Homecoming, Cross Country Meets, Job Possibilities, Matthew’s Goals, Paint Night, Homework, Haunted Maze, Memes, Flu Shots, Lab Party, Pictures

It’s been a crazy two weeks.  It is almost like I always say that, but it seems to be more true than false!  We had a lot happen these past two weeks.  Here’s our update...

Josh and Daniel had a cross country meet up at Soldier Hollow by Midway/Heber.  This is one of Aaron and my favorite meets to attend because it is such a pretty course.  It is surrounded by all the beautiful fall foliage in the middle of changing colors.  Unfortunately, a week before the meet we were notified that due to Covid restrictions no spectators would be allowed to attend.  BOO!!  Aaron and I were really wanting to go see Josh and Daniel run and cheer them on.  That was definitely a bummer.  Josh and Daniel did go to the meet and ran really well.  They did take and share a few pictures with us.  Here’s Daniel before his race:

All Syracuse Cross Country kids:

Part of the course:

The pretty fall colors on the mountainside:

Of course they made a Dairy Keen run.  Josh introduced the coach to Dairy Keen in Heber a few years before and it has now become a regular place for the team at this meet.  Josh and Daniel got an infamous Train Burger with a shake.  They ate it all and still came home to eat more food at our house.  Have I mentioned that growing teen boys EAT SO MUCH FOOD?!?!?

 

Josh and Daniel also had another meet last week, too.  I, unfortunately, had to work during the meet, but Aaron went and took a few pictures and to cheer them on.

Daniel’s race:

Josh’s race:

Glad the races are over:

They had another meet this morning at Roy.  They did great!!  I was glad they allowed spectators at this one.  Josh’s race was first:

In the home stretch of the 3 mile race:

Daniel’s race was an hour after Josh’s, but Josh was there to cheer him on on the sideline:

Noah is still enjoying soccer.  His favorite position is goalie and he is getting pretty good at it.  He isn’t afraid to take a gut shot if he can stop a goal.  I am glad he enjoys playing.

Matthew is keeping busy and enjoying himself at his group home.  The staff there are very accommodating Matthew’s desires within reason.  Two Fridays ago they decided they would practice some bus transfers to get to Layton Hills Mall.  They helped Matthew plan out his route and went with him for the ride.  They sent us some pictures from their adventure.

Matthew lucked out and they were the only guests on the trolley to the mall.  The driver was pretty awesome and let Matthew record a short two line message on the PA system and then let it play on the whole trolley for Matthew to listen to.  He got pretty excited about it as you can see from the hand flapping:

Another way awesome thing is that the driver is an advocate for special needs individuals and UTA.  They like to hire a special needs greeter who works alongside a regular UTA employee welcoming people on and off and ride along on the Frontrunner.  Matthew’s house manager knows Matthew well enough to know that was right down his alley for job interests.  They got more information from the trolley driver and then relayed everything back to us to make sure that would be okay.  I couldn’t say YES!! fast enough or loud enough!!  We will be meeting with Matthew’s Vocational Rehab person as well as his other team members in two weeks to discuss starting this job possibility for Matthew.  I am so grateful things are going so well for Matthew!!

Here’s Matthew mapping out his bus route:

Matthew also made a vision board and set some pretty cool and realistic goals.  They were talking about budgeting and so this helped Matthew see what was important to him so he could prioritize his money.  Here’s his vision board and some of his visual goals:

At his house they also have a porch swing and a hammock set up.  Matthew wanted his staff to send me a picture of Matthew lounging in his hammock:

They also got a pool set up in the backyard.  They went swimming for the first time this week.  Despite it being a bit cooler, they had a lot of fun splashing in their pool:

Matthew is still loving to shred things.  Luckily, family and friends have stepped up and have kept Matthew in papers to shred.  However, he was at Officemax the other day with his house manager.  His house manager thought he would talk to the manager of Officemax to see if they have any shredding for Matthew to do.  That manager wasn’t sure so they told Wes, Matthew’s house manager, to come back in a few days when the right manager would be working to answer his shredding question.  While they are wait to hear back from Officemax Matthew still continues to shred papers from other sources.  Here’s a picture he sent me a few days ago--haha!

Matthew’s old high school teacher likes to keep up with what his happening with Matthew.  She emailed me the other day asking if it was okay if she visited Matthew at his new house.  I was just fine with that and sent her his address.  She and her family stopped by to visit Matthew and they also played some badminton while they were there.  He was pretty excited to see her and her family.  I thought it was really sweet for her to visit.  Matthew’s house manager sent me this message and some pictures from the visit:

Matthew lives about 3/4 miles away from a grocery store.  To help him become more independent his staff helped him write up a grocery list.  They showed Matthew the route to walk to the grocery store and let him walk there.  The house manager drove to the store and met Matthew there.  They then did the shopping.  They loaded up the groceries in the house manager’s car and then Matthew walked back to the house while the house manager drove.  Matthew loved it because he got his ’steps’ in and he also got to do his own grocery shopping which is pretty great:

Last Friday Matthew had saved up enough money to go on a Frontrunner trip.  They rode over to the Frontrunner station in Clearfield.  They then bought their tickets and boarded the Frontrunner.  They rode it down to Provo and back.  Matthew LOVED it as you can see by the super flapping of the hands:

Unfortunately, this year they cancelled all the school dances due to Covid.  However, Josh and a group of friends got together and planned out a smaller friend Homecoming instead.  It was just a group date where a group of friends got together not paired up.  Here’s Josh as he was getting ready to go to his ‘Friend Homecoming Dance’:

A friend’s grandma was nice enough to let them use her backyard for the dance.  They decorated and took pictures.  Here’s the boys in the group:

Everyone in the group:

They had a fun candlelit dinner outside--thankfully it was still good weather!

They had a fun time.  Here’s a few more pictures of the night:

It is sad they cancelled the dance, but I am glad Josh still got to have ‘Homecoming’ even if it was on a much smaller scale.

If you ever want to see what burning the candle at both ends looks like here is a picture that sums it up--haha:

Josh is certainly making the most of his senior year.  He is waking up early to run an extra cross country practice in the morning, then schoolwork, then another cross country practice in the afternoon and then goes to work between his two jobs--one at the haunted corn maze and the other at Little caesar’s Pizza.  In in rare off time he is either with friends, doing a school activity, doing something for city youth council or something else.  I am glad they are doing a hybrid school schedule (every other day of in person school with homeschool on the other three days) for another month otherwise I really would never see him.  He has also started applying to colleges which I still can’t believe.  I got an email from a college letting me know he applied and I almost cried.  I am so excited he is so independent, but it makes me so sad that he is so close to leaving the nest....He will be starting to fill out his missionary papers in the next few months.  He wants to leave on his mission pretty close after he graduates.  I can’t dwell on that right now or I will be a blubbering mess.  I will mourn that later--sniff, sniff....as for now I will just try and enjoy the time I have left with him even if it is while he is napping between activities--haha!

Last week we had a paint night with the 12 year old class in young women.  This is the picture I taught them how to paint:

Luckily, the weather was perfect and we were able to do the activity outside.  With Covid doing inside activities is not ideal.  We only were able to get half of our class there since everyone is so busy, but it was still fun with the girls we had.  Here’s their masterpieces:

Sophie was having some bad dog breath lately.  I finally decided it was time to schedule her for a dental cleaning at the vet.  I had not let her eat or drink after midnight  and then drop her off at 8 am the next morning.  While she was there they sedated her and cleaned all the tartar off her teeth.  When I picked her back up at noon she was still pretty groggy, however her teeth were all sparkling white.  She stayed pretty groggy the rest of the day, but at least she didn’t have any bad dog breath anymore.  Wahoo!  Here’s the poor thing trying to sleep it off on the couch when we got home:

Sophie is not as innocent as she appears, though.  I have always struggled with sleep.  These past few weeks have been pretty bad.  I would go to bed, but then was wide awake at 2 am.  To let Aaron sleep I would come out and sit in the family room and read.  Sophie, who sleeps in her kennel at night, would hear me walking and start whining and pawing at the bathroom door to be let out.  She just wanted to snuggle so I would read and she would curl up next to me and sleep.  It became a pretty regular thing at 2 am.  However, last week there was a night that I actually slept through the night.  However, Sophie stuck to her schedule and started barking at 2 am.  Amazingly I slept through it, but Aaron had to get up to see what her problem was.  He was kind enough to let me sleep.  As soon as he let her out she ran over to the couch and waited for him to sit down so she could snuggle with him.  Aaron was not very keen about being awake, snuggling a dog at 2 am so he tried to get her to go out and go potty so he could put her back in her kennel and go back to bed.  She was not having it.  As soon as he put her back in her kennel she started barking.  Aaron ended up putting her bark collar on and went back to bed.  Don’t worry we were back to our regular schedule the next night, though--haha!  Waking up and being WIDE AWAKE for a few hours at 2 am is brutal!  Now I know why Sophie sleeps all day, she has to rest up for her crazy nights--haha!  What a ‘ruff’ life she leads--haha!

Sarah had a homework assignment she waited until the last minute to let us know about--ugh!  She had to come up with some plans and build a bridge from some Balsa Wood pieces.  Aaron helped her design it.  When they went to build it, they didn’t have enough balsa wood pieces--DOH!  

They discovered this late Saturday night about an hour before Lowe’s closed.  Sarah started to panic so we ran over to pick up some more wood pieces, but they didn’t sell the 1/8” square balsa wood pieces.  We could only find some 1/8” pine cylinder pieces.  Since that was our only option, that’s what we picked up.  Sarah wasn’t too happy about it, but at that point she didn’t have a choice. They got it all put together.  Sarah wanted to make sure she remembered to take it to class so she wrote herself a quick note:

She remembered the bridge, but when she got to school she was reaching into her backpack to grab her mask when she accidentally squoze the bridge under her arm and snapped it--DOH!!  She got upset, but had to turn in what she had left.  That is when she discovered that she only needed to build one side of the bridge for her assignment.  Had she known that she would have had enough balsa wood to complete it without any late night trips to Lowe’s.  Ugh!!  Oh well, at least she and Aaron got some good bridge building bonding time in--haha!

Daniel and Josh have been working at the haunted maze.  They each learned their parts and then on a different night they got their face paint applied.  Daniel wears a face mask so he only has to get his eyes painted:

Daniel got his first paycheck last night or I should say early this morning around 12:30 am.  Daniel wasn’t too excited to get up early for the cross country meet a few hours later, but getting paid almost made up for that.  Payday is the BEST day!!  

Josh is a clown again this year.  Here’s his face paint with coordinating mask:

In the black light:

They had a dress rehearsal the night before opening night where they invited friends and family.  Aaron wasn’t too keen on going--haunted houses are not his favorite, but I talked him in to going anyway.  Sarah and Noah tagged along:

We were asked not to take any pictures so I didn’t take any of the actors, but I did take a few of us inside the maze.

It was a fun night and great to see Josh and Daniel in their roles.  We got through the maze without getting too lost which was good.

Occasionally I like to try different ethnic foods.  I found a great deal on a Mexican candy sampler pack and ordered it.  There were some interesting items that came in that pack.  We all sat down as a family and tried them out.  Here were just a few of the different treats--pickle flavored sucker, a fun dip stick that you dipped in chili powder, chili powder covered fruit roll up, etc.  It seemed that everything centered around chili powder.  It was interesting, however, I think the kids will still take sugary American candy over the Mexican candy anyday...

Speaking of food Aaron and I tried a new BBQ place.  Aaron ordered a sandwich and it ended up being so big that they only way to eat it was with a knife and fork.  It had brisket, sausage, coleslaw, onions, spicy BBQ sauce on a bun.  It was HUGE!!!

We love humor at our house.  Last week we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the kids.  They thought it was pretty funny and now know where some of Aaron and my one liners come from.  We also really like memes at our house.  Here’s some of the funny ones we have shared with each other these past few weeks:

Home school has been a bit difficult--haha!

Josh claims we wait for him to be at work to fix and eat the really nice dinners.  It’s not true, but it does happen on occasion--haha!

Good thing Aaron got his money’s worth at BYU--haha!

Flu shot season is in full swing right now.  I have been working like crazy.  Poor Aaron has had to pick up the slack in the parenting department, but it has been good for him.  I think he now appreciates all the little things that I do that just get done without anyone noticing.  Now that I am gone so much he has had to step up and do all those little things that I usually do--laundry, dishes, follow up on school/home learning, enforce piano practicing, cooking, take kids to sports, appointments, etc.  Let’s just say he will be glad when things slow back down for me.  He was not cut out to be Mr. Mom, but he has done a good job at it, though.  

I did do a clinic at a school by our house.  It was parent teachers that night so Aaron brought Sarah and Noah by so I could give them their flu shots.  Aaron got one, too, but we didn’t get a picture of him getting his shot.  Aaron left right after to go to parent teachers for Sarah and Daniel.  He then had to take Noah to soccer right after.  It was a busy night for us!

When Josh and Daniel got home from cross country practice I made them come over and get their shots, too. Poor Josh got a triple whammy that day since he had gotten two allergy shots earlier that morning--one in each arm.  Poor guy, but he handled it like a champ.

Speaking of shots--Sarah and Daniel both needed to get their blood drawn so we had a lab party.  They both did great and I got them a cookie afterward.  We will be seeing Sarah’s liver doctor on Monday so we can discuss the lab findings then.  

Daniel is turning 15 very soon and will be getting his Learner’s permit which is so scary!!  He has been taking practice tests online to prepare him for the written test.  That is crazy we will have almost two teen drivers in our house!!

We finally got the okay to attend church last week for the first time since everything got cancelled in March.  To prepare for that they had all the young men come the Wednesday night before to learn how to prepare and pass the sacrament safely and sanitarily.  They had to divide our ward into four different session to accommodate the less than 100 people per meeting mandate.  That meant they had to find 4 different choristers, organists, speakers, etc.  I got asked to lead the music.  I was a bit nervous.  I told the organist that I would follow her lead since I only knew the basics.  I have a hard time multi tasking so I could either lead the music and stay on beat or I could sing and got off beat.  I just concentrated on staying on the beat and didn’t sing.  Let’s just all agree that I would be a horrible ward choir director since I can’t lead and sing at the same time--haha!

When our whole extended family was together last month we got some family pictures taken.  They turned out great!

Here’s G&G T:

Me and my siblings Jennifer, Bryan, me and Johanna with G&G T:

Me and just my siblings:

The siblings, their spouses with G&G T:

All the grandkids except Miriya and her husband, Jesse, who were still in Ohio recovering after having a baby named Woden--the first great grandchild:

Everyone:

Just the Mancil family:

My kids:

Me and my hunna:

Sarah has a really good friend whose mom is a photographer.  She is the one who took all our family and extended family pictures.  A few months ago Sarah’s friend’s mom wanted to take a BFF session with their friend group.  The pictures turned out so cute!  She is a talented photographer!

I am glad Sarah is surrounded by such good friends--Laurie, Gabby, Sarah and Grace: