone....Anyway, this approval is only good for three years when we get to do all this again.  Since this is a door to door service meaning it picks him up at his group home and drops him off at his destination he needs to schedule any rides at least two weeks in advance and if it changes they have to cancel within 24 hours of the trip or he will have to pay a late cancellation fee and get a negative point.  They are allowed up to four negative points in a quarter if they get more than that they will cancel the Paratransit service completely.  Matthew will be on the Paratransit bus with others that need this service and if he is disruptive or causes any issues they will kick him off.  Matthew also has to pay $4 for each trip he takes.  If he is going to a job luckily his DSPD funding will pick up the tab.  If it is for private transportation Matthew will have to pay out of pocket for each trip.  So a round trip anywhere would be a total of $8.  When Paratransit comes to pick him up they have a 30 minute window around the pickup time that they could possibly arrive at Matthew’s group home.  When they get to his house he will only have 5 minutes to get out to the Paratransit bus before it will leave with or without him.  If he doesn’t make it to the van in those 5 minutes that will be another negative point.  They are very serious about following the rules and I appreciate that, but it makes me nervous.  I hope Matthew’s staff is good about scheduling, cancelling and getting him out to the Paratransit bus on time....  I am a bit stressed about this whole thing, but it is a blessing to have this service available to him.  Now we are just waiting for him to get his first job which should be in the next few weeks.

It certainly was a crazy second week of summer.  That Monday Josh called on his P-day to chat that morning.  While we were chatting I had to make sure Noah was prepped and ready to go to his first day of Weber State Prep.  I needed to pick up for the carpool to Weber State Prep.  Daniel needed to go running, Sarah needed to pick up a few things with me after everyone had been taken to where they needed to go.  Matthew needed to be picked up and driven down to Camp K which is down by the Hogle Zoo.  Needless to say it was an insane morning. I though summer was supposed to be a more relaxed pace?!

 Matthew went to his first week of Camp Kostopulos last week.  It was a Travel Camp where they went to different activities around the valley.  He was so excited when I dropped him off:

I follow Camp K on Facebook and was excited to see a picture of him on their wall.  He said he had a great time, but it is also fun to see a picture of him having a great time, too!

At the end of camp he got awarded ‘Having the Best Cheer’ award.  I guess they went to a Bees baseball game and he was their number one fan. He yelled and cheered so LOUD.  Because of that he received a baseball and a free Swig gift card while at the game.  What a crazy kid!!

Friday June 2 was National Donut day.  Sarah, Noah and I went and got some free donuts from Krispie Kreme. Daniel was too tired to get up to go.  I guess its the rough life of a teenager in summer--haha!  Here we are waiting in line for our free donuts:

Aaron had a birthday two weeks ago.  Wahoo! We celebrated on a Wednesday afternoon.  That was the only time everyone was going to be together for at least two hours on his birthday.  G&G T came over to celebrate, too.  

There were too many candles for Aaron to blow out--haha!  I guess that is what happens when you get as old as he is!  Round two he got the rest of the candles blown out.

Josh called to wish Aaron a Happy Birthday.  He also shared this picture with us.  If Josh holds still for too long he will fall asleep.  He has always been like this throughout his whole life.  So the other day I guess in his missionary trio they were doing Spanish language study.  Josh nodded off--not on purpose it just happened.  When he woke up he found that his other two companions had done the same.  He pretended to be asleep again and took this picture--haha!  Being a missionary is hard work so I am surprised this doesn’t happen more often. 

Noah started his second year in Weber State University Prep last week.  WSU Prep is a 6 week summer camp for incoming 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students to prepare them to excel in high school with an accelerated curriculum in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and math).   It is a 3 year program held Monday through Thursday from 9 am-2:30 pm for 6 weeks for three consecutive summers.  Noah liked it last year and wanted to come back for year two this summer.  I follow them on Facebook and was excited to see a picture of Noah during one of the classes.

We got our very first strawberry from our garden last week.  Noah was kind enough to pick it, wash it, cut the stem off and give it to me to try.  It was good!!  Can’t wait to get some more!!

Aaron is in charge of food for Zion’s Camp aka Aaronic Priesthood camp this summer.  AP camp is a 5 day camp for 16-18 year olds in our Stake.  Aaron has been stressed out prepping and precooking as much food as he can before the camp in two weeks.  He has to plan to feed 160 people so you can see why he is stressing out a bit.  It is a primitive camp without electricity so it will be truly camping.  We went to Costco the other day and picked up 15 briskets for him to smoke for one of the meals.  Our drink fridge is no longer a drink fridge to say the least--it is now a meat locker--haha!  Here’s all the briskets packed in the fridge waiting to be smoked:

He has finally gotten through smoking, cutting up and freezing the briskets and has now moved on to the next meal which is pulled pork sandwiches.  The meat locker is now filled with pork butts.  Needless to say he will be overjoyed when all the cooking is done--haha!  He might even be done with meat for a little while--haha!  Just kidding that would never happen!

Sarah has been working at a local swimming pool.  They do team building exercises.  One task Sarah was given was to take a picture with at least three people in it with one of them wearing her team colors.  Sarah chose to take a surprise picture with Aaron and me and she was the one that wore the red which was her team color.

Unfortunately our weather here has been crazy.  Sarah hasn’t been too busy at work because it has been cooler and rainy.  One of her shifts last week even got cancelled because there was a big lightning/thunderstorm so they closed the whole pool down.  Unfortunately again, she got notified yesterday that the pool pumps had broken down and they were going to close the pool until Saturday.  She was not too happy about that since that cancelled the 16 hours she was supposed to work this week.  That’s a lot of money when you are 14 years old!!  Hopefully the weather will get better soon and the pumps will be fixed so she can start earning the big bucks again.

Daniel’s friends all decided they wanted to buzz their hair for summer.  The lady that buzzed their hair told them they needed to get permission from their parents before she would buzz their hair.  Daniel didn’t bother calling us because he thinks he is close enough to being an adult and shouldn’t need permission.  I didn’t care.  It is his hair.  What he didn’t realize is that we will be getting family pictures soon--haha!  Oh well.  Afterward he was regretting his choice...His buzzcut was uneven so he asked me to fix it the next morning.  There wasn’t too much to cut off, it just needed to be evened out.  It is just hair and I am sure it will grow out in no time.

After Daniel buzzed his hair Aaron found this picture to show him that it wasn’t the first time he has had that particular hair cut--haha!  I definitely see the resemblance!

After a few days Daniel got used to his buzz cut and doesn’t care.  He did have his in person appointment with the Youth Court this past week.  I filled out all the paperwork and Aaron went with him for his appointment. However, they really take the youth court seriously and even though Aaron was there with him, Daniel did all the talking.  They never even addressed Aaron.  I think that is great because Daniel needs to get used to being his own advocate.  While they were waiting for their turn Aaron wanted a picture of Daniel, but Daniel is a sullen teenager and didn’t want to be messed with so he only got this ‘Chuckles’ picture--haha!

After meeting with the Youth Court Judge he was given a $50 fine to pay.  I am happy about that because the original traffic ticket was going to be $170.  I will gladly pay $50 vs $170!! Daniel then had to attend an hour long traffic school class afterward.  Then in the upcoming week he would need to write a 5 page essay about what he learned in his traffic school to get his traffic ticket from his car wreck two months ago off his record.  He is meeting with the Youth Court judge again this Thursday to turn in his essay and hopefully he will be done with his traffic ticket, traffic school, his fine, and his wreck from two months ago.

Matthew finished Camp K Friday at noon.  I picked him up and drove him back to his group home.  He then left a few hours later to drive down to West Valley for the Special Olympics State competition.  They had an opening program Aaron and I got to attend.  It was pretty cool seeing all the athletes march in and light the torch.  Matthew was super pumped about being there and lived up to his award of the ‘Best Cheerer’.  When we got there we didn’t know quite where Matthew was, but definitely found him when he started cheering--haha!  Here he is giving his best cheers--he is standing up so he can yell as loud as possible--haha!:

Matthew ran in the first event--the 1500 meter or mile run.  

He came in fourth place and got a white ribbon.  He was excited to just be there so it was cool.

Here he is by the Olympic flame:

Here’s two of his teammates:

He was so wired that he didn’t spend much time with me and Aaron--there were too many other people to talk to--haha!  I was lucky to get him to hold still long enough to get this picture:

Did I mention that there were so many people to meet and talk to?!

I guess Matthew’s excitement was pretty noticeable.  He made the picture of the cover story for the local news station:

We were only able to attend Friday evening of the Special Olympics.  They continued the games all day Saturday.  Matthew got to participate in Shot Put where he earned the Silver medal and the 4x100 meter relay race where his team came in fourth place getting them a ribbon.  He LOVES competing and I am very grateful he gets that chance to compete.  His coach said she was going to try and put him in more running events next time to quell some of that extra energy he has.  I just wished her good luck--haha!

Here’s some of the Special Olympics highlights his house manager captured and sent to us.  They included his Shot Put event, getting awarded a silver medal from a ‘cute girl’, seeing the Star Wars cast, etc.:

Saturday morning Daniel had the ACT test.  Noah had a yard work job to go to.  Sarah needed to help the youth council will our local city days.  They were having a race early that morning where she got to help out.  After the race was over she participated in the city parade with the youth council.  Aaron and I went to the parade for the first time without any kids since Matthew was at Special Olympics, Daniel was taking the ACT, and Noah was doing a yard job for a client.  It was so weird!!

Sarah was one of the beginning groups of the parade.  She was just after the color guard carrying the flag and the veterans.  The youth council got to carry a HUGE American flag.  I was excited to see Sarah and yelled ‘WOOOO SARAH!!’ however, everyone was being reverent because of the veterans and the flag so I certainly stood out.  I was a bit embarrassed.  I guess we now know where Matthew’s ‘Best Cheer’ award came from--haha!  Oh well at least Sarah knows I was excited to see her!  She is the 5th person over from the right (she is wearing a green shirt) carrying the flag:

Sarah also entered a photo in the city photo contest and won third place.  Here’s her picture:

After Sarah passed by us in the parade Aaron went and grabbed Sarah and brought her back to where we were sitting.  We were sitting almost at the end of the parade so it wasn’t far.  She watched about 40 more minutes of the parade with us until we had to leave early to drive Sarah to work.  We dropped her off at work and stopped by a local Taqueria food truck.  Josh tells us he stops by these all the time in Chicago so we thought we would try it out.  I got some street tacos and Aaron got some quesabirrias tacos.  They were pretty tasty!

There was no where to sit at the Taqueria to eat them so we grabbed a blanket from the car trunk and had an impromptu picnic at the park.

We wanted to see Sarah actually working at work.  We have gotten pictures of everyone at their first jobs so I wanted to grab a picture of Sarah at her job, too.  We told the front desk person and she let us back to see Sarah.  Sarah was a bit embarrassed when she saw us, but that’s our job as parents, right?!  I wanted to use my best cheering voice and yell ‘Whoooo Sarah!’ again, but I held back--haha!  We were only there long enough to take two pictures and we left which Sarah was glad about--haha!

Here’s the second picture--haha!

Later that afternoon we pickied Sarah up from work we brought her home.  She hung out, Noah and Daniel went out with friends so that just left Aaron and me to go watch the city fireworks that night.  Again that was the first time we had gone without kids.  It was WEIRD!!  We watched the band play.

We then got to watch the fireworks.  It was a fun night even if we were kidless... I am still unsure about becoming an empty nester in a few years....

Aaron and I celebrated out 23rd wedding anniversary last week.  It is so weird to think that I have been married longer than I ever was single!!  I am grateful for Aaron.  I can’t imagine anyone better to be married to!  Good thing I love him!!  We had decided on no gifts, but he didn’t follow that decision.  The last few months unbeknownst to me he has been working on putting together a video of our 23 years together mixed in with music.  He wanted it to be a surprise so he only worked on it when I wasn’t around. He surprised me with it Sunday and I LOVED IT!!  I can’t think of a more thoughtful and meaningful gift.  It was fun watching our family change through the years.  It ended up being an hour long.  We watched it as a family Sunday evening.  It was fun to see.  Here’s a link if you want to watch it: