Sick, Peach Jam, Conference, Green Goo, Pinewood Derby, Football

We have had a crazy 10 days!!  Here's a catch up of our happenings.  Noah is a great charmer and can get anyone easily wrapped around his little finger--especially me.  We have an empty lot by our house that has lots of overgrowth.  However, there are these pretty Black Eyed Susans that grow there.  Every day Noah picks one and brings it to me as he is walking home from school.  I love it!!  He even makes sure he gives it a drink by placing it in some water.  It is so sweet.

We did have some excitement on September 22.  I was at work, the kids had just walked in the door from school, Matthew was at his afterschool program when a HUGE storm hit.  It was super windy and rainy.  Then all of a sudden about a mile from Matthew's program a tornado touched down.  Scary!!  Luckily, it didn't get closer to where Matthew was, however, it took out all of the power lines.  Matthew's staff tried to get him home right after, but it took them a good 2 1/2 hours just to drive 8 miles just to get him back since all the traffic lights were out.  It was crazy here I can only imagine how crazy it was where they were!! I am just glad they were safe!

About 10 days ago I was going on 2 weeks of being sick with a cold that just wouldn't go away.  It was then my ear started aching.  Boo!  By Friday afternoon I was in some pain and my regular doctor had no open appointments.  I didn't want to go all weekend with an horrible ear ache and an ear I couldn't hear anything out of so I went in to the Instacare.  Sure enough the doctor looked in my ear and saw a bulging, red ear drum and gave me some antibiotics for my ear infection.  I thought I would start feeling better quickly, however, I was wrong.  My ear started getting worse and worse.  It hurt so bad.  If I didn't HAVE to do something, my ear was glued to the heating pad because it was painful.  It was keeping me up at night, too which didn't help things.  However, the worst thing was when I got up at midnight Sunday night/Monday morning to find the heating pad, as soon as I sat up in bed the infection started dripping out of my ear and down my neck.  Gag!!  I called my regular doctor Monday morning and luckily he was able to get me in that afternoon.  My ear was still oozing lots of green goo so the doctor could definitely see there was a nice infection going on.  Ick!!  He looked in my ear and saw that my ear canal was swollen shut so I had an inner ear and outer ear infection going on.  He took a sample of the green goo to culture, gave me a stronger pill antibiotic and antibiotic drops to put in my ear canal to try and clear it up.  It took a good 5 days to stop throbbing and oozing, but I am so excited to say that I am on the mend!!  Wahoo!  I still can't hear out of that side, but it is not throbbing anymore and I will take that.  Hopefully, my hearing will come back soon especially since I have to interact with quite a few people in my job and actually need to hear what they are saying.  I just have to make sure they speak into my right ear and watch them talk so I can try and read lips.  It is crazy, but I am glad to finally be feeling better!

Two Fridays ago Aaron got invited to a U of U/USC game.  Since I had a date with the heating pad for my ear Aaron was more than happy to go along with Blaine Einzinger.  They had some good seats, too.

 

As anyone knows Aaron is a devout BYU fan, but can appreciate a good football game even if it is the U of U playing.  He had a great time.  Thanks for the invite Blaine!

The next Saturday morning Daniel had a Lacrosse game out in Park City.  Seeing as I wasn't feeling very well Aaron took Matthew along to watch Daniel's game.  It was freezing cold, but it was a fun time.  Daniel is still learning how to play, but it is a fun and fast paced game to watch.

Like Aaron said it was pretty cold and windy there.  Good thing they were prepared with sweatshirts and blankets.

Last Sunday we had a family party to celebrate Grandma T's birthday.  We all got together at my brother Bryan and his wife Michonne's house for dinner.  It was a fun time.  The kids had fun playing with their cousins and Matthew loved playing with Parker their dog.  That dog was pretty patient and let Matthew snuggle him quite a bit.  I was a nice time.  When we were deciding when to get together Matthew made sure to volunteer me for making the birthday cake without even talking to me first.  Luckily, I didn't mind.  Matthew and I made a Tres Le Leche cake and it turned out pretty yummy if I did say so myself :).  Gotta love kids that volunteer you for things you have no idea about--haha!

I have been working this past week.  I finally got my CPR card so I can officially say I am CPR certified again.  Wahoo!

 This past week was parent teacher conferences for Matthew and Josh.  We finally met Matthew's main high school teacher for the first time.  She really loves Matthew which was nice to hear.  She has decided to main stream Matthew for Racket Sports and Spanish.  He does have a special needs seminary class he attends and loves.  He is doing really well so far this year in school.  It is always a concern especially when he starts a new school with new rules and a new routine.  So far so good and hopefully it will stay that way!  After meeting with his teacher we had to go to an orientation for Vocational Rehab--which is a program for special needs kids after high school.  There is a waiting list so we are applying to put Matthew's name on it right now.  It is a program to help the kids develop work skills and to help them find a job when they get out of school at around age 22.  This would really be good for Matthew so hopefully we can get things rolling soon!

Josh is doing well in school this year.  He is struggling with organizational issues (lost homework, books, etc.).  Hopefully he can get a bit more organized!  He is doing the Lumberjack (pancake) club this year.  Since he is an avid pancake lover the teacher in charge has been letting Josh make the announcements on the intercom for the school about the Lumberjack Club.  His teacher let us know that he keeps the announcements pretty entertaining.  Two weeks ago they made peach pancakes and Josh announced them as, "The apples sexiest, juiciest, fuzziest cousin--the peach."  They were having peach pancakes.  His teacher says he keeps the announcements interesting.  This last Friday it was ginger pear pancakes and Josh announced it as, "The spice of the Gods pancakes".  At times like this I think ignorance is bliss for me as a parent--haha!  At least he has fun with it.  In addition to Lumberjack Club he is also doing Improv Club, Roblox Club and Mesa Club.  He likes to stay busy.  As long as he can keep his grades up he can participate in whatever clubs he would like :).

This week was the Pinewood Derby.  Aaron, as Cubmaster, wanted to do one before Daniel got out of cub scouts so this week was it.  He invited the Activity Days girls to join in the fun, too.  The Cub Scouts had their race at 6 pm and the Activity Day girls had their race at 7 pm.  It was a crazy night.  I helped Aaron pick up the track and set up all that afternoon.  Luckily, we had it mostly done by the time things started.  Aaron helped Daniel and Sarah make their cars.  He let them draw out their ideas and cut them out.  Daniel painted his red.  Sarah painted her green.

 Aaron rented the track from a guy.  When we were setting it up it was huge!  I don't think I have ever seen a track that was so long!

 Anyway, the kids placed their own cars on the starting line and were able to sit down at the end to watch the races:

 All the scout leaders gave awards out to the cars.  Daniel got Fan's Choice award:

 This was Sarah's race (her car is the green one):

 Daniel came in 6th place and Sarah came in 4th place.  However, they had fun racing:

 Sarah's award was "The Most Exhaustive" since she had lots of stacked weights on the end of her car which looked like exhausts coming out.

 Here's the proud dad that was glad to be able to work with his kids at building their cars:

 The next morning was Daniel's birthday.  He made a request that he wanted peanut butter donuts rather than balloons.  Of course, Aaron was a nice Dad and his request was granted.  After dropping Matthew off at piano lessons at 5:45 am he went over to pick them up.  Daniel was excited to eat them that morning.

 Daniel wanted to go to Wendy's for lunch.  It was just Aaron, me and Daniel at lunch and Daniel loved the one on one attention.

 That afternoon he got to open up his presents.

 That night our neighbor had some BYU tickets that he couldn't use so he gave them to Aaron.  Aaron was so excited to take Josh and Daniel and Josh's friend to the game.  It was a really good game, too.

 They had some good sideline seats which was awesome!

 I still had the other three with me at home.  It was a crazy evening.  I had some peaches I had to do something with before they went bad.  I made some jam and literally put some blood sweat and tears into the effort.  I sliced my finger in the process--ouch!  Luckily,  it happened after the jam was made and sealed in the bottles.  Good thing it wasn't too bad so after I was able to get it to stop bleeding I was able to finish cleaning up.

 The jam set up and we are set for the next few months with peach jam.  Yummy!

 The next afternoon Daniel had a Lacrosse game up in Pleasant View which we went to.

 Afterward we had Daniel's birthday dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe.  I really love that the kids can get what they want and I don't have to cook it or clean up the mess!  It's great!

 We were glad G&G T came along with us.  Daniel is giving Grandpa T a hug after opening their present.

Later that evening the boys got together with Grandpa T and attended the Priesthood session of Conference.  I think Josh is passing Aaron up in height, but don't tell Aaron that.  I think someone is feeding that kid Miracle Grow!!

 It was a nice session.

The next morning Aaron got up early to make his traditional big breakfast and it did not disappoint.  We had eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, toast, regular pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes and orange juice.  Afterward some people who will remain nameless 'watched' the first session of Conference in a food coma--haha!

We were all awake for the second session where we were finally able to have Daniel's birthday cake.  He requested a layer cake so I made a Red Velvet layer cake with the inside layer being strawberry cream cheese with cheesecake frosting on top.  It turned out pretty good.

 Things have been so crazy that Daniel had to wait three days to finally get his birthday cake.  Luckily he was a good sport about it, though :).