CAR WRECK, Graduation, Year Book Page(s), Crepes, Dance Recital, Human GPS, Peer Tutor, Baseball, Meat Slicer, Summer Vacation

Even though it has only been a little over a week it feels like a TON has happened!!

The last two weeks of school has been crazy busy!  Every kid seemed to have some kind of performance, recital, end of year party, etc. so it has been hard trying to keep track of everything.  I must admit that cooking dinners every day slid to a halt while trying to keep up with everything else. However, Josh surprised me one afternoon.  He got home from school, walked in the door and asked me if he could cook dinner that evening.  I immediately yelled, "YES!!"  He had planned on that answer and had already stopped by the grocery store for dinner supplies which was so sweet.  He then went to work using his crepe maker that he got from Christmas that has yet to be tried out and made everyone crepes for dinner.  

He had even picked up some strawberries, raspberries and cool whip for the toppings.  It was such an awesome surprise and so delicious!

He made a TON, but there really weren't very many leftovers.  Everyone loved that dinner especially me since I didn't have to make it--Wahoo!!

Speaking of Josh I got one of the most dreaded notifications this morning.  Josh didn't call, but TEXTED me that he just got in a wreck.  Really a TEXT?!  Anyway, I ended up calling him right away and he was pretty shaken up--poor guy!  Thankfully, Josh and the lady in the other car were okay.  Unfortunately, Josh got behind a large vehicle and couldn't tell the traffic light had turned red.  He ended up running the red light and got broadsided.  The air bags went off and the doors won't open.  

 It took me longer to get to him since it happened on a crazy busy road/intersection (Antelope Drive by the freeway onramp in Layton) and traffic was backed up pretty far because of the accident.  The other car was stuck in the middle of the intersection so the police blocked off the left lane so it snarled traffic.

Usually Aaron is impossible to get a hold of at work, but gratefully after a few tries I finally got a hold of him so he came over to help out, too.  Both cars had to be towed away since they weren't drivable.  The other lady appeared to be okay thankfully!  We talked to her briefly and she was really nice about it especially after hearing Josh had only been driving for 6 weeks--ugh!  I am grateful the wreck wasn't worse and I am hoping Josh becomes ultra conservative in his driving now--he was pretty safe before, but you can never be too safe, right?!  Now we just got to figure out our insurance claims and how to get everyone to where they need to be now that we are down a car.  It appears to be totaled, but we won't know for sure until the adjuster can see it in person on Monday.  Boo!!  This year just hasn't been very good to us so far!!  I am hoping things will turn around soon.

Last week the high school had their end of year assembly and they asked Matthew to give directions for the last time :(.  They had him give directions to graduation for the whole student body.  Josh was nice enough to record it for me, but it was too long for one clip so I split it into two different clips.  It is only a minute total, but you can tell Matthew really loves giving his directions!!

First 18 seconds:

Last 50 seconds:

I am really sad Matthew will be leaving high school.  He has had such an amazing experience there.  They have told me he will have an amazing experience at his next school, too, but I don't know if it will top what he had at Syracuse.

Last week Daniel got to attend his end of year Hope Squad party.  He got this certificate for completing the year.  Wahoo Daniel!

 Daniel also really surprised me when he handed me this paper:

 Daniel decided to sign up to be a peer tutor for next year.  He hadn't even mentioned anything about it!!  It was funny because he had to fill out a paper beforehand and submit it to even see if he could be a peer tutor.  However, after the peer tutor teachers saw what his last name was, they had no qualms about letting him be a peer tutor--both teachers had previously had Matthew as a student and they had both recognized the last name from Josh the pancake guy and his crazy announcements when he was in Jr. High.   I guess good or bad they already knew which family Daniel came from--haha!  Daniel is excited to try it out next year.  It surprised me because Daniel gets quite a bit of 'peer tutoring' experience at home with Matthew which can sometimes be difficult so that is why it surprised me he wanted to do it at school. He assured me he is excited about it so I am a proud mom and hope it is a great experience for him! If you don't know--a peer tutor is a 'typical' student that buddies up with a student with special needs during one class period to help them during their class time.  Matthew had peer tutors in Spanish, P.E., seminary, etc.  We will be eternally grateful for those who volunteered their time to be peer tutors for Matthew.  They were such good friends and help for Matthew throughout all of his schooling. I am happy Daniel wants to help out next year.

The end of year testing came and went for all the kids.  Noah's teacher wanted to keep the kids uplifted during such a stressful time so she sent home some blank cards to have the families make some uplifting notes to give to the students.  I spread the cards out and everyone helped me make one.  Here is the card Sarah made for Noah.  It was sweet.  I am glad my kids can show they love each other.  I question it sometimes when they fight so much, but they really do love each other.

 Last Wednesday we got to meet up for lunch with some friends--the Clark family.  They live in Colorado, but were up for a funeral so we met up for lunch at In-N-Out Burger. It was fun to talk to them in person rather than through messaging on Facebook.  Aaron and Darcy originally served in the same mission, but we have gotten to know each other from that.  Aaron and Darcy swapped mission stories while we ate.  It was fun to see them! Glad we were able to meet up.

Josh and Matthew had no school Thursday and Friday of last week.  Thursday morning we had about an hour so they wanted to go and do Baptisms for the Dead at the Ogden Temple.  Josh got to baptize and Matthew and I got to be baptized.  We found some family names beforehand so it was pretty cool.  They were short some priesthood so Josh got to baptize a few other people who in turn baptized Josh.  Josh was a bit difficult to baptize since he was so tall, but they made it work.

 Baseball is in full swing.  They had to cancel the first two weeks of practices/games because it had rained so much and the fields were pretty soggy.  We were glad to finally get to see them play this past week.  Aaron is assistant coach with the same coach he has been with for the last 4 years so he was pretty excited about that.  Here's Daniel up to bat:

 Daniel even got to try his hand at pitching a few innings which was pretty cool.  He was pretty nervous, but he did great for his first time!!

 Friday morning was Daniel, Sarah and Noah's last day of school.  I had previously taken Matthew and Josh's last day of school picture the previous Wednesday so I was finally able to put this first and last day of school collage together.  The first day pics are the top row the last day pics are the bottom row:

This year flew by!  It made it even more crazy to know Matthew would be 'graduating'.  Since Matthew is special education his teacher kept up informed of what was going to go on during graduation.  Since Matthew gets super excited about things they decided to have Matthew walk after the last 'Z' name so he could have his moment.  Here's the email she sent me:

It was even more awesome that they would save seats for us, too.  Everyone knew about Matthew so even one of the administrators sent us this email letting us know about the different things they were going to do to help Matthew during graduation.  What made us choke up, though, was the last line:

 It made me sad this would be Matthew's last time to show the school his exuberance.  Although he didn't get a standing ovation, he still got a lot of cheering and applause from the crowd.  Again we will miss Syracuse!!

Here's Matthew as we were getting him to where he needed to line up before the graduation program:

 His teacher was sad about him moving on to a different school and was trying not to cry as we took the picture:

 We will miss Mrs. Rasmussen!!

 Josh was at graduation playing in the band.  He is below the yellow arrow:

 Here's Matthew being led out by his teacher during the processional:

 He was excited to see us:

We were excited to see him, too. Some photographer caught our family all waving to him and put the picture on the DSD Facebook page.  Wahoo Matthew!!

 Here's his moment:

 After his moment he was led back to sit down by his teachers:

He was so excited he had some ants in his pants and had a hard time sitting still.  He liked groovin' to the music--haha!

Here's the graduate with everyone who came to graduation except my sister, Johanna and her daughter Adrienne and our friend Erin Einzinger:

 Wahoo Matthew!

 G&G T:

 G&G M:

 Afterward Matthew ran around the crowd of graduates saying hi to all the people he knew which was a lot.  He also took lots of pictures with friends which was awesome.  So many people knew him and were excited to say hi as we walked by.  It made my mom heart happy.

 I only included two friend pictures of Matthew because there were quite a few others, but I didn't know most of the people.  I am glad Matthew had a lot of people that loved him!

 After graduation we came home and Aaron had smoked some pulled pork on his smoker.  We let Matthew choose what he wanted to eat and that was his first choice.  Grandpa T also made his infamous Rootbeer which was pretty good, too.

 Afterward we had some graduation cake:

 I can't believe I have a graduate!!  He didn't really graduate, and will be attending a school called Vista in the fall which is still part of the school district.  Since Matthew is in special education he is allowed to attend school up through the age of 22 so he will get his high school diploma then, but we were grateful he was allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony with his peers!

The next day Aaron wanted to show G&G M how beautiful Bear Lake was and also let them try out a famous Bear Lake raspberry shake.  He loaded up all the kids and G&G M in the van and went for a drive.  There was only enough seats in the van for them since it only seats 8 people so I was the odd man out.  That's okay because I had some errands I needed to run anyway.  Here they are enjoying a yummy cheeseburger and raspberry shake at Lebeaus fast food restaurant up in Garden City right next to Bear Lake:

 G&G M stayed with us until Sunday right after church.  The kids had fun seeing them and visiting with them.  We were glad they were able to make it to Matthew's graduation.

In other happenings at the end of school Noah came home with the award 'Class Comedian'.  Haha!  That award for Noah does not surprise me...

 Sarah also came home with her cast photo of the play this year.  She had a lot of fun participating in it and is looking forward to doing the play next year, too.

Aaron happened to share his birthday with Matthew's graduation day.  Since Matthew's graduation day was pretty big Aaron decided to wait a few days to celebrate his birthday.  For his birthday he got a nerdy BYU 'Hold my Root beer' shirt and a meat slicer.  

 After his experience with the mandolin I was really hesitant to get him a meat slicer, but he promised me he would follow the safety directions of the slicer.  Just in case I made him take a picture of all 9.80 fingers (still missing the tip of the thumb he sliced off a month ago) just in case he happened to slice one or more off... As you can see he was not amused...

 Gratefully after using his he still has almost all 10 fingers (minus the partial tip of the thumb he already sliced off using the mandolin about a month ago) haha!  He was pretty impressed with the slicer!

 He is already planning on making pastrami from a roast soon.  Yum!

He even got a strawberry swirl cheesecake for his birthday cake.  That didn't last long because all the kids really liked it, too!

Our summer has started off not so relaxing.  Monday morning I had an appointment with Vocational Rehabilitation to discuss Matthew's future of job employment among other things.  It was a 90 minute meeting filling out a ton of forms and talking about what we wanted/expected for Matthew's future.  Thankfully, he will have a few years at Vista so we can all work together to figure out where Matthew would do best employment and living wise.  It is scary because we are truly venturing into the unknown.  I wish I could see into the future and know what Matthew would be happiest and excel at, but getting there will take some trial and error.  These next few years will be interesting.

Monday morning while I was at my appointment with Vocational Rehab with Matthew, Josh and Daniel were supposed to mow the lawn.  They had been complaining that Sarah was old enough and that it was her turn to learn how to mow the lawn.  I didn't get a chance to respond since we were in our meeting.  So I was surprised when I got home to see Sarah mowing the backyard.  I guess Josh taught her how and she was more than happy to do it since that meant she could earn some money.  I guess my little girl is growing up and learning some life skills--Wahoo for more people who are able to mow the lawn!!  We can run our little own sweat shop with three employees so far--haha!  The bad thing was Sarah didn't want to ruin her shoes so she went and wore MY shoes to mow the lawn with.  DOH!!  RIP to my shoes.  I really liked them before they were ruined--haha!  At least now she has a dedicated pair of shoes to mow the lawn in...

 The summer hasn't started out as a relaxing summer for us so far.  Daniel started summer PE which is 4 hours every day for three weeks.  That means he has to get up early and get himself to school.  Josh has cross country practice twice a week in the early mornings.  We also continued with piano in the early morning, too.  Sleeping in is something that is not happening at our house right now and that makes me a little sad.  Who knows, maybe I can force myself into being an early bird even if I don't want to be one.

Tuesday the kids wanted to get rewarded for their good grades so we decided to go to Krispie Kreme and get some donuts.  With every '3' on their report card they get a donut up to 6 total.  Here they showing off their 12 donuts--wahoo!

 Yesterday we decided to go on a hike.  I let Josh choose the hike, but with the stipulation that it couldn't be more difficult than a 'moderate' rating.  We set out yesterday morning and about 500 feet into the hike I thought I was going to die.  Josh then told me that this particular hike was rated a 'moderate-difficult', but he still thought it was okay because it still had moderate in it.  Don't get me wrong the hike was beautiful, but I was in no shape to do a difficult rated hike.

So 500 feet into this hike this is how I felt:

 It was a cool hike it just took longer than what we had expected.  We got to cross a bridge and see a deer along the way.

 There was a waterfall at the end.  Noah and Josh got there first so they had some time to take some goof off pictures while they waited for Sarah and me to catch up.

 The view was quite beautiful, though:

 Here's proof that I made it, but just barely--haha!

 It was a steep trail.  I'd like to try it again, but only when I am in better shape.  Also I will be previewing any trail Josh chooses in the future--haha!

Sarah had her semi annual dance recital last night.  It is fun to see her dance and the progress she is making.  In this dance she is the 4th one in from the right side:

 Here's her second dance:

 Here's her 3rd dance:

 We were glad Grandma T could come and watch!

 My cute dancer girl:

We were elated to see Matthew had gotten a whole page in the school yearbook dedicated just to him.  Every week they would let Matthew be a part of the school wide announcements so he could provide a traffic report.  He was known as 'The Human GPS' and let everyone know it.  It was pretty awesome to see his page:

Here's the history of how Matthew became the Human GPS at the school:

They had me write up a note just for Matthew to include on his page.  They were so good to him at that school!  We really are going to miss it!

The previous page in the yearbook was about Homecoming and the Homecoming Royalty.  The Homecoming Queen said this about Matthew, "I wasn't expecting being crowned homecoming queen at all.  I was just super excited to be a part of it and nominated in the first place.  So it was a super big shock and rush of emotion and I just felt really flattered.  I was more excited for Matthew more than anything.  I didn't even care if I won or not.  I just wanted him to be homecoming king.  I was so excited for him when he won.  It was so sweet and all I wanted for him.  We were actually neighbors and he was telling all our neighbors about it and how we are homing king and queen together.  He also came to the dance and we spent most of the time together dancing.  He is great at dancing by the way."

My cute homecoming king:

 Matthew's teacher also made up her own mini yearbook for the kids in her class.  Also for a graduation present she made up an additional book just for Matthew that includes memories from all three of the years he went to school there.  The top book is the memory book the bottom book is the mini yearbook just for the learning center:

Here's Matthew's page in the mini Learning Center yearbook:

 Here's some of the memories from the memory book:

It has been a crazy week, but it was full of a lot of good things despite the bad things.  We are all happy and mostly healthy with a home, food, and love so we have the basics covered.  There is always something to be thankful for!!