Frontrunner, 2nd Place, Non Deadly Milk Mustache, Cheating, Bigfoot

We have stayed busy so here's a quick update mostly of pictures of my family's happenings: 

Since Matthew has to stay after church to help clean up the trash from the cans since he's in young mens that means Aaron and I have to drive separately to church because I don't want to have to try and entertain 4 restless kids for 30 minutes while waiting for Matthew to be done.  Anyway last Sunday it was getting late so I told all the kids to go out and get in the car.  I had to take a quick potty call and when I was finished Aaron had already left in his car so I got in the other car to leave figuring all the kids were in the car already.  When I got in the car there was enough fighting going on so I figured all 5 kids were there.  When I walked into church Aaron asked where Sarah was.  Whoops!  Aaron went back home to find her still glued to the TV upstairs.  She had no idea that we had even left.  However, when she found out that had left her she was a little upset.  Oh well I guess I need to start doing headcounts before leaving for church.  

Two Saturdays ago we had the fun experience of touring the Frontrunner/UTA facilities.  Our tour guide, Canyon, had seen Matthew's story on the news and contacted us to see if Matthew would be interested in touring the UTA facilities, too.  Wow is the Pope Catholic?!  HEAVENS YES he would LOVE that.  So we set the date for July 26th.  We got in the car that Saturday morning and started driving to Salt Lake.  We didn't tell Matthew where we were going we just told the whole family it was a surprise.  When we pulled into the UTA parking lot Matthew got so excited.  And to add to his excitement as we were getting out of the car a Frontrunner train came by.  Matthew got pretty excited.  Here's a video clip:

KSL and the Deseret News newspaper wanted to do a follow up story so they were there at the UTA office when we got there.  As they were following us around on the tour they kept saying how contagious Matthew's enthusiasm and excitement was.  I have to agree, too.  Matthew was excited about any/every train he saw whether it was a picture, an actual train or train parts he would yell his excitement.  Our family even got a turn to all sit in the engineer's seat and toot the horn as well as push the buttons.  The commuter train we were in was on a side track getting repaired so it was not moving, but they turned the engine on for us and it was LOUD!  We got to walk through the engine car on our way to the engineer's seat as well which was really interesting.

 Canyon was our tour guide and Matthew took quite a liking to him.  When we were walking back from touring the broken train another Frontrunner was coming by.  Matthew instantly grabbed Canyon's hand and tried to pull him over to the track so they could watch the train go by together.  He was a really nice guy and loves trains as much as Matthew so that's why he works as a train engineer.

 This was Matthew's response to any time he saw a train picture, train, train parts, etc.:

 Touring inside the facility was interesting.  It was a really big place.  Aaron recognized some of the heavy duty equipment because they used some of the same lifts back when he worked on EFV (or the amphibious assault vehicle or as we call it the tank jetski) from his last area.  It was interesting to see all the work that goes into the maintenance of all the trains.

 Oh it was always a race to see who could push all the 'door open' buttons.  There was some fighting, but that's what happens when you have 5 competitive children....

 Matthew had the biggest smile on the whole time.

 After the tour they even let us ride a Frontrunner train down to West Jordan and back.  We got on the regular train with regular passengers which they were holding for us which was awesome.  When we started riding the train security came by and told us they had a special seat for Matthew.  They led us all up to the front of the train where they have a window seat that you can see the actual track you are riding on.  Matthew was so excited.  Here's a small video clip of the view:

At every stop Matthew tried to talk to our train engineer named Brenden, but it was a bit hard since the engineer's seat was completely closed off from where the public could sit.

Brenden was nice enough to let Matthew inside the engineer area for a minute.  He even let Matthew push the door closed button for the entire train.  He was so excited.  I think all the passengers heard his squeals their whole ride throughout the whole train.

We made it back to our original station.  It was such a fun morning.  We all learned a lot and enjoyed seeing how the innards of Frontrunner runs.

Here's the actual follow up news story that aired a few hours after our visit:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=30883133

Here's the newspaper follow up story as well:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865607603/Tracks-of-Memories-Boy-12-gets-tour-of-FrontRunner-train.html?pg=all

The funny thing was after all this the local newspaper the Standard Examiner called to see if they could interview Matthew for a story in their paper, too.  It printed last Friday.

Here's an online link to the Standard Examiner's story that printed:

http://www.standard.net/Local/2014/07/27/Train-Conductor-stops-train-for-Autistic-boy.html

It has been interesting to see how far this act of kindness has gone.  I am so grateful for this wonderful engineer to take time out of his day to make the day of a 12 year old autistic boy.  The fall out has been wonderful for him.  He's gotten so many opportunities that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise.  It's all around AWESOME!!

In other happenings we have hired a new lawn boy--Josh.  Aaron saw the neighbor boy who is the same age as Josh mowing his lawn so he decided he would let Josh try our mowing our lawn.  It is a symbiotic relationship because our lawn gets mowed and Josh earns $5 and thinks it is great pay and a lot of money.  Wahoo!  However, I think we may give him a raise the longer he mows the lawn because that is a really low wage....I don't want to get in trouble with child labor laws--haha!!

 Sarah makes sure her pillow pet has a pretty on and comes to show me how pretty it is.  She is funny.

 Good news!  We found out the results of our Clinton Days 5k race.  Daniel and Matthew won 2nd place in their age division.  Josh came in 4th just out of medal range, but they all did great!  I don't think Daniel has taken his medal off since he's gotten it.

 Just playing with my phone:

 Daniel is doing well with his oral immunotherapy with milk.  He is up to 60 mls (1/4 cup) twice a day and it's wonderful.  We still have our doctor's visits every 4 days which is getting really old since each visit is at least two hours long.  Let me just say trying to entertain 4 kids during that whole time is not fun to do AT ALL!!  Good thing Matthew is at his summer program and he is taken care of!  Anyway, we only have 5 weeks left of the treatment if all goes well.  Every visit they check his lung function test which is what he's doing here:

 He gets so much milk (1/4 cup) they have to pour it into a cup for him to drink.  Here's his very first non reactive milk mustache:

 We have been so excited with his progress that we have been cheating a bit.  We have let him try a few peanut M&Ms, a bite of alfredo sauce, a small bite of a Crunch bar, Hot Fudge Sundae flavored Poptarts and we even let him have his very first bite of pizza EVER the other day.  He didn't like it, but it was just a small bite.

Oh it is so fun to see his reactions to all this new food he has never tried before.  It's really fun, but we can't let him go too crazy with tastes because he still is somewhat reactive to milk.  As long as we can cheat with a small taste of different things here and there it is great.  I can't wait until he can try everything.  Grandpa T has promised him an ice cream cone when he can eat it safely so Daniel can't wait.


Matthew is getting so big!  He is only a few inches shorter than I am, however, his feet are now a lot bigger than mine.  The other day Aaron measured Matthew's feet up next to his size 11.5 feet and they're a lot closer in size than I thought they'd be.  Maybe we should nickname him bigfoot...:).

Saturday morning was the free day at the North Shore Aquatic Center up in North Ogden.  We went swimming as a family.  It was really crowded, but really fun.  Josh even talked Matthew and me in to jumping off the high diving board.  Wow I haven't done that in YEARS and to get Matthew to go off it that was pretty impressive.  We had so much fun and succeeded in truly wearing out the kids!!  WAHOO!!

When Matthew's train story first aired we got a call from a Union Pacific Engineer who wanted to give Matthew a few things.  He stopped by with his wife this past Saturday afternoon for a visit after we got home from swimming that morning.  They even went the extra mile and ordered him an official pair of overalls.  Oh he was so excited!

 He gave him a really neat pocket watch, Union Pacific water bottle, a few Union Pacific pins, a Union Pacific lunch box, and two really neat Union Pacific commemorative coins.  Matthew was excited.

 Of course Matthew HAD to wear and take along all his stuff to his summer program the following Monday.  He was so excited to show all his summer program leaders.  What a really nice guy!  He lives out in Tooele and was out here just to visit.  I am amazed by all the genuine outpouring of kindness from everyone!! Here's Train Conductor Matthew ready for his day:

Our garden has gone crazy this year!!  The last few years it hasn't done much, but this year it is doing so well.  We have zucchini's coming out our ears.  I have lost count how many loaves of zucchini bread I have made.  Good thing it freezes well!  

In a few weeks we will probably be having cantaloupes coming out our ears since our one and only cantaloupe plant went crazy.  We might have to start doorbell ditching our cantaloupes and zucchinis to the neighbors--haha.  I have always loved this Pickles comic strip because it will apply to us this year:

 Tuesday morning after running errands we came home.  We keep our garden produce on the counter so anyone can eat it if they want.  After walking in the door I was really surprised to see Sarah munching down a jalapeno pepper.  I watched her after she took a few bites just expecting her to start crying because it was so hot.  I was wrong.  She LIKED it.  I don't know whose daughter she is because she can't be related to me because I am such a wimp when it comes to spicy things.

In keeping busy Monday we tried out the new Syracuse Aquatics Center that opened up about 6 weeks ago.  It was a lot of fun.  I think I still like the Clearfield Aquatics Center better, but it was still fun to try out.  Summer is going by so fast and there are so many things I still want to do before school starts.  It is crazy!