Mission Call, Graduations, Summer, Doctor Visit, Bike Rides, Loud Dad, Top Golf

The last 12 days have been a blur of craziness.  Here’s some highlights.  

Sarah is gearing up at her work for the summer season at the community pool.  They had a big work party last week and did some team building games.  Memorial Day is the summer kick off so hopefully things were busy for her at work today.  Here’s Sarah and her friend Gabby at their Harry Potter themed work party:

Last week Sarah had her very last band concert. Sarah has decided not to continue with band next year and I am sad there will be no more concerts for her band-wise.  Here is a picture of Sarah at her concert:

She got a certificate of completion for her participation with playing the flute.  Wahoo!

Also Sarah has been needing more driving hours because she is signed up for summer Driver’s Ed.  In order to go out driving with the instructor she has to have at least 10 hours of experience beforehand.  Aaron and I need to up our game.  Aaron had her drive herself to work two Saturdays ago.  She was so nervous to drive on the freeway which meant she only went 50 miles an hour in a 65 mph zone.  Needless to say there were some not so nice people also on the the freeway that didn’t like slow drivers during that time.  Boo!!  To help out with that next time Aaron ordered some student driver magnets for the car.  The bad thing is that I forget to take it off when I am driving....that makes me one OLD student if I am just now learning how to drive....haha!  Sarah only needs 7 more hours of driving experience left to complete--WISH US LUCK!!

Last week Daniel had his business internship banquet.  While everyone was getting settled in for the presentation they had this slide up on the projector for everyone to look at:

It took me a minute to realize that--Yep--that is Daniel on the right.  He was holding an amazon gift card that he won because of the work his internship team did.

They had 28 students total in the business/marketing internship from three different school districts--Davis, Ogden, and Weber.  They worked closely with the company MarketStar during their internship.  Daniel really enjoyed it.  During the presentation all the internship graduates got recognized.  Here is Daniel’s certificate:

Here’s all the interns:

Daniel’s mentor:

Daniel wants to go into business/finance for a career so this internship was great for him.

Sarah sat down and quickly fell asleep for a minute the other afternoon.  Sophie curled right up with her and napped, too.  I thought it was funny so I took a picture:

Speaking of Sarah she has been fighting an ingrown toenail for a few months.  Finally it got to the point it needed to be removed.  I was busy and couldn’t take her so Aaron had to take her to get it done.  Sarah handled the procedure well.  Here they are numbing her toe:

Sarah is going to Disneyland with her dance group in a few weeks so she needed this done sooner than later so it could be healed by the time she gets to Disneyland.  So far it is healing great and feels a lot better now than when it was super infected which is good.  The podiatrist burned part of her nail bed so hopefully this won’t happen again.

Sophie is quite the snuggler.  She will follow me around the whole house staring at me like this until I sit down and she can snuggle up to me.  How can you say no to those puppy eyes?!  She is laying on my bathroom rug pitifully watching me put on my makeup just waiting for me to be done.

Noah got a bike for his birthday and has been using it quite a bit lately.  The other day he rode over to the Syracuse Temple to check out the progress and sent me this picture:

Noah also got to go to a coin show with G&G T a few weeks ago.  Noah made sure he collected on his lawn mowing money from us so he could have some money to spend there.  He got a few cool things which he was pretty excited about.  I was glad he was able to go with them.  Noah will be starting Weber State University Prep for six weeks this summer.  It will be his 3rd and final year doing that program.  He is pretty excited to start next week.

Josh has been staying busy between work and church stuff for the last few weeks.  He is getting ready to be an FSY  (For the Strength of the Youth) counselor for 6 weeks over the summer.  He will be on BYU campus for two weeks, in Fort Collins, Colorado for two weeks and Flagstaff Arizona for two weeks.  Thankfully, his phlebotomy job is allowing him to take these 6 weeks off for the summer and come back and still work there, too.  I think that is pretty awesome.  Josh is getting excited for the opportunity.  He has a 5 day long residential training next week down in Orem that he also got off from his phlebotomy job.  He will have a fun summer, but we won’t be seeing much of him, though.  He got a chance to go to the temple with some friends last week which was nice for him:

Daniel is still playing softball and is liking it.  However, this past week half their team was gone due to school graduation that took half their players so they lost terribly. They still had fun playing, though.  Here’s Daniel up to bat:

Daniel graduated from Seminary last Sunday.  Wahoo!

Glad we were able to be there, too.

This past week the high school had a scholarship assembly to recognize all the students who had gotten scholarships.  They even invited parents to attend as well.  They had a photo op balloon arch so we got a few pictures:

Daniel and his girlfriend Katie:

A friend picture:

They spotlighted each scholarship recipient.

Here’s Daniel’s scholarships:

Here’s two more recognition certificates he got, too:

They also did the senior picture that morning, too.  Their HUGE graduating class has around 767 students.

Daniel received his mission call this past week.  We have all been anxiously awaiting for it to come.  It finally did this past Tuesday.  We sent this out so whoever wanted to come watch him open it, they could:

Daniel was pretty nervous waiting for everyone to come.  He would step out on to the front porch to see if the stragglers had gotten to the house, yet.  I think he also went out to catch his breath for a minute. Aaron watched for others to show up with him, too.  I think Aaron was just as nervous:

Those who came put a guess on the map of where they thought he was going to go:

Here’s some of the people that came:

It was fun to hear him read the email:

He got called to the Omaha, Nebraska mission English speaking.  No one guessed that mission--haha!  We are excited for him.  He starts home MTC on September 2 which happens to be Labor Day. 

Josh immediately looked up the mission boundaries and found that it covers area in 5 different states.  It will be a HUGE mission!  He was showing Daniel the boundaries:

We need to start getting all his supplies because this summer is super busy already.  I am still getting used to the fact that he will be leaving in September!!  Wow!!

School ended last week for the summer.  Here’s all the kids first and last day of school pictures.  Matthew started his very first job at the school so I think it still counts as him being ‘in school’ at least picture-wise anyway.  Josh actually finished his first year of college a few weeks ago, but we still got his picture, too.  They all have changed this past year.  The first days are the top row, the last day is the bottom row:

Before the graduation ceremony we went around the high school and got a few pictures of Daniel.  I can’t believe I have 3 kids who have now graduated from high school!

As the graduates were filing in at the Dee Events Center and finding their seats, we saw Daniel.  Aaron has a very LOUD voice and yelled something like ‘ALL RIGHT DANIEL!!’. Daniel definitely heard him and then looked up and saw where we ended up sitting--haha!  It pays to have a loud dad!!

Here’s where Daniel sat:

All the graduates:

Daniel getting his diploma:

He got to wear the Tech Sales Business pathways medal, a National Honors Society stole, a scholarship pin, a NHS pin, and a pathway CTE pin as well as silver honor cords.  We were glad G&G T were able to come to graduation, too.

Some more graduation pictures:

This past weekend Daniel and Katie got to go to the Later Festival out in Tooele.  Daniel took this picture:

However, they didn’t get a picture of the ladies hair they accidentally caught on fire.  It was windy that night and one of their lanterns didn’t work very well.  They threw it up in the air only for it to come back down on a lady’s head and start her hair on fire. Luckily, her boyfriend saw it right away and put it out before it did much more that smolder a few seconds.  They weren’t very happy with Daniel and Katie, though, but what can you do?!

Josh made another round of Creme Brûlée.  It was really good especially after you melt the sugar on top with the torch:

It was Memorial Day yesterday.  Amazingly enough everyone was around that morning.  We decided to take them and play two hours of TopGolf.  We had a lot of fun.  In the whole Top Golf place they only had one set of TALL, Lefty golf clubs--which Josh was able to secure and use.  Sarah got to use the regular person size lefty golf clubs.  The rest of used the normal right handed people golf clubs--haha!  Afterward we went out for lunch at Cafe Rio.  Josh didn’t make us pray over our food this visit, though.  I guess being home from your mission for almost a year will do that.....

We had a fun family day.  We need to get a bunch of those fun family days in before Daniel leaves in September which will be here before I know it!

Peer Tutor, Ragnar, Dance, Northern Lights, Mother’s Day, Track, Softball, Concerts, Shaved Head, Women’s Conference

Here’s what we have been up to the last two weeks.  Noah had his last track meet.  He ran the 4x200 meter relay.  He enjoyed track this year and I am proud that he tried something new.  Track is not the easiest thing to do, but he did it.  Here he is handing off the baton during his race:

Noah finished up his spring soccer season as well.  He did play goalie for a bit, but then he got to be out on the field, too.  He is already looking forward to the fall season.

Noah is working on a project in one of his classes that mimics the movement of your finger.  He sent me this picture and a short video and was pretty proud of his work.  This was a group project and his group wasn’t working well or basically at all together.  I have always HATED group projects because of that, but in the end it always works out one way or another.  Anyway, he got this part accomplished of their project and was pretty proud.

I got to attend Women’s Conference down at BYU for two days at the beginning of May.  It was a nice and much needed break for me.  I attended with my friend Maile and we stayed in the dorms.  It was fun to attend all the different classes and participate in the service project.  The service project was sewing and gluing together a sensory worm.  Something similar to this:

My worm ended up looking a bit ’unique’ because I can’t sew straight and ended up getting more glue on my fingers and the body of the snake than on the actual eye I was trying to glue.  Ugh!   I didn’t get a picture of it, so you will just have to take my word for it.  Oh well it passed quality control (I think just barely, though) so I count that as a win, right?!  Haha!

After a full day of classes and after the service project we went to the night of entertainment which was fun.  The next day we had another full day of classes.  As we were walking around campus to get to our different classes I passed by this vent and had to take a picture.  This vent is where Aaron and I would go to hang out on, talk and to just be together during the winter way back when we were dating so many eons ago.  Both our apartments were very loud and so this was a nice quiet place that happened to blow warm air so we could stay there out in the middle of winter.  Every time I walk by it, it brings back the fun memories from so long ago.  I sent a picture to Aaron.

Women’s Conference was a very much needed break from the hectic chaos at home for a few days.  However, I did have to solve a few things while I was gone, but nothing that a few texts and phone calls can’t handle right?!  Being a mom is a 24 hour on call job.

May(hem) is in full swing with all the school activities, grades, homework, dance performances, band concerts, sports, etc.  There have been a few nights Aaron and I have had to divide and conquer to see everything because they have been scheduled on the same night at the same time.  It has been crazy.  Sarah has been a peer tutor this semester and has loved it.  Peer tutoring is when they pair up a typical student (Sarah) with a special ed student and they go to a regular ed class together.  The peer tutor helps the special ed student stay on task and help them during the regular ed class with anything they would need.  We were always so grateful for the peer tutors that helped Matthew.  They were so helpful, caring and loving toward him.  Anyway, Sarah wanted to be a peer tutor this semester and got the opportunity.  She got paired up with Abbi for dance class.  Sarah has loved being Abbi's peer tutor.  She said that Abbi is really sweet.  The high school dance company had a performance night and they invited the regular PE dance classes to join in performing, too. That meant Sarah and Abbi got to perform, too.  Here’s Sarah before the performance:

Here’s Sarah and Abbi:

Here’s a few pictures from their group dance:

Bowing at the end of the show:

They did great and I was so excited to see Abbi.  Sarah has talked a lot about her so I was excited to see her.  Sarah has loved being a peer tutor.

Sarah got to do some more dancing with her regular recreational dance performance group at a few care centers.  This was one night Aaron and I had to divide and conquer.  There was a parent meeting for Noah I went to and Aaron took Sarah to the care center.  Here she is doing her captain’s dance:

Another dance at the care center:

Afterward Sarah got to visit with a resident for about 30 minutes. She got to hear about his interesting life and he said he was happy to see them perform.  He was a cool guy.

Last week Aaron and I did a day date.  We had originally had a weekend trip planned, but a bunch of things came up and it got cut down to only a day date instead.  We made the most of our day date, though. It was Friday.  We left the house in the morning right after all the kids had left for school.  We drove down and went through the Taylorsville temple open house.  I was surprised to find that the inside seemed a lot smaller than I thought it would have been judging by the outside.  It was still a beautiful temple and we were happy to get the chance to tour it.

 

I LOVED all the tulips on the grounds of the temple:

After that we walked around the sports store Scheel’s for a bit. Aaron was looking for something, but it wasn’t there.  Then we went over and played some Top Golf.  I am so bad at golf!!  Ugh!!  Aaron is always up for playing Top Golf because he can totally destroy me at any game we play.  Oh well at least it is fun!

I did win one game by the skin of my teeth.  I had to take a picture of that because that never happens!!

Then we had lunch at a Mediterranean place in downtown Salt Lake.  On the way home we took the Mrs. Cavanaugh’s chocolate factory tour.  This is something I have wanted to do for a while so I was excited to get the chance to do it.  It was interesting.  We also got some fancy chocolate to take home afterward.

We had to take an intermission from our date because our kids needed to be driven around for a few hours to get to everything they needed to get to that evening.  Then after the kids were done at their different activities we went to a late show at The Desert Star Playhouse.  We saw the spoof Butch Cassidy and the Sunburnt Kid.  We had a really fun day together.

Sarah has been really slow to recover from being sick with strep a few weeks ago. She is almost back to 100%, but not quite and is also trying to get over some pleurisy.  She has been taking some naps in the afternoon because she is so tired.  Sophie is always up for a snuggle.  However, it was AFTER Sarah fell asleep that Sophie snuggled up to her--otherwise I don’t think Sarah would have loved Sophie’s rear to be so close to her face....Oh well.

Matthew had a fun Cinco De Mayo party with another group home on Monday May 6th instead.  They played games and ate some yummy food.  Matthew made sure his staff sent some pictures to me of the party.

We celebrated Cinco De Mayo with some brisket tacos Aaron made.  He smoked a brisket and used that meat to make tacos with all the fixings--pico de Gallo, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, toasted tortillas, etc.  It was really good!

Speaking of Aaron he got to attend his second Human Rights meeting with Chrysalis a week ago. Chrysalis reviews all their residents restrictions to make sure they are ethical and need a parent perspective in addition to the board made up of different specialties employed by Chrysalis (behaviorists, managers, social workers, etc.) They review each client’s case and make sure they have the least restrictive restrictions on them to make it ethical, but still safe if that makes sense.  After this meeting Aaron comes home and is thankful Matthew’s issues aren’t more severe. There are some really sad cases. 

Aaron also got to get two cavities filled this past week.  The dentist is his nemesis that he HATES going to see.  Aaron understands it is a necessary evil, but the dentist gives him major anxiety.  He did get some laughing gas to help him get his cavities filled, but he was so nervous I don’t know if it did much for him--the poor guy!  Luckily, he has until his next dentist visit to recover.

Daniel is getting ready to graduate!!  We just got his graduation announcements back.  I can’t believe he is graduating!!  That is crazy to me!

He did earn a Marketing CTE medallion and special pin he gets to wear at graduation.  They came and awarded it to him in his class making him come to the front of the room.  He was a bit embarrassed to be singled out, but I think it’s pretty cool! 

What adds to the craziness is we are awaiting his mission call.  His papers are in and most likely he will be getting his mission call THIS TUESDAY!!  AHHHH!  I am so excited!!  It still doesn’t seem real to me!

Josh got a chance to run the Ragnar Race in Zion National Park this past weekend.  Ragnar is a relay race with a TON of other teams.  Each team is made up of 8 people or 4 people who double the amount of running.  Josh was in a team with 7 other people from his YSA ward.  This race started Friday morning and ended Saturday afternoon with people running around the clock.  Each team member had to run three different segments an easy 4 mile run, a moderate 4 mile run and a difficult 7.5 mile run.  However, one of their team members ended up having a funeral in their family and couldn’t make it to the race.  That meant Josh got to pick up one of the missing team member's running segments, too.  Josh in total ended up running about 20 miles with one of the segments starting at 1 am.  Their team really did run for 30 hours straight.  Josh said he had an amazing time, but it will probably take him at least a week to recover--haha!  Here’s their team before the race started:

Their team was one of the last to get there so they got the worst camp site.  It was right next to the portapotties.

Josh running one of the segments around Zion National Park:

The running map:

As it got dark he got to run with his head lamp on so he could see the trail:

His team after they finished the race.  Josh is the one wearing the white hat:

It rained most of the time they were there.  He still said they had a lot of fun.  They all just camped in a tent and when they weren’t running they were either sleeping in the tent, playing ping pong in the resort clubhouse, sitting in the hot tub, playing games or chatting.  He came home super exhausted, stinky, dehydrated and sunburned, but happy he did it.

Josh pulled in to our driveway from coming back from the Ragnar race as we were pulling out to go and see the Northern Lights at 10 pm Saturday night.  I have wanted to see the Northern Lights for a long time so I was excited to see if we could see them.  Josh decided he wanted to come with us despite being exhausted.  We just drove about two miles away from our house to a darker road and waited to see if anything would happen.  It was barely visible to our naked eye, but the camera really picked up the lights. They were so beautiful!  Here’s some picture overload of what the camera saw over the course of 20 minutes:

This makes me want to go to Alaska or Canada to really see them at some point.  Aaron bragged about he got to see them a lot while he was on his mission in Canada.  I was jealous! Maybe we can go to Canada to see them someday, too.

The next day was Mother’s Day.  The kids got up early and made me breakfast in bed.  It was awesome!  They also all wrote me some sweet notes.  That is what I LOVE about Mother’s Day.  I am thankful that I get to celebrate it with my kids and husband.  I am thankful I have a great Mother who was a wonderful example, too.

Matthew’s house manager helped him make me this cute sign:

In Josh’s YSA ward they handed out flowers to all the women.  Even though I am not a part of that ward Josh still grabbed me a flower for Mother’s Day, too.  Here’s all the YSA guys handing out the flowers down the hall as they ladies walked by:

After church Josh just came home and crashed.  He was still exhausted from Ragnar.  As always Sophie is up for snuggles and wiggled her way in while Josh slept:

Later on that afternoon we went and had dinner with my extended family at my brother Bryan’s house.  It was fun to visit with everyone and enjoy Mother’s Day.  The guys all got assigned the food so the women didn’t have to do anything for dinner.  It was great!!  It was such a nice day we got to eat outside, too.  I loved it!

In other happenings Matthew’s house manager let him pick out his own new glasses after he got his updated eye prescription.  He absolutely LOVES them.  To be honest they probably wouldn’t have been the ones I chose, but Matthew is happy with them so I guess that is all that’s important.

He even got ’The Human GPS’ inscribed on the arm:

Matthew got to compete in the Special Olympics Track and Field this past week.  Aaron and I weren’t able to attend because we were already dividing and conquering with all the other kids’ events.  We will make sure we go to the State competition for him, though. He got a silver medal in both his races and a gold medal in shot put. He made sure he wore all his medals to church so he could show them off.  Wahoo, Matthew!!

Daniel and two other friends decided to shave their heads one night.  Here’s the before:

Here’s the during:

They didn’t take any after shots, but I think Daniel regretted doing it for a few minutes.  Oh well, it is only hair and will grow back soon.  However, I did notice a small patch of white hair on the back of Daniel’s head.  He says that means he is now a super hero.  I just said that just means you are starting to get old--haha!

Daniel had to get his blood drawn the other evening.  He absolutely HATES getting it done.  He copes by putting on his headphones and turning up the music as loud as it will go while he gets it done.  

The liver doctor wanted Daniel to do a trial month off his Ursodiol to see what his liver enzymes would look like after not taking it. Awesomely enough his liver enzymes were all NORMAL except his bilirubin which will always be high due to the Gilbert’s Syndrome.  That was such good news!! That means he doesn’t need to take it for now. YAY!!  

Daniel has a friend whose family put together a recreation softball team and asked Daniel to join because they needed more players.  Daniel has missed playing baseball so he was excited to join. They had their first game this past week.  Aaron and I went to watch him play.  He got to play second base and third base.

Aaron really loved helping to coach him when he was in junior high on a recreation league.  Aaron really misses that so he really wanted to watch him play.  

It was a good game.  His team won despite Daniel outrunning or passing one of his teammates and getting her out as he rounded third base.  Fun times.  The team teased him about it the rest of the night.

Noah had his end of season track banquet/party two days ago.  For one of the activities they got to play Wiffle ball in the gym.  That was until they got the Wiffle ball stuck in the light.  Noah texted me these pictures to show me what happened--haha:

Nice.  I don’t think the coach was super happy, but what can you do?!

Right after the banquet was Noah’s end of year band concert.  It was fun to hear how much the intermediate band (8th grade) band had progressed since the beginning of the year.  Noah got to play the marimba and the snare drum for the concert:

For the finale all three bands got together to play a Harry Potter song:

After the band concert we went and had some pie with the Einzinger’s at their house.  It was fun to visit and catch up because it has been a few months since we have gotten together.  The pie was really good too!  I LOVE key lime pie!!

Josh loves to cook/bake.  Two days ago he made us all some Creme Brûlée.  It turned out yummy!!

Sarah had her dance dress rehearsal yesterday.  It was fun to see her dance.  I can’t wait for the recital in two weeks.

I can’t believe school is almost out for the summer!!  This year went by really fast!  I have a feeling summer will go by just as fast....