Car Wreck, Genetics, Birthday, Homecoming, Soccer, Meets, Driver’s License

We have been keeping busy these last two eventful weeks.  Here’s what we have been up to:

Noah had his last week of soccer last week.  We got his soccer pictures as well:

Noah loves soccer.  His most favorite position is goalie and he does a decent job at it, too.  He is sad that soccer won’t start up again until spring.

Noah is the goalie wearing the orange jersey:

Speaking of Noah he has started Orchestra at the elementary and seems to be enjoying it.  He also is serving on the Student Council at the elementary, too.  They are still figuring out which activities each student will help with so Noah is patiently waiting to hear.  He also got invited to participate in SEM this year for Language Arts and Social Studies.  Wahoo!  Here’s what the paper said:

The kids still keep things interesting.  I have been working a lot lately.  When I came home the other day from work I found that the ’Not Me’ Ghost had paid us a visit and left this sticky hand on the ceiling.  No one has admitted to it, but I have my suspicions--haha!  It has been up there for over two weeks now.  I keep telling myself I should get it down, but as you can see I have not done it yet.  I will get to it....eventually or it might fall off the ceiling.  We shall see--haha!

We don’t get to hear from Josh via call or email today.  He let us know this morning that he changed his P-day this week to Thursday since he and his companion will get to attend the temple that day.  I am excited for him, but I will miss talking to him and reading his email.  However, we did get a different email about him this week.   Here’s what it said, 

"Dear parents of Elders DeMartin and Mancil

My wife and I have been asked to inspect the apartments for the missionaries in our mission.  Today we stopped by the Gurnee to check out the apartment of your sons.  You will be happy to know that they are healthy, happy and their apartment looks just OK.  It’s an older apartment and they are harder to keep clean.  My wife gave them some assignments to take care of and they promised they would. . 

We also attended a fireside on Sunday night in which Elder Mancil spoke about his decision to serve a mission and how his testimony and faith have increased during the short time he has been in the field.  

They are excited the COVID 19 restrictions have been lifted.  They have people to teach and their attitudes are very positive about the work... And each other :).  They are very busy teaching and have quite a few people interested in the gospel.  And they ad a baptism last month and have lots of people to teach. 

They are starting to get out to do more service projects which is a great change for them and also a chance to interact with people in the community.   

They love you very much and grateful for your support.  We thought you might like photo of your missionary in front of his home away from home.

Love

Layne”

Here’s the picture they attached:

I love that Josh’s companion is wearing sandals and socks and that Josh only has one sandal on and one barefoot--haha!  It was nice to hear from the couple missionaries that Josh appears to be doing well.  I am glad that his apartment is just OK, but they were able to share some tips with them :).

Daniel had a meet in Roy two Saturdays ago.  The course goes all around Roy High and is fun to watch.  Here’s Daniel as he passed by Aaron and me:

The home stretch:

After the race:

When we got home from the race, Sarah had made a grilled cheese sandwich, but the whole family room was smokey because of her grilled cheese sandwich.  You can kind of see the smoke in the sunbeams from the windows.  I am just glad the fire alarm didn’t go off.

After the race Daniel quickly showered and got ready for his Homecoming Day date. They went bowling and then played hide and go seek in the mall.  Here he is before he left:

After the day date he came home and got ready for the evening/dance part of the date.

Here is Daniel and his cute date Em:

Exchanging their corsage/boutonniere:

Here’s their group:

Usually I like to take the kid that is turning 16 out on a date, however, we ran out of time before Homecoming.  On that date I like to go over manners, expectations, etc. just to give them a chance to ask questions and practice with me instead of on their real first date.  Like I said it didn’t happen before Homecoming and there were a few faux paus that happened on Daniel’s date, but it wasn’t too big of deal. They just went as friends so Daniel kind of got away with not walking her up to the porch to say goodnight......he didn’t realize that was what he was supposed to do.  Oh well.  Next time he will know.  He still wants to go on a date with me still so maybe there might be a for more things to teach him so he will be ready for his next date :). 

Daniel’s 16th birthday fell in the middle of last week.  The middle of the week for us is usually pretty crazy so we decided to celebrate his birthday the Sunday before his birthday.  It ended up being the day after Homecoming so he was able to tell G&G T all about his date during Sunday dinner.  Daniel chose to have homemade crunch wraps.  They have a tostada shell in the middle topped with taco meat, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, pico de gallo, wrapped by a huge burrito shell and crisped on the Blackstone.  They are pretty yummy!  Then you can top it with more pico de gallo, sour cream and guacamole.  After dinner Daniel asked for a chocolate cake for his birthday cake:

We were glad G&G T were able to join us for his birthday dinner.

Afterward it was time to drive Matthew back to his group home.  That evening had the most interesting sunset.  Daniel was about to get his DRiver’s license that week so he was the one driving so I could really look at the pretty sunset.  This picture doesn’t even come close to showing how pretty the sun looked as it set, but what can you do?!

If you didn’t know....according to Daniel leftover chocolate birthday cake makes for a yummy breakfast....haha!  I figure it can’t be anything different than a chocolate donut, right?!

Last week Daniel had another meet in Layton.  Here’s right after it started:

Right after Daniel finished we tried to talk to him, but his teammate was having some problems so Daniel and a friend carried him over to the rest of the team to get some help so we weren’t able to talk to him.  Here he is helping to carry his teammate:

Our garden just kept producing tomatoes.  I was out of lids and done with canning anyway.  I had Aaron help me pick all the red tomatoes and he took them in to work hoping that someone would want to take all of them so we didn’t have to feel guilty not using them--haha!  There were so many!!!

Sophie if she is not curled up with someone she is sunning herself somewhere.  This time she chose the couch:

Daniel’s birthday was last week.  Aaron made sure to get him 16 donuts that morning to celebrate:

Later that day Aaron and I picked Daniel up from school and took him over to get his Driver’s License.  Aaron had the foresight to make the appointment over a month ago since they are so backed up.  That way he was able to get his license on his actual birthday.  Here he is getting his license photo taken:

When we got up to actually show the paperwork to get his license, the DMV had yet to receive his information from his summer school Driver’s Ed teacher because it was never sent over.  If they didn’t get that information then Daniel wouldn’t get a license that day.  DOH!!  Amazingly enough when Aaron called the Driver’s Ed teacher he actually picked up the phone.  I am grateful he did pick up the phone, but wonder why he did since he was supposed to be teaching at that time....Anyway, whatever, it worked in our favor so I won’t question it.  The Driver’s Ed teacher immediately sent over the files to the DMV showing that Daniel had completed everything he needed to back in June.  Phew!!  Daniel breathed a sigh of relief because he was able to get his actual license that day and we wouldn’t need to come back.  YAY!!  Here’s the new driver:

Afterward we took Daniel out to celebrate his birthday.  He chose sushi for lunch from Golden Ginger.  Yum!!  He got some sushi and an entree, because he is a teenage boy and all they do is EAT A TON OF FOOD ALL OF THE TIME!!  

We dropped him back off at school so he could finish out his day.  We were going to celebrate informally that evening as a family, but Daniel wanted to hang out with friends instead.  We put off that informal celebration until the following Sunday.  He did get to drive to school alone the next day.  We made him leave early because they don’t allow the sophomores to park in the school parking lot.  They have to park on the streets around the high school so if you want a decent spot you have to get there EARLY.  I made Daniel get there EARLY, but it did make me nervous to let him drive over by himself.  He got there just fine.  He is a good driver, but I still worry about it!

These past two weeks have been quite stressful.  Two weeks ago as I was driving down to Salt Lake to go to work I was rear ended on the freeway.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad.  Traffic had started to slow down the and truck towing a trailer behind me couldn’t stop in time and rammed the back of my car.  Not the best way to start your Monday morning, but gratefully, other than spilling my drink all over the dashboard, denting the back of the car, and a bit of whiplash nothing else was wrong.  It was a bit nerve wracking to be in the emergency lane on the left hand side of the freeway during morning rush hour waiting for the police to show up.  However, the highway patrol got there relatively quickly after I called 911.  After assessing everything--both our cars were still drivable--they had us pull back out into traffic and drive to a close by rest area to fill out all the paperwork.  I am glad he had car insurance.  However, after getting all his information and putting in a claim, he is refusing to answer the phone.  That means his insurance can’t pursue my claim until they get his side of the story. It has been a bit frustrating.  His agent actually told us that if we needed to get things moving along to contact our insurance and have them pay the claim so we can get it fixed while our insurance pursues payment from his insurance.  It has been a bit of a mess, but I think we finally got things resolved on our end after starting a claim through our insurance.  I hope that all made sense.....

Anyway, we also got the results of Sarah’s genetic panel from the Liver Clinic.  She does have a gene mutation on the gene ABCB4.  She also has a few other genetic variants that showed up that could be or could not be significant.  That is not the best news.  They are now doing a workup to see if she has something called PFIC (Progressive Familial Intrahepatic Cholestasis) Type 3 .  Anyway, that meant she had to go off her Ursodiol medication for a week and then do a bunch of bloodwork while she was fasting.  We got thrown another curveball when we found out (the hard and very expensive way) that our health insurance does not cover the usual lab we use anymore.  They changed right before her last blood draw and we didn’t know it until we got the HUGE bill for those last labs that got drawn. Anyway, that meant I had to call around to see who takes our health insurance.  When I found someone I then had to call the Liver Clinic back to get them to fax the lab orders so we could get Sarah’s labs done.  It took a few calls to get it done.  Anyway, Sarah finally was able to get them done Saturday morning.  They drew a bunch of vials because they are trying to see what is going on with her.  I just kid with her and tell her she just likes being difficult--haha!  Luckily, she is a good sport about getting her blood drawn.

Since we did get those genetic mutation results they are referring us to see the Metabolic/Genetics Clinic at Primary Children’s Hospital.  The Liver Clinic sent Sarah's referral over to them and I called to make an appointment.  That’s when I found out that the Metabolic/Genetic Clinic has to internally review the referral to make sure it is legitimate and that review usually takes a few days.  Off handedly I did ask them about how long of a wait it was to get in to the clinic. They told me it was about a 6 month wait.  Wow!  So when they called me back two days later to set up an appointment for her, I was shocked when they tried to get us in the following week.  I asked why they could see us so soon and they said the Liver Clinic wanted us seen ASAP.  Hmmm.  I didn’t like the sound of that....anyway, we couldn’t do the next week so we were able to get an appointment in a few weeks.  I am trying not to worry about it, but I am not being very successful.  I have been a bit emotional.  That was not what I was hoping to hear.  I have finally told myself I cannot Google anything else about it because there are too many rabbit holes to go down that don’t lead anywhere that is productive and positive.  I will just try and patiently wait for our appointment to see what they say.  For all I know--this to shall pass......

Last week I had a clinic at the Jr. high.  Aaron brought the kids over and they all got their flu shots from me.  Aaron surprised Daniel.  He picked Daniel up from Cross Country practice and drove straight over to the Jr. High without telling him what was going on.  When Daniel figured it out he was not happy about it, but he did okay with getting the shot.  He told me not to talk to him or look at him but just to get it done ASAP.  Sarah was fine with it, but Noah really was scared to get his.  Aaron and I had to restrain him to get it done.  I felt bad, but what can you do?

Saturday morning our garden got taken out for the season.  I am sad to not have fresh produce anymore because that means summer is officially over.  However, I do LOVE fall and sweatshirt weather.  Here’s the removal of the garden :(.

We did have a Praying Mantis come for a visit, too:

After tearing out the garden for the winter we did go on a drive up Sardine and Logan Canyons to see all the beautiful fall leaves while we listened to Conference.  

They were beautiful!

We did stop by Gossner’s for some ice cream and Squeaky Cheese.  Yum!!

The next morning Aaron made his traditional HUGE Conference breakfast.  It consisted of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, toast and chocolate milk.  It was delicious.  However, we had lots of leftovers since Josh wasn’t with us this time.  That kid really ate a ton, but Daniel is starting to give him a run for his money--though!!

For dinner we celebrated Daniel’s birthday again with smash burgers which are some fancy hamburgers.  We then had some birthday cupcakes for dessert while Daniel opened his presents.  It was a good day.

Conference is always good to listen to and brings comfort and direction.  It was a great weekend!!