I am a bit behind on the blog, but it's been a good almost two weeks. Matthew's teacher sent me the picture of the pin cushion Matthew made in his sewing class. He will be starting on sewing a bag next week so hopefully he will be as proud of that bag as he is about his pin cushion!
This past week Daniel and I got to meet with the counselor at school. Every year starting in 7th grade the counselor meets with all the students and a parent to discuss their future plans. They do this to make sure the students are taking the classes they need to get to where they want to go when they graduate whether that is college, technical school, etc. In order to figure out what they student wants to do they ask all kinds of questions. It appears Daniel wants to go into some sort of engineering or the medical field. At least that is what he wants to do right now. We will see if that changes throughout the next few years. I think it is great they do this meeting. So far Daniel is great on his current classes so we will see what the next year meeting brings!
In one of Daniel's classes they had a makeup artist come and show different techniques of how to apply theatrical wound paint. Daniel got to be the subject. He had mentioned this might happen earlier in the week so when he texted pictures of himself looking like this I knew what had happened. However, no one else did so Daniel played it up. He told everyone that he had gotten into a fist fight at school just to see what Matthew, Josh, Sarah, Noah and Aaron would say.
Daniel let them think he got into a fight for about an hour until he decided to come clean and tell them what really happened. Aaron didn't know what to do about Daniel getting into a fight at school so he was relieved when he found it that it didn't really happen.
The scouts in our ward got to Bike the Bear two weekends ago. Bike the Bear is a 50 mile bike ride around Bear Lake. They have been preparing for this ride for a few months. A few days before they were leaving Aaron and Daniel spent the afternoon out in the garage together getting his bike ready for such a long ride. I was glad Aaron was able to help him out since I am embarrassed to say that I really don't know much about bikes. Anyway, they got up to the lodge Friday night and I am sure ate their weight in the provided spaghetti dinner.
Then they hung out on the beach for a while. Daniel found a few good skipping rocks:
I was wondering why Daniel's bag had so much sand in it when he got home, but when I saw this I saw where all the sand came from:
He unknowingly brought home so much sand in his bags, clothes, etc.!! I even found sand in his ear the next day at church--haha!
Anyway the next morning they started bright and early. I am glad the leaders took so many pictures so we could see what they were able to see. The beautiful scenery along the ride:
They even went into Idaho for part of the ride and then came back into Utah:
Everyone made it!
Daniel got a medal and a shirt to show his accomplishment. I only got a picture of the medal, though:
One thing I did forget to send Daniel with was some sunscreen. He got pretty sunburned on his legs and arms which made him miserable for a few days afterward. I felt horrible. I remembered everything, but the sunscreen--poor kid. He is peeling right now from the sunburn and it looks a bit on the gross side. Other than the sunburned arms/legs and a sore bum from sitting and riding on his bike for so long he came out feeling pretty good about finishing.
The harvest season is wrapping up so we got our last few rounds of tomatoes from the garden. Noah was a big helper in eating as many cherry tomatoes as he picked--haha!
Noah was pretty proud of his cyclops cherry tomato that he found:
I processed the last of the tomatoes, yesterday. Here's the last batch of tomato soup (and orange fingers since working with the tomatoes stains my hands orange) for this year:
Noah was having a bit of a hard day last week. Aaron took him out for a Fiiz to try and cheer him up and I think it worked:
Josh had a meet last week. Here he is on the course:
They had a mix up with the times at the end so we aren't quite sure of what Josh's time really was, unfortunately. Josh was just happy to be done running:
We are always glad to have G&G T come to cheer him on!
That evening was pack meeting for the cub scouts. Noah got a few awards as you can see:
We had some exciting news this past week with Matthew. He got nominated as Homecoming Royalty at his high school. The more amazing thing is that this nomination was a student body nomination not a faculty nomination. His really good friend, Ashlyn, texted me as soon as she found out along with Matthew's giddy picture with his congratulations letter.
I may or may not have teared up when I saw the text from his friend Ashlyn. He really has had a wonderful high school experience. We have seen so much compassion, support and love that has been given to him. People have really gotten to know and love him autism quirks and all. I am so grateful to have him surrounded by such awesome people!
His teacher emailed us a few hours later to let us know what to expect. I am sure she had trouble getting Matthew to concentrate on his schoolwork after such exciting news.
Here he is eating lunch with friends still on cloud nine at lunchtime:
We are still learning the details of what all the Homecoming Royalty thing entails, but we are excited to find out and have him participate!
Josh is doing Jazz Band which is held in the very early morning. The other day I had to pick him up from piano lessons and drive him over to Jazz Band. On the way I didn't necessarily like his choice in clothes. I just wanted him to wear a different shirt that was not faded and stained. Anyway, we didn't have time to stop by home for him to change so I dropped him off at Jazz band and ran home to get a different shirt for him to wear. I didn't want to interrupt Jazz band to drop it off to him (I also was still in my jammies with bed head that I didn't want anyone to see) so I dropped it off outside the door and let him know where to find it. I texted the picture to him so there was no mistaking where I put the shirt. I put it inside a bag so it wouldn't get dirty, but after I dropped it off I was afraid someone might mistake it as a 'suspicious package'. Luckily, Josh got it 30 minutes after I dropped it off and there were no evacuations called due to any suspicious packages--phew!!
I got this email from Sarah's teacher out of the blue and LOVED it!! My sweet and smart Sarahbug!!
This past weekend was a busy one. Sarah and Noah had their Primary program so they had a practice Saturday afternoon. I worked Saturday morning and got home in enough time to take them to their practice. After the practice we were able to go and visit my nephew Nathan's open house. He is getting ready to leave on his mission to Mexico and wanted to celebrate with friends and family. The next morning we went to our ward to see the kids primary program. Sarah and Noah did great. Sarah even got to write a small talk herself to give during the program which was pretty cool. After our sacrament meeting ended we then hurried up to Nathan's ward to hear his mission farewell talk. We almost didn't make it because I forgot to gas up the van Saturday afternoon. We made it to his church with only 5 miles of gas left in the tank. When it was time to come home we were sweating bullets because we didn't know if we would even have enough gas to make it to a service station. Luckily, on the way home we made it to a gas station before we ran out of gas which was a huge relief. Anyway, it is crazy to think Nathan is old enough to go on a mission! Time really does fly! The first time Aaron met Nathan was at my parents house and Nathan was 6 months old. Johanna was changing his diaper and he peed all over the rug as soon as she took off his diaper to change it. It is crazy to think that sweet baby is now leaving on his mission! I am sure he will do great!
It was Daniel's birthday this past Sunday. Since his birthday fell on a Sunday we wanted to take him out for dinner Friday night instead. Daniel chose to hang out with his friends instead of going out to dinner. Typical of the new teenager, right?! We ended up having a family dinner Sunday evening with G&G T. Daniel wanted stuffed hamburgers and Aaron was more than happy to have something to smoke on the smoker. After dinner we had some cake and ice cream. Daniel got a Better Than Anything cake with 13 candles:
Also for his birthday he picked out this fedora hat as one of his presents. I don't think it has left his head other than going to school.
He blew out all the candles the first try:
Aaron surprised Daniel with birthday donuts Tuesday morning, too:
I have been working quite a bit lately. I was even able to work a flu shot clinic shift with my nurse sister Johanna which was fun. Since I have been gone working Aaron has had to pick up the slack at home and he has done pretty well. I even came home from work yesterday and he had made a yummy cheese stuffed and bacon wrapped meatloaf dinner on the smoker:
That was nice to come home to for sure! I was surprised since I usually don't get home until after 8-8:30, but better late than never with dinner, right?! I was just happy to be able to eat dinner as a family since that hasn't happened since I started working. Aaron's weeknight dinner specialty for the kids is usually tacos/burritos, cold cereal or hot dogs so this was a pretty cool and yummy surprise. He did let me know that he will be glad when my seasonal flu shot job will be done, though. He doesn't like being Mr. Mom--haha!
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