Concerts, Good News, Excellence, Volunteering, Mother’s Day, FSY Training, Karma, News Story

Here’s the last two weeks.  Noah finished off his rec soccer spring season. I am sad because that means he is done with city rec soccer since they only go up through 9th grade. Here’s a team picture:

An action shot:

The junior high had their Evening of Excellence.  They asked the Jazz Band to play prelude music as people were coming in to sit down.  I grabbed a quick picture of Noah at the piano as I walked to my seat:

Noah got recognized as being on the High Honor Roll with his 3.985 GPA. Wahoo!

Noah got to shake everyone’s hands:

Then be goofy with the principal:

Friday night Noah has friends over at our house pretty often.  Since we have a pizza guy (girl in this case) we drive over to Little Caesar’s to see our pizza dealer who gives us a sweet family discount on a bunch of pizzas to feed a bunch of boys:

Saturday, May 10th was the opening day of the Syracuse Temple Openhouse.  Our family was lucky enough to get spots to help out the open house by being ushers inside of the temple. We were pretty excited.  Here we are before we went inside to get our usher training:

It was pretty awesome to have our whole family there minus Daniel of course, but we will give him a pass this once--haha! As an usher we were only supposed to help with the flow of visitors by pointing out the way through the temple, but not speak.  I was nervous about the not speaking part since we were going to have Matthew with us.  I got even more nervous when they stationed me and Matthew both in the Celestial Room--the room that represents being in the presence of Heavenly Father, so a very reverent place. To keep it reverent by not speaking was very important there, but Matthew being Matthew HAS to speak.  I think his poor body has so much stored energy that if he went three hours without not speaking he would probably explode....After the first few minutes I gave up on trying to keep him from speaking.  I just spent the rest of our time trying to keep him at a quiet, reverent voice level as he waved and greeted EVERY patron with, "Welcome to the Temple!” as they walked through the Celestial Room doors. Amazingly enough I had quite a few people come up to me as they were leaving the Celestial Room and tell me that is how they envision returning to heaven will be like--someone so excited to see them and welcome them home--if that makes sense. It was an amazing experience. Aaron, Noah, Josh, Matthew and I were stationed in or just outside of the Celestial Room as ushers. Sarah was asked to do a speaking part in the baptistry so she wasn’t with us the whole time we volunteered. When our replacements spelled us out we followed the rest of the flow of patrons to the end of the tour.  We waited outside for Sarah to join us and then grabbed this picture:

Then we went and picked of Grandma T to join us for our own open house ticket time at 7:15 pm. It was fun to go all the way the temple on our own tour after we had just volunteered.  It is so beautiful inside!  Here’s a group shot:

Aaron even ran into a family that he grew up living by in Texas.  What a small world!

The next morning was Mother’s Day. The kids were amazing! They made me breakfast in bed consisting of toast, bacon, strawberry lemonade and an omelet. They all wrote me a sweet note and I got some fancy goodies.

I got some of my favorite candy--peach rings, cinnamon square candy, three different Monster drinks, and this cool mug:

I LOVED it!! Matthew also made this sweet bouquet for me at his group home:

I got a pretty flower basket as well:

Later that afternoon we went and had a family dinner at my brother Bryan’s house.  It was good to catch up with everyone and celebrate all the moms especially Grandma T.  Bryan had a tight rope set up in his backyard.  I tried walking it, but it is a lot harder than it looks to keep your balance. It was about 3 inches off the ground. It is a good thing Josh and Noah were on either side of me so I could grab on when I wobbled.

I would be a terrible tight rope walker--haha!

Sarah had a youth activity where they toured the Syracuse temple.  She grabbed this cool picture as they were leaving:

Sarah has also discovered a thrift clothing store by our house. Her and her friends go there.  Here is her last haul she got from there:

Josh had his first Area Coordinator/Core leadership FSY training down at BYU last week.  He left Monday morning and came home Friday evening late.  He then left again Sunday afternoon to head down to UVU for FSY Counselor Training and will come back late Friday evening.  From the pictures he has shared it looks like he is having a lot of fun!

Last year he was just an FSY counselor.  This year he got the opportunity to be an Assistant Area Coordinator which is awesome because they get paid a lot more.

Josh is always easy to spot--just look for the super tall guy.

Josh got some amazing news last week--HE GOT ACCEPTED INTO HIS MAJOR PROGRAM IN COLLEGE. He was so excited! He got accepted into the Medical Laboratory Sciences major which is amazing.  It is a competitive program so we are so excited that he got in! Wahoo!

What was fun is during Daniel’s P-Day call Monday evening Josh got to join in from Provo. So Daniel was in Omaha, Josh was in Provo, and we were in Clinton. That was pretty cool!

Noah had his very last band concert this past week.  It was also Aaron and my very last Jr High concert ever at least until any possible grandkids.  That is crazy to me!  We got to watch Noah play the piano and keyboard:

Here’s the Advanced Band:

Noah got to play the marimba:

Snare:

Base drum:

Marimba:

The Jazz Band:

I can’t believe we won’t have anymore kids in Jr. High.  It makes me a bit sad, but glad for Noah. Jr. High can be hard for the best of people.  It will be nice for him to move onto High school.

Noah is looking forward to the summer.  He just completed his online Food Handlers program and got his permit. He is now looking for a job.  He is also going to do high school Cross country.  I went with him to the mandatory parent meeting last night.  

In keeping busy last week I got a text while I was at work.  It was from Noah asking if it would be okay to use our clippers to shave his friend’s head....ugh.  I said as long as the kid’s parents are okay with it I was okay with it.  Here was the aftermath.  At least they did it outside:

Aaron had a bit of a casualty this past Saturday.  We were at Costco.  Now when I grocery shop I tend to walk fast to pick up the items I need.  Aaron is more of a moseyer.  Sometimes I don’t have a lot of patience with that, but he likes to tease me.  I was walking fast to go around a corner when to tease me he speed walked with the cart to try and lead me into a corner pillar to be funny. I was turning to give him my super annoyed look when all of a sudden he fell. In his haste to try and cut me off with the shopping cart to be funny, he missed seeing a HUGE smashed strawberry on the concrete floor and stepped right on it.  It made him slip and fall, but in the process he did the splits. OUCH!  One leg went backwards and gave him a huge carpet/cement? burn on his knee.  His other leg went forward and banged his shin right into the bottom of the cart gouging a nice hole in his skin and forming a HUGE goose egg. He has never been able to the do the splits in his life, but he managed to do it this time. He NEVER wants to ever do them EVER again, though. He was overall okay, just some cement burns, a gouge mark in his shin, pulled a hamstring, etc. I told him he shouldn’t have been teasing me...karma and all that--hahaha!  He is almost at a place that he can laugh about it. In the meantime I will do enough laughing for the both of us--haha! Here’s some picture of his huge goose egg with gouge mark on his shin:

The pictures don’t do it justice. It is pretty bruised and swollen.  

His poor body has been pretty sore, though.  Ibuprofen has been his close friend the past few days....As for his pride damage, I am not sure anything can fix that--haha!

This is the very last week of school.  Sarah has done all her assignments and taken all her tests so I guess attendance at school this week is optional.  Since she is the only one home during the day I took advantage of it and took her out for sushi yesterday. YUM!

The Special Olympics did their torch run through our area yesterday.  Matthew’s team and group home went to participate. The news did a story about it and it was fun to spot Matthew in the different video clips they played about the story.  Here’s a few screen shots I grabbed of him in the news story:

Here he is hamming it up for the camera:

His house manager sent us this picture of Matthew at the opening ceremony yesterday:

We share a google photo drive with Daniel. That means every time he downloads any new pictures we can see them.  I don’t have any context or explanation of the pictures, but it is still fun to see what he and his companion have been up to:

I know Daniel got to go on splits a few times:

They have had a quite a few tornado watches and warnings.  He took this picture to be funny:

Zone Conference was this week:

Hike, Driving, New Job, Meets, Soccer, Bike, Missionary, Ice Bucket Challenge, Temple, Travel, Band

Here is what our family has been up to in the last two weeks. Josh finished his finals.  He tries to make it a goal to run/hike the Waterfall Canyon trail after each final. He talked Noah into going with him again this round. They had fun. Here’s a few pictures:

Josh must have a guardian angel watching out for him....There was still snow on parts of the trail which made it slick.  He slipped and his ear bud fell out of his ear.  Amazingly enough instead of dropping into the creek, it got caught around some branches and was saved from a watery grave. 

Josh gave a huge sigh of relief when he spotted it stuck in the branches:

Aaron has been trying to adjust the temperature of the fridge in the garage to make sure it stays cold enough to store food out there. He turned it up a few notches too high and how we found out is Noah got this bulging can of soda from the fridge. I am shocked it didn’t already explode in the fridge, however, Noah brought it in the kitchen and then decided to open it there. That is when it exploded and sprayed EVERYWHERE in the kitchen.  Wouldn’t you know it, the kitchen had just been cleaned from top to bottom right before that happened. DOH!!  Good thing I love him...

I promptly went and turned down the temperature in the fridge and checked the remaining sodas out there.  

Noah got his Learner’s Permit and we have not taken him driving yet.  He keeps asking to go, but we have been busy and not had time.  Besides Aaron and I are having a side argument oh I mean discussion about whose turn it is to teach him to drive. Aaron has been gracious enough to have been the one to mostly teach the other kids how to drive. He is trying to tell me it is my turn with Noah to teach him fully how to drive. I am not liking his opinion even though I really should take one for the team in this instance--haha!  I just have major control issues when it comes to operating the car.  It is really anxiety inducing to try and teach a kid how to drive.  However, I did bite the bullet and take him out in the church parking lot a few Saturdays ago. Noah has a friend who lives on about an acre of property.  Occasionally Noah’s friend’s dad will let him drive their truck around on their property in 20 feet stretches when he is helping them with whatever chores they occasionally need done.  Since Noah considers himself an ‘experienced driver’ after driving a truck in 20 feet stretches at two different times he thought driving a regular car in the church parking lot would be easy.  He occasionally can be a bit all knowing/stubborn as well (aren’t we all that way sometimes?!) so I knew driving with him might prove to be a bit difficult since I would need to correct/teach him at times.  Anyway, we got started.  Noah was a bit humbled because it wasn’t as easy as he thought for ‘an experienced driver’ haha!  I had him drive around the parking lot and practice parking, quick stops/starts, and using turn signals for almost two hours and he still doesn’t have it down quite yet.  I had to take a funny selfie as we got started--haha!

Noah had a track meet last week.  He got to try high jump for the first time.

There was a steep learning curve for him as he had never done this before.  I had done high jump way back when I was in junior high.  I tried to tell him the technique for it, but it is hard to explain without showing it. Even though he never got the jump quite down, I am proud of him for at least trying something new.

He also got to run the 4x200 meter race. Here is the baton handoff on Noah’s leg of the race:

Noah also got to run the 800 meter run:

Noah has still been doing soccer.  Here he is throwing the ball into the game:

Matthew has been working hard and saving his money.  Since he is receiving DSPD and SSI benefits he can only have a max of $2,000 in his account at any time before it starts affecting his benefits. When his total starts creeping up toward that $2,000 he has to do a ’spend down’. This next spend down he chose to use his money to buy a bike and a helmet.  He was so proud.  His house manager sent us this picture of his new bike. Matthew is pretty excited:

Matthew’s last day of work before he gets done for the summer is next week.  He is really sad he has to wait until the fall to start up work again.  I am so glad he loves his job so much!

Daniel had District Council recently. Here’s a picture from that with the Mission President’s wife who visited their meeting:

He has also been doing some Facebook live segments.  Here’s a few pictures from his most recent one yesterday:

They played Spiritual Jenga.  He continues to do well on his mission.  We got to chat with him Monday evening. We love the P-day calls.

Sarah got nominated to participate in the Ice Bucket challenge for mental health.  She nominated a few people to do it as well before she got dunked:

It was time for Sarah to get some lab work done to check her liver levels.  Amazingly enough her liver enzyme levels were the lowest they have ever been. Don’t get me wrong they were still high/out of range compared to the normal range, but they were lower than they ever have been. The ursodiol medication seems to be working which is awesome.  However, her hematocrit and hemoglobin were quite low.  I think she lost a lot of blood with her Wisdom teeth in addition to other female issues.  She has been pale, dizzy and lightheaded a lot lately and I guess that explains why.  The doctor said to get her on some high dose iron and he wants to redo labs in two months.  Sarah really felt terrible the last time she went to dance.  It was a grueling practice and she was struggling to keep up and not pass out. Hopefully she can feel better soon!! I was just really excited that her liver levels were lower than last time!  Wahoo!

It is almost the end of the school year which means lots of end of year projects.  Sarah has been working on this project for the last two weeks.  That means that this project has lived on my kitchen table for the last two weeks.  We move it to eat dinner then it get moved back.  I will be glad when it gets turned in Friday!  I will be able to get my table back again--haha! Here’s the poster board she is using:

The Syracuse temple is getting ready to open which is exciting.  Aaron will be transferring as a temple worker from Ogden to Syracuse.  He has been asked to be a Baptistry Lead which means some extra training.  He has had two different trainings inside the Syracuse temple.  At the end of each training he has had a chance to take a tour.  I am jealous because I haven’t been able to see the inside yet.  Aaron assures me it is beautiful.  He took a selfie at his last training:

The first day of the Syracuse Temple open house will be this Saturday.  That means it will be open for the public to tour inside.  Our Stake was asked to provide all the volunteers for this Saturday.  Our family was lucky enough to get some slots as ushers from 3-6pm.  Since we will be ushering we got to get some training this past Sunday at our Stake Center.  I am excited to get to volunteer. Sarah even got a speaking part for the baptistry. The rest of us are supposed to just help usher and not talk.  I am sure this will be a difficult task for Matthew since he is a pretty social guy. I am planning on standing next to Matthew to try and remind him to keep quiet....I think this will be interesting....

They opened up reservations to do temple ordinances for Syracuse.  Aaron signed us up to do an endowment session the first week.  I am excited to have a temple so close!

Noah had a Jazz Band performance a few weeks ago at the high school to help with a fundraiser.  Since it was such a relaxed atmosphere it was hard to get a picture of the whole band and Noah playing the piano, but I tried.  Noah got a chance to do 5 different short solos during the whole time they performed.  That was pretty cool.

Noah and another girl switched back and forth from the piano and the keyboard for each song the band played. 

Speaking of Noah he got to play a musical number in Sacrament Meeting a few weeks ago.  He did a beautiful rendition of I Know My Redeemer Lives.  It was so pretty. I am glad he loves to play the piano.

Last week I got to go do an endowment session with my friend Erin.  Afterward we got to go out to lunch. It was a nice way to spend a morning/afternoon.  It is great to catch up and hang out for a few hours.

Aaron got to go on a business trip two weeks ago. He spent a day in Atlanta, Georgia then he flew up and spent the rest of the week in Washington D.C. While he was in D.C. he had an evening that was free and got to watch a Washington Nationals baseball game with another coworker:

He also got to see the Lincoln Memorial:

White House:

Library of Congress:

Capitol Building:

Arlington Cemetery:

Changing of the Guard:

Eternal Flame:

During that week he was gone was extremely busy for me.  I had two work trips down to the prison in Gunnison, Utah that week. I ended up putting over 900 miles on the car that week--it was a lot! Anyway,  that meant both of those days were very long.  I also had to single parent it to all the kids’ activities that week as well. I was glad when he got back into town again!!

I have been looking for a job since December/January.  Since I needed to keep my schedule open just in case I decided a few months ago not to go to Women’s Conference down at BYU this year.  I was sad about it, but what can you do?! As I waited and applied to many jobs, I finally got one two weeks ago.  I was so relieved! However, they didn’t need me to start until May 5th.  So last minute I had a friend reach out to me to say that had an opening in their group if I wanted to go to Women’s Conference. Since things lined up nicely I agreed.  I was able to attend the Thursday and Friday sessions which was really nice.  I didn’t think it would happen this year so a last minute invitation was awesome. I don’t have many pictures, but I do have one of the vent Aaron and I liked to sit on and talk while we were dating at BYU such a long time ago:

Here’s one quote I loved from the Conference:

As I said earlier I started my new job this past Monday.  I am a triage nurse at an OB/GYNs office.  I have a lot to learn/relearn as it is with any new job. The first day was overwhelming, but it will be great.  I will be working three days a week which will be more regular and consistent than what I am currently doing.  Aaron insisted on taking a first day of work picture before I left Monday morning. Hopefully this old dog can learn a few new tricks--keep your fingers crossed for me!!

When I got home from my first day Aaron had dinner prepared for me which was so sweet. He gets home before I do on the days I will be working.  Anyway, it was Cinco de Mayo so he made one of my favorites--street tacos. YUM!! We had enough time to scarf a few down before we went to Noah’s soccer game and then back home to talk to Daniel for his P-Day call.  It was a whirlwind of a day.