Prank, Gold Medal, Special Olympics, Dunk Tank, Graduation, Medical Stuff

I am behind so here is a quick catch up of the last 2 and half weeks.  Josh did another week of being an FSY counselor at BYU.  When that finished Saturday, he got to fly out to do two more weeks in Fort Collins, Colorado.  He ran into his cousin at the airport.  She was flying somewhere else for the week to be an FSY counselor, too.  They grabbed a quick selfie before they both flew out to their different destinations:

Josh has loved being a FSY counselor.  Here’s a few of the highlight pictures he has shared with us:

He hasn’t had a bunch of free time, but he did have some two Saturdays ago. Two Saturdays ago a group of them decided to try out some white water rafting. Josh said it was pretty fun. 

 He got home this past Saturday and I think he is glad to be back home.  He starts his phlebotomy job back up this week so he won’t have much down time.

We had a fun surprise the past few months.  For some reason the Camry started smelling terrible in the interior.  I tried cleaning it out really well, using Febreeze, but no matter what I did it still smelled.  It started smelling the beginning of June.  It wasn’t until last week I found the problem.  I was loading groceries into the trunk when I saw a crinkled up grocery sack that had been shoved all the way to the back corner of the trunk.  I pulled it out before I put the groceries in the trunk.  I almost gagged.  Inside the  grocery bag was the remains of a half eaten store bought turkey sandwich. It was all black so I could only tell what it was by looking at the wrapper.  Back on May 31 Aaron and Noah went up to the Father’s and Son’s campout.  They bought sandwiches on the way up and Noah only ate half of his sandwich and put the leftover back inside the grocery sack and shoved it in the very far recesses of the trunk.  The summer has been so hot so that thing has been marinating for 7 weeks in the hot trunk.  GROSS!! I am just glad I found it and that the car doesn’t stink anymore.  Kids always keep things interesting.  I don’t recommend playing the game ‘What’s that Smell?’  No one wins in that game--haha!

Sarah has been practicing driving. She has been driving Matthew back to his group home in Ogden Sunday evening via the free way and highways to get the fast driving experience.  That was a little terrifying, but she did fine.  This was my view of her from the backseat:

She finished her third and final scheduled driving time with the instructor last week.  She had her road test last week and passed!!  I got to wait while she drove off with the tester.  

She took her written test and passed that, too.  We are now waiting until her birthday to get her license and she will be an official driver.  I am still nervous about it, but I am sure she will be okay.

Daniel and his girlfriend Katie went out on a date.  One of Aaron’s friends from work saw them and decided to prank Daniel.  He checked with Aaron first to make sure it would be okay.  He sent a picture to make sure it was Daniel.  

Then he and Aaron had this text conversation:

Daniel fell for it at first, but then figured it out.  It was funny.

Speaking of Daniel, he got a really weird ear infection.  He had a sore spot in his ear Friday evening.  By the next morning his whole outer ear was swollen.  I had to go to work so Aaron had to take him to the Urgent Care Saturday morning.  The doctor ended up putting him on two different antibiotics.  Thankfully he is on the mend.

We have been working on getting Daniel ready to go on his mission.  I think we have purchased the majority of the items he will need--suits, shoes, pants, socks, shirts, ties, luggage, etc.  He only has 5 weeks left until it gets real!!  It is going by so fast!

Weber State Prep finished two weeks ago for Noah.  He got to graduate since it was his third and final year. They had a graduation ceremony for all the third year students.  Here’s Noah getting his diploma:

The day before graduation they had an open house where you could go and see what projects they have been working on throughout this summer.  Here’s a few of the pictures Noah showed me at the open house.  They had a field trip to a sportsplex where Noah got to drive the go cart:

He and his team had to come up with a game with it’s own rules, cards, etc.  Here’s what they came up with:

Random picture:

They got to play with the sketch robot and try to draw something.  Noah tried to draw Pac Man with the robot:

They had a project where they came up with a theory and then had to test it.  Noah’s group tested out which type of music helps you study the best.  Here’s the results they got:

We had our annual summer Ward Party a few weeks ago.  They had sloppy joes and potluck.  They also had a live band and brought in a dunk tank.  Towards the end of the party I got talked into trying out the dunk tank.  Sarah and Noah got to throw a baseball and try to dunk me.

One of them eventually hit the target and I got drenched!

Like I said it was towards the end of the party so it wasn’t too bad.  It was still pretty warm outside so I wasn’t freezing.

Matthew had his area Special Olympics Bowling competition a few weeks ago.  We got to stop and watch him bowl for a few hours.

He really loves it!

He won the gold medal so he gets to move on to the state competition which is coming up.  He was beyond excited.  He made sure he wore his gold medal to church on Sunday to show it off.

Speaking of Matthew the Music Leader in Primary asked Matthew to help her with Music Time two Sundays ago.  Matthew was so excited.  My friend is in primary and took some pictures for me.  She loved Matthew’s excitement.  I was grateful for the Music Leader to work with him and allow him to help.  It was awesome!

So excited--jumping and flapping!!

Matthew also had his last week of Camp K for this summer a few weeks ago.  I can’t believe Summer is going by so quickly!!  

Matthew’s birthday is coming up soon.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he emailed me his list.  Wow!!  I guess he thinks we are billionaires--haha!  I don’t think the Ford Transit Van or the Ford F150 vehicles are in the cards, but maybe some other things can be.

Sarah had to go and see the Liver Doctor last week.  She had a Fibroscan done before the appointment.  That is a specialized ultrasound to see the elasticity level of the liver.  The more scar tissue present the less elasticity the liver has.  Luckily, Sarah’s liver looked great.  The view from Primary Children’s is really pretty:

After the appointment she had to get her labs drawn:

In the past whenever Sarah had to get a Fibroscan she has had to be fasting so I just assumed she had to be fasting for this one, too.  I was wrong...She was not very happy with me when they told her she didn’t need to be fast as her stomach was rumbling.  Whoops!  Sorry Sarah.  On the way home I made it up to her and we stopped for some street tacos.  I think she forgave me--haha!

Unfortunately, her liver enzymes were higher than usual.  BOO!  The Liver Doctor increased her dose of Ursodiol and wants to repeat labs in a few months.  I am so glad blood draws don’t bother her!!

We got to have the Sister Missionaries over for Sunday dinner this past Sunday.  It was nice to visit with them.  I had them tell us about all the things they did to prepare for a mission and all the things they wished they had done.  Daniel rolled his eyes at me because he knew I asked them this question just for his benefit.  Guilty as charged--haha!!

Daniel had his surgery follow up appointment with the Oral Surgeon yesterday.  After we got pulled back to the room we sat there for almost 45 minutes.  It was a long wait....

During that time Daniel and I had a bet on how long the doctor would spend with us in the room during this appointment.  I said anywhere from 3-5 minutes.  Daniel guessed 7 minutes.  As soon as the doctor entered I hit start on the stopwatch.  1 minute and almost 14 seconds was the amount of time he was in the room with us.  In that time he told us that Daniel’s mass was indeed a Nasal Palantine Duct Cyst (not cancer) phew.  He then looked in Daniel’s mouth, told him good luck on his mission and left the room. 

Glad that is over and we won’t have to go back!!

Surgery, July 4th, BINGO, Parade, Root Beer, Day Date, Way Expired Food

I am behind in writing the blog.  Here’s what we have been up to the last three weeks.  Noah had a 3 day camp with his Teacher’s Quorum.  The last night they invited the dads to join the boys for dinner.  Aaron joined a very dirty Noah for dinner. They had a good time together.  They had dinner and a fireside.  Then it was time for Aaron to come back home and go to sleep in his own bed--which Aaron was just fine with. He prefers his bed over a sleeping bag over rocks any day--haha!

At camp they did a lot of fishing, shooting guns, with lots of snacks and candy.  Noah had a great time.

Josh has been gone for three weeks straight as an FSY (For the Strength of the Youth) Counselor.  While he was gone Aaron and I grabbed some street tacos from an authentic Mexican restaurant.  While we were ordering we saw they served this hibiscus juice--the same thing Josh made us when he got home from his mission a year ago.  We ordered a glass because we were thinking of him.

It was pretty good and paired well with the street tacos--haha!

As the kids get older they start having a life of their own.   Every year we would attend Syracuse Days as a family, but this year everyone was either working or with friends so Aaron and I decided to go just with ourselves.   It was fun wandering around looking at the different things they had there.  There was also a Filipino food truck there that Aaron wanted to try out.  Even though Aaron served his mission in Canada there was a strong Filipino population so he got to eat Filipino food pretty often and loves it.  He ordered some Lumpia for us to split.  Right next to that food truck was a Brazilian Lemonade truck so we ordered one of those, too.  It was a pretty good dinner!

Sarah has been working on Driver’s Ed during the summer. She couldn’t do the program offered through the school because she was gone for most of the classroom time.  So instead we signed her up for a private school driver’s Education program.  She is still working on the online classroom portion, but she got to take her first in person driving lesson a few weeks ago.  She was pretty nervous to drive with someone other than Aaron and me, but she did fine.  We met in a school parking lot up in Ogden so it was driving around streets she was not familiar with, but she did fine.  Here she is pulling out of the parking lot:

Her next driving lesson will include driving on fast roadways and merging.  We have been doing some practicing at home, but the next lesson I am a bit nervous for her.... We will keep practicing and hopefully it will become easier for her.
 

Aaron went to Oklahoma City on a business trip.  The afternoon before he was going to fly back home he found a cool gas station about 30 minutes from his hotel that had a bunch of crazy flavored sodas.  He and a few of his workmates went to check it out.  These were a few of the crazy flavors they had:

Blue Cheese dressing, Enchilada, Cookies and Cream, Waffles with Syrup were some of the pictures he sent me.  Ewwww.  He tried the cookies and cream and said it was interesting.  I was hoping he would bring a few home, but he was too afraid they would break in his suitcase.  I think I am okay with not ever trying blue cheese dressing soda--YUCK!

Josh had been gone for three weeks straight as an FSY counselor, however, he did get a chance to come home for the week of July 4th. We had to pick him up at BYU to bring him home.  Aaron and I decided to make a day of it.  We drove down and had lunch at Gandolfo’s Deli.  This is what we used to eat occasionally when we first started dating.  We split a Throg’s Neck Bridge sandwich and broccoli salad with an Apple soda.  It was really good.

We then drove up Provo canyon and visited Bridal Veil Falls.  We stopped by and soaked our feet in the cold water for a few minutes.

We then drove over to Provo.  We drove past our old apartments and then went to BYU campus where we walked around our old haunts.  We picked up some Cookies and Cream Creamery milk which is quite delicious.

We stopped by our old vent.  We both had very busy and full apartments which meant we got very little alone time while we were dating through the winter.  We found this vent on campus that blew warm air and would sit on it while we talked.  It still blows warm air so we didn’t stay for too long because it was hot outside.

We then went down to the Smith Fieldhouse and walked around.  That is where we met for the first time in a karate class that we both took.  It was a fun day of reliving memories before we picked up Josh to bring him back home.

Our fridge went out two weeks ago.  That was not the greatest news, but what can you do?!  We had to go out and pick up a new one that day.  Luckily, we were able to move all the food into the tiny garage fridge until the new fridge was delivered the next day.  The new fridge is not fancy, but at least it works.

While we were cleaning out all the food from the old fridge and freezer we found this package.  It had fallen back behind the drawer back to where you had to the take the whole entire drawer out to see it.  Needless to say it had been there a LONG time.  It was a package of sausages that had turned a strange yellow color.

Looking at it more closely we saw the expiration date was clear back in 2015.  GROSS!!

Ewwwwwww!  We all got a good laugh about how gross that was.  Glad we could lay those sausages to rest in the garbage--haha!

We have been slowly getting Daniel ready for his mission.  We went this past weekend and picked up his suits, shoes and ties.  It is really getting closer!!  He put in his two week notice at Little Caesars.  We stopped by the other day to see him at work and pick up pizza for dinner.  There won’t be too many more times to see him at work anymore....

He had his last softball game last week.  It has been fun to watch him play this season.

The other day I had to take Matthew to Camp K.  Sarah came with me and on the way home we stopped at a Street Taco place.  She was a fun lunch date.  Aaron doesn’t like street tacos so I was glad to go with someone that enjoys them as much as I do.

Even though Josh was home over the week of the 4th of July, he did still go to work at the Plasma Center quite a bit.  On his off day he and Daniel decided to go to the store and buy all the ingredients to make home made rootbeer just for fun.  Grandpa T used to make it for every family get together so it was fun to have some again.

It is always fun to stir the dry ice and see all the ’smoke’ that it makes:

It was some good root beer!

Daniel has been working on his mission stuff.  Some of the assignments are to watch quite a few different videos about safety.  He only does a few here and there because they can get a bit boring after awhile.  Am I allowed to say that?!

The other morning Sarah had to work and Noah was at Weber State Prep for the day. That left Josh, Daniel and me and we all decided to go and play some Pickle ball.  It was fun.  I am not good at it, but it is still fun to play.

We all had a fun time for the 4th of July.  All of us were in the city parade.  Sarah was in it with her dance team:

Matthew is hard to contain so Aaron decided last year to just enter Matthew as a parade entry.  That way he could still say hi to people, but not get lost or bolt in front of any passing cars which has been an issue in the past.  We did the same thing this year that we did last year--Aaron would drive my Grandpa’s old truck with some Human GPS banners on each side. To explain the Human GPS thing--Matthew can tell you how to get anywhere.  He will tell you which roads to take, which exit numbers to take, etc.  He has a pretty amazing memory when it comes to stuff like that.  To help keep him safe Daniel and his girlfriend Katie road in the back of the truck with Matthew and they threw candy out to the parade watchers.

Interestingly enough Sarah’s dance parade entry was right in front of Matthew’s truck so Aaron got to watch Sarah dance.

All of Matthew’s housemates and another house all came to watch him in the parade.  They made signs for him to see as he passed them in the parade.  That was so awesome.  Aaron wasn’t able to grab any pictures since he was driving, but he said it was really great to see!

Noah and I did the community marching band again this year.  They started up practices a month ago so we could learn the new music.  Noah got to play the crash cymbals and I played the flute.

Here we are warming up before the parade started:

The band:

I was able to grab a quick picture of Matthew’s truck as it was finishing the parade.  We doubled the amount of candy we bought this year to throw out and they still ran out in the middle of the parade.

Josh had to work that morning so he wasn’t able to join us at the parade.  After the parade we all went over to play some BINGO.  Matthew’s housemates came over to say hello to us as BINGO was starting.  It was fun to see them.

We seemed to be pretty lucky this year at BINGO.  Sarah was the first winner in our family with a mug and treat holder along with a Red Robin gift card:

I was the next to win in our family when I won the EZ up canopy.  Wahoo!

Aaron won a stand alone hammock after another few rounds.  We were a bit embarrassed by winning so many prizes, but it was legit!  They checked our numbers every time before they would give us the prize.  We just happened to be pretty lucky that day!  Noah and Matthew were pretty bummed they didn’t win anything, though.

Josh was able to join us a bit later.  On the stage at the park they had some group contests going on.  Josh and Sarah got selected to compete in a hula hoop contest.

They didn’t win, but had fun trying.

After the games at the park we came back and had a nice tri tip lunch that Aaron had made.  Later that evening we all went back over to watch the fire works together:

Alas all fun things must come to an end.  Josh was signed up to do another three weeks straight at FSY.  One week at the BYU campus and two weeks in Fort Collins, Colorado.  I drove him down to Provo Sunday afternoon to drop him off for the next three weeks.  We won’t see him again until the end of July.

Monday morning Matthew got to start his last week of Camp K for the summer.  We dropped him off that morning.  He was pretty excited to be there.  After I checked him in I wished the camp counselors luck because he was pretty wound up that morning--haha!

Speaking of Matthew his iPad died.  He was quite distraught about it.  Luckily, he has been a working man and was able to purchase a new one using some of the money he has earned at his job to buy it.  He was pretty proud of that!  He also moved group homes.  He used to live in a group home in Clearfield, but a new bigger group home came open up in Ogden.  All of his housemates and the fabulous house manager were able to all move up there together.  Since it is a bigger home they were able to add another housemate to their crew.  It was one of Matthew’s friends from Special Olympics so he was pretty excited about that.

Daniel loves driving the truck because it is a standard transmission and it is becoming a lost art to be able to drive a manual transmission.  He decided to drive the truck on a date with Katie.  They drove out to Antelope Island to watch the sunset.  

Well the day came for Daniel’s surgery for his nasopalatine duct cyst removal yesterday.  He was pretty nervous about it.  He was also bothered that he couldn’t eat or drink anything starting the night before.  When we got to the oral surgeon’s office he was a bit hangry.

They had him put on some 100% oxygen by mask before they came in to start his IV.

Afterward he was pretty crazy and funny while he was coming out of anesthesia.  Here is just one of many hilarious clips:

They sliced the top of his mouth from canine tooth to canine tooth and peeled back the flap of skin.  They then had to go through a small part of bone in his upper jaw to reach the cyst to cut it out.  Afterward they had to stitch that flap of skin down to his palate.  He got stitches between each of his teeth.  Here you can see the bruised area behind his teeth:

Here’s the stitches between each tooth.  They should dissolve from 3-10 days.

He has a follow up appointment in three weeks so we can know the pathology of the cyst.  Of all the crazy and weird things to have....Here you can see the flap of skin they sewed closed:

I have texted Josh to see how he is doing.  I mostly get a few pictures and not many words, but I will take it.  Here’s some of the pictures he has sent us during his time as an FSY counselor: