Wound Care Again, Matching, Dance Recital, Father’s Day, Camp, FSY, Syracuse Temple, Parade

Here is an update about our family. Sarah started her CNA program. We both got to wear scrubs that day. I wore them to work and she wore them to class. We just need to catch Josh in his scrubs and get a triplet scrubs picture--haha!

She also got a job at an assisted living facility thanks to Daniel’s girlfriend Katie who works there. Katie is sweet. Sarah did all her on boarding for the new job this week. She had to get her TB test done as well as be fingerprinted and background check. Sarah gave her two weeks notice to Little Caesars last week. We are a bit sad because now we don’t have a pizza guy anymore.  We will have to try and talk Noah into getting a job there when he turns 16....

Sarah also had the fun experiencing of getting a flat tire, but not noticing until she had driven around town. UGH!!  Thankfully the rim was okay, but the tire was not. We got it fixed, but we need to take it back to get the matching tire on the other side replaced. I HATE spending money on tires...Oh well at least they are working now.

Anyway, Sarah had her dance recital this past week. It is always fun to watch what she has been working on the last few months. Here’s her dance company head shot in the dance recital program:

Here’s some pictures from her four different dances:

Her Pointe dance:

Sarah got to be a dance teacher this year for a younger group.  At the end of the dance recital all the teachers got recognized. Sarah is the first one one the left:

You could see Sarah helping her class during their performance from the side of the stage.  Here’s her hand I happened to catch--haha:

Grandma T came to watch, but we didn’t grab a picture. Here’s Sarah with Aaron after the performance:

Matthew got to do his first week of three at Camp K a few weeks ago.  He loved it. His counselor kept a journal of activities which we got a copy of when we picked him up.  He got to ride horses, do the ropes course, go to the pool, and all kinds of activities. Here’s the journal:

Here’s his group at this week of Camp K:

For the talent show Matthew showed everyone how fast he can run. At the end of camp he got the Best Runner award:

Josh started his long three week stretch as FSY Area Coordinator two weeks ago. Aaron and I had to pick Matthew up from Camp K so Josh had to ride the Frontrunner train down to Provo to catch his shuttle to Las Vegas. Frontrunner only runs once an hour on Saturdays.  We were very pressed for time in making sure Josh would make the train in time to catch the shuttle. Josh was still packing minutes AFTER we should have left the house. Luckily, I know how to drive fast so he got to the train platform two minutes before the train got there. Phew! Being at least on time or early is VERY important to Aaron so he was stressing out enough for him and Josh.  Josh is so laid back and wasn’t worried about it.  I was actually getting nervous that he would not make the train. Anyway, they got there on the platform right before the train got there. Here’s Aaron helping Josh to the platform:

What was frustrating is 30 minutes into the Frontrunner ride, they got stalled because there was a car on the tracks.  Now let me preface that if Josh misses that shuttle from Provo to Las Vegas he has to find his own way down there which would be a HUGE headache.  He called us when they got stalled on the track and he was starting to get nervous so you know that it must have been a big deal if he was nervous about it.  Thankfully, UTA was able to round up some buses to transport all the passengers to the next running stop so they could continue on their way. Josh made the shuttle with 20 minutes to spare. phew!  He didn’t get a chance to eat lunch, but what can you do?!

Josh is a funny kid. During his Area Coordinator training two weeks ago down at UVU he parked under a tree full of birds for a week. He didn’t want to pay for a car wash so when he filled up his gas tank on his way home he got the free squeegee and squeegeed down his whole car. You can see the squeegee lines on the back window and trust me they are all over the rest of the car, too. Ugh...

Here’s our Diva dog just chillin on my nice blanket. She is so spoiled!

Josh is enjoying being an FSY Area Coordinator so far. He is currently in Las Vegas where it has been so hot this week. 

He was able to meet up with an old missionary companion who lives down there which was cool:

He enjoyed his Saturday morning off by exploring Vegas:

He likes the people he works with  which is good!

He found a baby bird during one of his study times. Here it is by his notebook:

Daniel got transferred up to a corner of South Dakota. He has LOVED being there so far. He gets along well with his companion and they are working hard. Here is a picture from Zone Conference:

Elder Mancil just dorking around:

Noah’s bike had some brake issues. Aaron and Noah worked on it together two Saturdays ago. They weren’t able to finish it because Aaron needed to order some parts, but they got some time together while working on it. Hopefully they can get it fixed soon. Brakes are kind of important--haha!

Last week we had Matthew’s annual meeting with all his support team including his house manager Allison, his case manager Ali, his Chrysalis Team, his behaviorist, his job coach and his boss. It was a big meeting.  We met together to evaluate last year’s goals and see how Matthew was doing with them. Matthew passed almost all of his last years goals off. We set a bunch of new goals for this upcoming year. They let Matthew lead the meeting and he really enjoyed being in charge. He got off topic quite a bit, but after a few tries he would get back on track. He has really progressed from where he was at age 2 when the future was so uncertain.  It has been crazy, but we are grateful for all the things he is able to do.

The Syracuse Temple was dedicated on Aaron and my wedding anniversary which was pretty cool. Later that week we were able to do an endowment session with Grandma T and an additional Initiatory session.  It is so awesome to have a temple so close!!

Friday Aaron and Grandma T had their first Temple ordinance worker shifts. They happen to be working the same shift which was funny because that was not planned. Anyway, they both enjoyed it. Aaron is one of the Baptistry Leads. He said the first shift was a bit crazy since not everyone knew what was going on. However, Noah and his friend had a baptistry appointment so Aaron got to see them. That was fun. Noah ended up going again later that evening because another baptistry appointment opened up. Did I say it is really nice to have a temple five minutes away from our house?!?

Today it was only me and Noah around. We decided to go and do some Top Golf. My golf game totally stunk today, but we had fun.  On the way home we stopped by to pick up some treats for Noah who leaves for Youth Conference tomorrow.

Two weeks ago Noah and I started rehearsing with the community marching band. They only perform at the City 4th of July parade so we only practice on Monday evenings in June.  It is fun to be able to play with Noah. He does percussion and I do the flute.  Only two more weeks of practice before the parade so I got to start really practicing--haha!

This last Saturday Noah got to be in the city parade with the youth council. Aaron and I got to watch. It was so weird to only be me and him at a parade!  Josh was at FSY, Sarah was taking the ACT test. It was fun, though.

Here’s the city youth council:

Here’s Noah as he walked by us in the parade:

Later on that day Sarah’s dance company got to dance on the city stage. Here’s a few more pictures of dance:

Sarah doing the splits:

Father’s Day was this past Sunday. Sarah and Noah fixed Aaron breakfast in bed:

Josh who was in Las Vegas for FSY called later that morning to talk to Aaron. Daniel called that evening to talk to Aaron. Matthew went with his house manager  to pick up a Father’s Day gift of a basket full of grilling supplies for Aaron. Matthew was so excited to give it to Aaron. It was sweet.

I am so grateful for Aaron and the wonderful example he is as a dad. I missed my dad this year. He was a great example as a dad, too.

Aaron chose to have lasagna for dinner with garlic bread. YUM!!  He enjoyed that dinner because he was going to start his colonoscopy prep later that evening and would only be able to drink clear liquids for the next 36 hours. His colonoscopy prep was pretty rough. He worked from home while doing his prep Monday, but I don’t know how much work got done....Thankfully he was one of the first patients of the day so he was done and we were leaving the facility by 9 am. He also got a clean bill of health and won’t need another one for 10 years. Wahoo!

Aaron continues to visit the wound care clinic. His wound is all the way down to his muscle layer on his shin. Today’s visit wasn’t the best news. He has to restart an antibiotic and do dressing changes more often. The doctor got down inside the wound and cleaned it out. It was super painful. The doctor had to stop and recline Aaron since he went a bit pale during the clean out and he was afraid he was about to pass out. Here’s a picture from last week’s visit. I didn’t get one from the visit today. 

The doctor did tell Aaron he needed to elevate his leg above his heart as often as he can and gave him some support stockings to help with the swelling. So he gets to Netflix and chill, but for old people where that means exactly what it says--haha!

He has to be the cook for the Stake AP camp next week. There is a small chance he might not be able to go because it isn’t healing as well as it should be. We will wait and see what happens through the weekend.  Here’s a picture from two weeks ago:

From four days ago. It is 1 cm deep and 1.5 cm around on the inside:

It is so deep that I have to pack it with a long skinny piece of silver nitrate gauze.  Here’s how much fits inside his leg before I packed it in the wound:

We will have to visit the Wound Care Clinic weekly for the next long while.  They will follow him until there is no more wound. They said it will be at LEAST 2 months, but probably more. UGH!!

Wound Care, Gold Medals, Interview, Family Fun, Try Outs, Dance, Welding, Runs, Memorial Day, Summer

Another two weeks have passed. Things haven’t slowed down very much. Here’s what we have been up to.  

Sarah and Noah had their last day of school. I always try to take a first day and last day of school pictures and compare them at the end of school to see how they have changed throughout the year.  Here is their pictures. The top row was the first day the bottom row was the last day.  The last day of school I actually had to work and Sarah was not awake by the time I left. I snapped of picture of her still in bed, but she absolutely refused to let me use it so here is the last day of school pictures take two--haha!  She had Noah take the picture of her after she woke up and got ready for the day.

Sarah’s dance team have had a few performances at some care centers these past weeks. Here is one pictures from a short performance at one:

Sarah’s dance studio had dance team tryouts two Saturdays ago.  Here’s my cute dance before tryouts started:

Good luck hugs:

Two weekends ago it was Memorial Day. We stopped by Grandpa T’s grave with some flowers.

Grandma T was out of town over Memorial Day so we took her flowers to add to his grave in addition to ours.

We do miss him.

Since it was Memorial Day Weekend we did do some fun family things on Saturday since Josh was scheduled to work Monday. We went bowling:

Then we went out to lunch at Cafe Rio. I had been saving up my reward points so we had enough points to pay for everyone’s lunch. That was awesome!! 

Monday Josh had to be at work by 6am and work the whole day.  Later that morning we had a time reserved to play some Top Golf for the rest of us including Matthew. Right as we were leaving to go down there, Josh called and said it was really slow at work and that he wasn’t needed for the rest of his shift. He got to drive down and meet us there so we could all play together. That was awesome!

Everyone taking a turn:

It was a fun day!

Tuesday Sarah had a study visit down at the U of U for three hours. Afterward we stopped by and split a yummy Philly cheesesteak sandwich lunch at Moochie’s.

Noah has decided to try out Cross Country this summer. It doesn’t start until next week, but Josh has been running with Noah. They have run a few trail runs and even a 7.5 mile run.  Here’s a few pictures from their running adventures from past the Syracuse Temple to the Indian Trail. I don’t know why Josh is pulling a dorky face, but he said they had fun:

They both also love sushi and try to go when they get a chance:

One of Noah’s Young Men leaders works as a welding teacher tat the local technical college. Every year he lets the boys come to the shop to hear about welding and then lets them make something. This year Noah made a dice cube.  This thing was quite substantial. It is 5 inches cubed and is HEAVY!  It was pretty cool to know that Noah made it, though.

Well Aaron’s Karma has gotten a bit more complicated.  If you want to read about the original story you can see it here https://themancilfamily1.blogspot.com/2025/05/concerts-good-news-excellence.html.  The short version is that Aaron was dorking off and slipped at Costco a few weeks ago. He ended up doing the splits (OUCH) and his front leg slipped under the shopping cart and got gouged on his shin pretty bed as well as giving him a pretty big goose egg.  Unfortunately, the wound has not healed and has been steadily getting worse.  I made him go in to the Instant Care Wednesday afternoon. The doctor looked at it and said he needed to debride/clean the wound and cut the eschar/dead tissue out and culture it. Thankfully he numbed it up before he did all that work. Afterward he started Aaron on an oral AND topical antibiotic and put in a referral for Aaron to go and see the wound clinic for follow up. Aaron was supposed to cleanse and redress the wound at least twice a day. That was not a fun way to spend an afternoon, but what can you do?! Here he is before he got any work done:

Sarah had another performance at a care center later that evening. It was fun to watch:

Noah has been applying for a summer job. He even did an online Food Handler’s Course and got his Food Handler’s Permit. He had his first interview last week.  Unfortunately, it was on a day I had to work so Aaron was able to take him to his interview.  Aaron snapped a picture from his seat in the car of Noah’s outside interview. Aaron waited in the car while Noah interviewed. Unfortunately, Noah just wanted a summer job and the potential employer wanted a year round worker so it didn’t work out. I am just glad he got a chance to fill out an application, put a resume together and a chance to interview in person.  Wahoo! 

Matthew got to go down to Cedar City last Thursday through Saturday for Special Olympics.  He has been so excited! I was not able to go down to watch him since I had to work all day Thursday and Friday, but his house manager Allison sent us pictures of the event.   Matthew got to help carry a flag along with the police at the beginning of the athlete’s parade.  Did I mention that he was SO EXCITED?!

His house manager and a few other staff took 4 of Matthew’s housemates down there from Thursday through Saturday. They stayed in the dorms and those staff members must be super patient--haha!

Matthew participated in the mile run, half mile run and he did shot put. 

He got a gold medal in the mile and half mile races.  Here’s his podium stand moment. Wahoo!!

He was pretty excited to even help the staff pump gas when they needed to make a fuel stop on the way.

Here’s his medals--2 gold and 1 bronze:

After I got home from work Friday evening Aaron and I decided to walk down to the Farmer’s Market by our house.  It was such a beautiful evening.  We got there 30 minutes before they closed down, but it was fun to see all the things they had.

Saturday morning was Josh’s turn to volunteer with his YSA ward/stake at the Syracuse Temple. Josh got asked to be part of the medical team. The medical people were supposed to walk around checking in on all parts of the temple to make sure everyone was doing okay. Josh thought that was awesome because he got to see almost all the rooms of the entire temple. He sent us this picture while he was there:

Unfortunately, Aaron ended up in the Urgent Care again Saturday morning. His wound looked even more terrible than before and was incredibly painful. The wound’s redness and swelling was markedly increased from the previous Wednesday and it was concerning. Aaron also felt pretty crummy. That was terrible timing since it was his birthday as well. That is NOT the way you want to spend your birthday. BOO!  The doctor took a look at the wound and recultured the wound since the original culture didn’t grow anything. There obviously was some kind of infection going on, but the original culture didn’t capture anything. The doctor also ordered a bunch of bloodwork. The poor medical assistant tried to draw his blood, but really struggled. It took her 4 tries to get all the blood they needed. She still wasn’t able to get everything. The nurse came in and did another stick to get the blood. The doctor started Aaron on another oral antibiotic in addition to the one he was already on. By the time we left Urgent Care poor Aaron looked like a pin cushion. They did clean up and redress the wound. Good thing they had some BYU blue coban/tape--it almost made things okay. The crazy thing is that after we had left Urgent Care--we got a call 20 minutes later saying that one of the blood samples had clotted and he needed to come back in to get stuck AGAIN for another blood draw.  Thankfully, they sent this order to the hospital outpatient lab so a regular phlebotomist drew it without any issues. He was SO DONE with blood draws at the end of all that--the poor guy!  Anyway, he has an appointment tomorrow morning with wound care to see what they say about his wound. Wish him luck!! Those Costco carts must have some nasty bugs growing on them--YUCK!!

We were at the Urgent Care all morning into the afternoon. When we left I came home and made one of Aaron’s favorite dinners--chicken Alfredo. 

The next day since we would be having Matthew and Grandma T to celebrate Aaron’s birthday we had homemade beef stew and some cheesecake for his birthday cake. 40+ candles burn pretty bright--haha!

He got some fun stuff as presents. I am thankful for him and was glad to celebrate his birthday.

This past Monday Matthew got to go to Camp K for a week of residential camp. Aaron had to take him to drop him off that morning since I had to work. Matthew was pretty excited. Aaron grabbed this picture before he had to head into work afterward. 

Josh also started another week of Assistant Area Coordinator/ FSY counselor training this week. He left Sunday afternoon and will be back Friday evening. He did send these pictures of what he has been up to:

Sarah hung out with friends over the weekend. She lost a game that they played and this was the punishment. Her friends did some crazy makeup on her and took pictures. Sarah was supposed to post them on social media, but they took pity on her and ultimately didn’t make her post the pictures. She said they were okay to post here, though.

Sarah signed up to do a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) course over June. She had her first day yesterday. She got to wear her scrubs for the first time today. She let me grab a picture before she left for school this morning.

Yesterday I had the day off from work. It was only Noah and me at home so we decided to go down and play a round of Top Golf. It was pretty fun.

I got my highest score ever on a game so I grabbed a picture of it. Wahoo. I don’t usually play very well, but I was on fire yesterday and I had to show proof--haha!

Daniel’s P-day got moved this week from Monday to Tuesday so we got to talk to him last night. We invited Katie over to join us as well. It was fun chatting with him. He will be transferred to South Dakota for the next two transfers most likely. That is crazy since his mission is Omaha, NE, but Sioux Falls South Dakota sounds like an interesting place. Here’s Daniel saying goodbye:

Goodbye to Elkhorn, NE:

His last P-day in Elkhorn:

Like I said, Katie joined us for Daniel’s P-day Call. Josh also got to join us as well on the call even though he was down in Orem. Technology is pretty awesome! Daniel is excited for the change and can’t wait to see what the next area will be like.

CNS closed the Clearfield Walk-in Clinic back in December. That means I have not gotten to see my coworkers very much since then. We were able to get together for a lunch today which was really fun. It was great to catch up with everyone over a long lunch. There was Donna, Jana, me, Becky W. Becky R. Maryann, and Talea. We miss working with everyone, but hopefully will get a chance to see everyone at some point during the upcoming immunization clinics and/or the flu vaccination season that will start in September.