Another two weeks have passed and things haven’t slowed down. Here’s the highlights of the last two weeks.
Sarah had a visit with her hepatologist (liver doctor) down at Primary Children’s. She is doing well. Her labs continue to be high, but there are no other symptoms. She still needs to be followed by the liver clinic at Primary’s. The doctor wants to do some in-depth imaging in March, keep getting regular bloodwork done and keep her taking her Ursodial medication. Other than that she is doing great. The view of the Salt Lake valley from the waiting room is always pretty:
Josh wanted to switch things up at work. He and another friend traded jobs. Josh was going to be a zombie instead of a killer clown called ‘Legs’. However, when he got to work they wanted him to be a different clown instead of a zombie. I think his height is intimidating so he does better scaring as being a clown--haha! He ended up being ‘Bubbles’ the clown instead:
Speaking of Josh he has started applying to different colleges. He has even received an academic scholarship already. Although I am excited for him, part of me is a bit sad because I am not ready to have another kid leave the nest, yet!! However, the future looks bright for him!
Noah got a hold of my phone--nuff said:
I have stopped ordering school pictures for the kids because we usually get our own family and kid pictures taken every year. However, they still get them taken for the yearbook. Sometimes they turn out well, sometimes not as well. I still like to see what they end up looking like though. Sarah isn’t a big fan of her school pictures this year. I still think she looks cute. She did say on the way to school she was afraid she was going to be late so she ran to school. Let’s just say I didn’t add as many bobby pins as I should have since I didn’t know she would be running to school. I just told her it was good practice for her driver’s license picture in a few years. Here’s my sassy girl:
Daniel turned 15 a week and a half ago. The DMV’s in the area have really been backed up especially due to Covid. Aaron called 6 weeks before Daniel’s birthday to get him an appointment to take his written test the office closest to us didn’t have any appointments available so we had to go to the next closest one that did have an appointment. In the mean time Daniel took lots of online practice tests. He got pretty good at taking them and would text us a picture every time he got 100% on them which was a lot:
The online tests were a bit easier than the written test. However, Daniel still passed the test on his first try.
Speaking of Sarah...I got a letter in the mail a week ago telling me she needed to reapply for the immunization exemption. What?! I then remembered that we had to ask to be exempt from her kindergarten shots. When she had Kawasaki Disease she ended up getting two rounds of the blood product IVIG. When someone gets IVIG they are told not to get any immunizations for a year since they won’t get the immune response they need to have an immunity from the vaccine. So we had to apply for a exemption. Once she was able to receive her vaccines she got them including kindergarten and Jr. High. However, since she was originally on the exemption form they never checked her vaccine status and just assumed I still wanted her exempt. I got a letter saying she either needed to get her vaccines, fill out the exemption form or she would get kicked out of school later this month. EEEEK!! I called and talked with the secretary and, thankfully, she was able to check USIIS (which is the Utah Statewide Immunization Information System) and see she was up to date on her immunizations. I was glad they were able to update her information and that she wasn’t going to get kicked out of school. It would have been doubly crazy since I am an immunization nurse, too!! Glad it all got fixed!
The morning of his birthday Aaron got him 15 donuts and a note for him when he woke up:
Off to the DMV. Taking the picture for his permit:
Yay he passed, ugh that we have to teach a new driver. I am not the most patient teacher....:
After passing his test we took him out to lunch. Daniel’s choice was sushi.
Our mostly consumed tasty sushi roll:
It was pretty tasty and a fun lunch date. Because that day was pretty crazy Daniel opted to celebrate his birthday fully on Sunday. After lunch I went to work and Aaron went back to work.
After we all got home that evening, Aaron took Daniel out driving for the first time. Daniel was pretty excited:
Noah finished up the soccer season. He really enjoys playing soccer:
He did best at being goalie, though. He did really well at blocking shots and stopping the goals.
Their last game we got their pictures back.
His team:
We got a fun, new toy. We ended up finding a great price on a used pool table. It got delivered and set up last week and we all love it. The kids are getting pretty good, too. The kids like to challenge Aaron and me to a game anytime.
Matthew decided he needed to get his hair cut. Seeing as he is now living in his own house he gets to decide how he wants his haircut. When he lived at my house I got to have a say in how he got his hair cut since I was the one that cut it. However, they have a regular barber come to their house once a month. Since Matthew HATES combing his hair he opted to get a buzz cut. He texted me some pictures to show me his new, no comb haircut.
I am glad he likes it! He was pretty proud of himself being able to say how he wanted his hair.
Daniel had a fun young men activity last week. They all went on a 12 mile bike ride. Daniel was able to get his bike all prepped a few hours beforehand. Here’s one picture that a leader took of a few of the boys including Daniel:
Last Thursday was a very crazy day!! I had a very early morning shift at work. My clinic was supposed to end at 10 am. However, I had another meeting scheduled at 10 am with Matthew’s team to discuss his first 30 days in the group home and to set some goals. Luckily, I was able to pack up and leave my clinic right at 10. Since we are now in the technical age we were able to have Matthew’s team meeting via Zoom. I left my clinic and drove to the closest parking lot in Kaysville and was able to join in on the meeting. I was only two minutes late which was pretty good considering. Aaron was able to join in on the meeting on his phone inside his car while parked at his work on base. We all discussed the previous 30 days and how Matthew was doing--he is doing well. We also worked together to set some goals for Matthew to work towards. Matthew had in person class that day so he couldn’t join us for this meeting. Here’s everyone that was on the Zoom call for Matthew:
I made it up to him by taking him to lunch at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. It almost made getting allergy shots worth it. He also introduced me to their Polynesian dipping sauce which is pretty tasty.
I was able to get him back to the school before his last period class started. After dropping Josh of I immediately had to run to my doctor’s visit. It was an incredibly crazy day and was glad when I was able to finally make it home to stay that evening.
Matthew has a really great team! All these people have been great to work with!
We had an additional meeting the following Monday, however, it was with Matthew’s Vocational Rehab counselor, and his employment trainers. The meeting was to talk about the possibility of Matthew getting a job with UDOT working with UTA as a host. After talking with everyone it was decided that we needed more information about the possible job before we decided if Matthew would be able to perform the job duties. I think we may try Matthew out at volunteering first to see how he handles ‘working’ before we proceed with an actual job. I am glad I don’t have to try and make all these decisions on my own--Aaron wasn’t able to make it to this meeting. It is great to have help and advice from other experts.
Speaking of Matthew....he is enjoying living in the group home. Matthew does have a cell phone, but it is a specialized one that only allows him to call numbers that we have programmed in the phone. Meaning he can only call me, Aaron, his house manager, his house employees, etc.--only a few numbers. Matthew got a bit frustrated because he is such a social guy he wants to call everyone. That is why he has a locked down phone because he has a hard time knowing when it is appropriate to call someone and when it isn’t. We want to work on that before we get him a regular phone. However, he is a pretty resourceful kid. He discovered that he can email people. Since he needs email for school we can’t really lock that down and he has gone a bit crazy emailing people. I had no idea this was going on until Josh came home from school and told me that his Spanish teacher told Josh to tell Matthew, hi. Wait, wut?! When I talked to Matthew he then let me know that he has been emailing all his old high school teachers and administrators. Oh my.....I am hoping they are all okay with that because I had no idea that was happening. A few days later Matthew was able to set some financial goals and decided he wanted to save up to ride the Heber Valley Historic Railroad. He was able to look up their email address and email them lots of questions. I have no idea what questions he emailed them, but they were kind enough to respond. What am I going to do with this kid?! He’s too smart and resourceful for his own good sometimes!!
Immediately after the Zoom call ended I had to drive straight over to the high school to check Josh out of school. He had to get his allergy shots done. With Covid restrictions going on we actually have to make an appointment for allergy shots and during the day that day was the ONLY time they had available so we didn’t have a choice. Josh only missed 30 minutes of one class, but all of his lunch period. Who wants to spend their lunch period getting shots?!
I have been working quite a bit lately. Occasionally we have clinics that give us some swag when we get there. I did a clinic at the Sewer district last week. They gave us some sweet face masks with a toilet on them. It was pretty funny. You have to have a great sense of humor if you work at the sewer district. I brought the masks home and all the kids thought they were awesome:
Who says nursing isn’t glamorous?!?!--HAHA!
This handsome boy actually celebrated 3 years seizure FREE last week. Wahoo!! As long as he takes his seizure meds regularly he does wonderfully. Here’s to 3 or more seizure free years--crossing my fingers!!
Matthew knows and keeps track of everyone’s birthday. He knew Daniel’s birthday was coming up. He also made sure he would be around when we celebrated Grandma T’s birthday, too. A week before Daniel’s birthday he called to let me know he got Daniel a present. He was so excited that he did all of it by himself. However, he told me about 5 different times not to tell Daniel because he wanted it to be a surprise for Daniel. It was pretty sweet. A few days later he called me a ton of times, however, I couldn’t answer because I was at work. When I finally got a chance to call him back he immediately demanded the recipe for Chicken Tatortot casserole and the recipe for Sweet and Sour Meatballs because he got cooking homework assigned at school. He was disappointed I couldn’t give him the recipes right then because, again, I was at work. I told him when I would be home and he called me immediately as soon as I got home. He is a pretty persistent kid, but I guess it gets him what he wants--haha! He was so excited to make those recipes for his homework since they are two of his favorites!
Matthew’s house manager was able to talk to a manager at Office Max and got Matthew a BUNCH of scrap paper to shred. Matthew was beyond excited! He made them take a picture of him getting the paper from the manager. I love getting texts like this!!
Josh and Daniel had their last Cross Country meets for the season. Daniel’s race was first. Aaron, Noah and I were there to cheer them on. Daniel was a punk and when he saw me taking a picture of him he stuck out his tongue. What a dork--haha!
In the home stretch of the 3 mile race:
Josh was asked to run in the varsity race and he did great!
He did great. I am glad these two were able to be on the same team this season!
Last Saturday was the Women’s Session of Conference. Sarah and I went out to dinner and then watched the broadcast together. It is fun to do this with her now she is old enough!!
We watched Conference as a family as much as we could on Saturday. However, I had to work Saturday morning so I missed that session. We were able to catch both sessions on Sunday, though. As per tradition Aaron made his HUGE Conference breakfast of sausage, bacon, hash browns, eggs, toast, pancakes, and chocolate milk. We actually had leftovers which NEVER happens at our house so you know Aaron made A LOT!!
That evening we celebrated Daniel’s birthday. We had G&G T over for dinner. Daniel chose homemade chicken quesadillas for his dinner. We then had cake and ice cream. Daniel wanted a chocolate store-bought cake for his birthday cake.
15 never looked so good!!
Matthew was so excited to give Daniel his present. It was sweet to watch him give it to Daniel because he was so excited.
We were glad G&G T made it for dinner. Grandma had been in a bad car wreck the previous week that had totalled her Prius and set off all the airbags. It had also cracked her sternum which was pretty painful. We were glad she felt well enough to come for dinner with Grandpa T.
Noah started Robotics club this past week. He came home and was excited to show me his new shirt:
Sarah sewed her first pillow and pillowcase in one of her classes this past week. Two weeks ago we had to go and pick out some fabric. Sarah had a hard time choosing two that she liked both together. I think what she chose looked great together:
Sometimes you wonder if you have done enough to teach your kids good things. Daniel surprised me the other afternoon. Josh had taken Daniel along to the grocery store with him. Daniel saw some New York Seltzers and thought of me. He bought me one to give me when I got off of work. That was so sweet and thoughtful. It made my momma heart happy. We enjoyed our New York Seltzer’s together. I loved it!!
We had some fun last night. We had dinner over at the Einzinger’s house and then played games. All the kids had fun hanging out with each other. It was a fun evening!
In other things we are getting the chance to dog sit for my brother’s dog Charlie. He is a really sweet dog. Sophie, however, is a bit of a bully and quite jealous. We have only had him for one day so far, but I am hoping by the end they will have lots of fun together.
No comments:
Post a Comment