Simplot, Solo/Ensemble, Check Up, Preference, Chaperone, Valentines, Axe Throwing, Chinese Food

Another two weeks has come and gone so quickly!  Here's some things we have been up to.

Daniel and two of his friends signed up for the Solo Ensemble band assignment together.  It is where they have to perform a piece in front of a judge just to experience what that is like.  Out of all the performances between the 3 band classes the judge selects a few of the entries to move onto perform at the district level.  Daniel's ensemble played well enough they got picked to go on to the district competition in a few weeks which is pretty cool.  Aaron and I got to come and hear them play and they did sound pretty good.  Daniel is pretty nervous about the district round in a few weeks, though. Here they are playing:

Speaking of music they had a Young Musician's Day at the elementary school.  Noah signed himself up.  Parents weren't invited so this was just for the kids to do.  It was kind of like a talent show.  Anyway, the morning right before the program started, I got a call from the school.  Noah had forgotten his piano book.  DOH!!  I was still in my pajamas with some monster bed head and he needed his book ASAP.  I threw on a sweatshirt and tried to tame my hair enough so I wouldn't scare anybody on my way into the school.  I dropped off his book and I guess everything went okay.  He didn't say much about it when he got home.  I was impressed with his courage.  I don't think I would have had the courage to sign up for anything like that when I was his age.

Sophie loves her humans.  Every time one of the kids goes outside to pick up the mail, Sophie jumps on the chair and watches their every move.  What a crazy dog.  This time it was Daniel outside getting the mail across the street.   Sophie had to watch every single move he made while she whined until he came back.  What a weird dog!

Again to document her weirdness this is how she is sleeping on the couch right now:

Aaron isn't too happy with me right now...I was backing the car out of the garage the other day and wasn't watching where the front end of the car was going until I heard a crunch.  I ran the car into the garage wall and bashed about a foot size hole in it.  Good thing Aaron has to love me no matter what, right?!  Haha!  He sure wasn't happy about it, though.  Luckily it is in the garage so it doesn't have to have a professional looking patch job....Whoops!

Josh had a neurology check up this past week.  He is doing great.  He is just over the two year seizure free mark and it has been awesome.  Since it has been two years seizure free his neurologist said he could try another attempt at weaning off meds if he has a clear, sleep deprived EEG with no signs of seizure activity.  However, if he did try weaning off the meds and have a seizure he couldn't drive for at least 3 months. Since his previous 4 weaning attempts have not been successful Josh decided he didn't want to risk it right now.  He said driving was too important to him--haha!  The neurologist assures us that there is still a chance he can wean off medication and be fine, but after 4 weaning attempt fails in the last 15 years I am a bit skeptical.  I figure if it ain't broke don't fix it!  However, I have to let Josh decide since he is the one this fully impacts and he doesn't want to take meds for the rest of his life if he doesn't need to.  I see his point, but it is hard not to enforce my will so I bite my tongue and support his decision either way.  Anyway, he wants to wait and try to wean off medication after he returns from his mission in roughly 3 years.  That means for now it is just business as usual and hopefully staying seizure free.  Of course Josh would not let me pass by the cafeteria and NOT get him breakfast at Primary Children's Hospital since it is our tradition after these appointments.  He made the most of ordering breakfast.  He got a huge order of pancakes, bacon eggs and juice.  That kid can really put away the food!! He was a fun breakfast date, though.  We don't have to go back for another year unless there are problems so I am hoping not to take him back there for another year--keeping my fingers crossed!!

 Last week we had a young men/young women activity at Weber State University.  At the end of the activity they had a life size cardboard cut out of the prophet so we all got to take a selfie with the prophet--haha!  Here's just some of the girls:

Josh got to go to the girls choice Preference Dance last weekend.  He had a fun time!!  He went with a cute girl named Anna from Cross Country.

They went out Friday night and went swimming.

Here's the group:

Saturday evening they went on their dance date.  Here they were exchanging the corsage and boutonniere:

 Ready to meet up with the rest of the group go on their date.

 They did some outdoor pictures before dinner:

Josh had a bunch of fun.  He is already planning on his next dance date which will be Prom in two months.

I got to be a chaperone for the 6th grade ballet field trip to Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City.  I have gone in this field trip with a few of my kids love it!  Ballet West performed the first half of the ballet Giselle.  It was fun to hear the guy explain it before they performed it and then watch it with Sarah.

 We had some awesome almost front row seats up by the pit.

 It was a fun field trip.  Probably the last one I will go on with Sarah which makes me a bit sad....

Matthew is still loving his school.  He had a field trip out in the community to the fire station.  His para educator sent me this picture as per Matthew's request.

Last week was Valentine's Day.  The kids were old enough to make their own boxes and sign their own Valentine's.  It was pretty awesome.  Here they are working on them:

 Noah knew exactly how he wanted his Valentine box to look and it didn't surprise me at all--haha!

 Sarah designed and made her own:

 Of course you have to have heart hair for Valentine's Day.  Here's Sarah's heart hairdo:

 Despite the no smiles in the picture they were excited to go to school that day.  Noah even made sure he was wearing a red shirt just for Valentine's Day.

 Aaron got Sarah and me a long stem red rose for his Valentine's gift.  They were pretty:

Sarah even got to go to the 6th grade Valentine's dance.  The 6th grade classes (there are 4 or 5 of them at the school) practice different dances leading up to this Valentine's dance.  They learned the Cupid Shuffle, the waltz, Electric Slide, Macarena, and a few others to make sure they were prepared for this dance.  They didn't let parents come, but Sarah said she had fun.  Here was her waltzing partner:

Daniel went to his Valentine's dance at the Jr. High, too.  He did not take any pictures, though.

At the beginning of the new year we switched dental insurance carriers.  As an added bonus we have a small vision plan attached to that dental coverage so I decided everyone should have their eyes checked just to make sure everything is great.  Luckily, Sarah and Noah have gotten my vision since they can see 20/15 and don't need any corrective lenses.  Wahoo!  I got my eyes checked as well and I don't need any corrective lenses, either.  The only ones left to be checked are Matthew and Daniel.  I just need to make their appointments.  Noah was quite chatty and talked everyone's leg off.  Holy cow that kid can talk!  Anyway, here's Noah getting his eyes checked:

To celebrate President's Day we wanted to go somewhere for the long weekend, but it didn't work out.  Josh had a track meet up in Idaho until Saturday night so we just stayed in town and did the staycation thing instead.  Monday we took the kids out for some yummy Chinese food:

We then went and did some axe throwing which was pretty fun.  I must say I was darn good at axe throwing, too bad you can make a career out of it, though--haha!

We did it for an hour and all of us got a bullseye at some point during that hour.

Here was Sarah's:

Josh's:

I got a few bullseyes, too.  

Here's a small video clip of what it was like:

We had a lot of fun and it was nice to try something different.

Last week was parent teacher conferences.  Sarah's teachers did a presentation for Jr. High registration.  That is crazy!!  I can't believe Sarah will be in Jr. High next year.  Sarah is doing well in school.  Noah got a new teacher a few weeks ago, but she is settling in great.  She will be firm which will be great for Noah.  I liked her and think she will do a great job.

Daniel got his Peer Tutoring service Appreciation certificate from the Peer Tutoring advisor.  Daniel did well working with his special needs kiddo.  Daniel helped him out in keyboarding class.

We had Daniel's CCR appointment this morning with his school counselor.  It is an annual appointment for all the kids to discuss their future education goals.  Daniel wants to either be a doctor or an engineer.  It will be interesting to see if that changes between now and college.  When we were talking with the counselor she pulled out his file and it had all his elementary school pictures on it.  He was and still is a cute kid!

Josh had his big indoor meet in Pocatello this past week.  The meet started Thursday night and they didn't get home until Saturday night.  Josh ran the mile and did great.  The rest of the time he just cheered on his team mates.  He just enjoyed the trip, the hotel stay and the restaurant food with the team.  He even got some fun perks like this $20 Papa John's pizza card he jumped up and got from the blimp.  Too bad the people he landed on weren't as excited about that, though.  DOH!!

This is a HUGE indoor meet that people from all over come to.  There are some teams from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and all over the US.  Unfortunately,  there were no representatives from Rhode Island so they asked Josh to carry the Rhode Island flag in the opening parade.  Josh was more than happy to do it.

One of the days they went out to Sizzler for a meal.  Josh ordered the ribs, but was hugely disappointment in them.  He then texted Aaron to let him know that he has been spoiled by Aaron's cooking because these ribs were, "Dryer than the Sahara Dessert".  That made Aaron's night!

To pass the time Josh tried his hand at braiding a girl's hair.  Not too shabby for Josh:

At Simplot they had a bunch of Olympians and famous athletes you could get pictures taken with.  Josh is all about the photo ops so he made sure he took quite a few.  Here are some:

It has been a crazy couple weeks, but we are enjoying things.  Until next time!