Here’s what has been going on with us the last two weeks. Noah had a Beginning Band Exchange Concert on a Wednesday morning. Another local junior high joined Noah’s Junior High. Both bands played separately then one song together. It was pretty cool to see how far the Beginning Band has progressed since the beginning of the year. Noah got to play the snare, marimbas, and the crash cymbals during the performance which he loved. I really like him being in the percussion because you can really see him during the concerts!
The band teacher didn’t let us know about this concert until two days beforehand. Unfortunately, only I was able to make it to the concert since it was right in the middle of the day and we had such short notice. It was fun to see Noah perform, though.
Noah and Sarah both passed the first round of the solo/ensemble performance and got to perform at the school level. I snuck in and watched both of them play. Noah did the marimbas with a friend:
They both played well. Sarah’s group got picked to move on to the district performance level. Wahoo! I still think Noah did great to make it that far in his first year! Sarah will be performing tonight at the district.
Noah was not very excited to go, but we dragged him along with us. I thought it was cool to be able to meet a great author in person because that doesn’t happen very often. He, again, didn’t care what I thought, but what can you do?!
Sarah was pretty excited:
We finally got to sit down:
They gave out different colored wrist bands according to what time you got in line. We got purple because we were towards the front of the line:
We got to hear him speak for a few minutes:
Then we got in a LONG line to get him to sign some books. They asked that he only sign the new book he was promoting and one other book per person. We got him to sign some copies of Fablehave and Dragonwatch, too.
Sarah and Noah got to chat for a minute while he signed the books. It was pretty cool:
It was fun meeting him:
I haven’t read the Candy Shop Wars series yet so I don’t know much about it. Sarah has started it so we will see if she likes it. She is holding all the books from home we had him sign. Some of them are pretty tattered, but we got them signed anyway.
It was a pretty cool experience.
Sarah and her friends went to the mall the other day. While they were there they decided to try on a bunch of formal dresses and take pictures. Here’s a few pictures Sarah shared with me:
We had Daniel’s girlfriend, Katie, over for Sunday dinner. Aaron and I have been asked to serve on the Girl’s Camp Food Committee this summer. We are trying out different recipes for Girls Camp and wanted to see how everyone in our family liked it. Aaron made brisket tacos and they were good! Katie said she liked them, but you don’t know if she really did because she was trying to make a good impression--haha! The rest of the kids don’t spare our feelings and tell us like it is without sugar coating it so we believed them when they said they liked them.
I have still been working on and off that past month. This past week I got to drive down to Gunnison for another TB clinic. That is such a long 11 hour day especially when it is bad weather....I survived it. Anyway, we also had a CNS staff meeting lunch at Gardner Village. It was really good. Our boss likes to give us challenges sometimes. He talked to us about how old dogs can learn new tricks and gave some awesome examples of a 104 year old marathon runner. Another woman who got her first Bachelor’s degree at 87 and her Master’s degree at 90 something. He gave another example of a women who started who gymnastics career at age 57. He wanted to show these examples and inspire us to keep trying and learning new things. He then passed out two skeins of yarn and two knitting needles per person and challenged everyone to learn how to KNIT and scarf by August. All of us then spent the next 20 minutes trying to follow the same YOUTUBE clip of learning how to knit. I have NEVER knitted anything before. Wow, I don’t know if this old dog (me) can learn new things especially after trying to follow that knitting YOUTUBE clip....hopefully, I can get the hang of it by August--haha!
Sarah and Daniel got to attend a Thursday through Saturday Leadership Training up at Utah State with the youth council last week. I checked them both out of school Thursday at lunchtime and dropped them off to carpool up to Utah State. They stayed up in Logan right next to the USU campus for the whole conference. Here they are as I said goodbye:
Sarah and Daniel seemed to have fun at the Leadership Conference. Here’s some of the pictures they shared while they were there:
Daniel got a picture on the ‘cow'ch outside--haha!
Daniel and Sarah packed a ton of snacks. Daniel even brought a whole 12 pack of Mountain Dew to drink while he was up there. One of his friends drew him this--haha!
One of the activities they practiced their hand at suturing. I am jealous because I totally would have LOVED to try that!
He did get to attend Zone Conference yesterday. I had a hard time finding him in the pictures. I looked through all the pictures again and found him on the front row. You can hardly see the poor missionary behind him since Josh is too tall to be in the front row.
Josh did volunteer to be in the choir for Zone conference. He isn’t the best singer and let them know that, but they still asked him to sing anyway. He also got placed right in front of the microphone while they sang. You can definitely hear him--haha!
Daniel got a picture on the ‘cow'ch outside--haha!
One evening they had a fancy dinner and a dance they got to dress up for:
A friend in our neighborhood and ward is on the City Council and went up one night to spend with everyone. He sent us these pictures. It was awesome!!
The next night Noah had a birthday party he went to so Aaron and I were alone again one evening. I guess it is slowly preparing us for when we will truly be empty nesters. I don’t know how I feel about that exactly....Good thing we have a few years left before that will happen.
Noah had fun at the party. They got to do axe throwing and laser tag:
Last Saturday there was a food drive in our neighborhood. Our young men youth group went around and collected donated food off of porches. Here’s all the food they collected Saturday morning:
Our school district has a Transition Fair every year for all the special needs individuals in the district. It brings in all the different resources in the community/state together to help people find out about what resources are available for those with special needs. We have gone to this transition fair every year almost since Matthew has been 14 years old. This year Vista, his school, asked if Matthew could help volunteer and set up for the transition fair. He was so excited to help. They bussed over the volunteers from Vista and gave them some pizza while they helped direct traffic and set up. We went and picked Matthew up at 5 pm when the Fair started. He LOVED being a volunteer and telling everyone where to go and set up. Hopefully, he was actually helpful. He likes to take charge, but sometimes he can be a little too bossy. Anyway, he loved going and even now after attending this fair for 7 years we are still learning about different resources. It is an amazing event and I am grateful for it.
We also have been meeting with Matthew’s job search people. They are starting the exploration process where they are interviewing people who know Matthew best to find out his strengths to help in his job placement. This should take another 2-3 months and then hopefully, he can find a job tailored just for him. They are interviewing his group home staff today.
Josh is doing great. He only has a few months left before he comes home. However, the past month has been a bit rough. He first got a round of Norovirus and got pretty sick. The next week his companion caught influenza the first half of the week and then Josh caught it the second half. He has not been feeling the best, but finally is doing a lot better.
I can’t believe it is finally Spring. However, you can’t tell by the weather we are currently having--haha!
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