Travel Pillow of Shame, Answers, Meets, Performances, Clinicals, Volunteering, Birthdays, Spring Break

I am pretty far behind. Here's a not so quick catch up of our family's happenings. Noah's Prom date answered him back letting him know she was planning on going to Prom with him.  

Noah was not too worried, but was still relieved when she answered him.

Sarah, Josh and I like to read when we have time. We all read the book Project Hail Mary so when Sarah found out they were making a movie she said we all needed to go see it. She found out when it would be opening and we got tickets.

However, there was a small snafu. Sarah and I bought the tickets online. Somewhere between selecting our seats and checking out, the website changed our reservation dates without us noticing. We didn't find out that happened until we had settled in our seats to watch the previews before the movie. That's when a really rude, jerk face and came got all up in Sarah's face yelling that we were in the wrong seats. He was relentless. Aaron got up and suggested to the rude man in between him yelling at Sarah that they go to customer service to see what the problem was. Sarah was in tears. We still didn't know that the date had been changed on our ticket so we were actually in the wrong seats, but that guy was straight up yelling and accusing that we were sitting there on purpose. Anyway, come to find out the tickets we had purchased were for the movie that had played two nights before. DOH!!  Thankfully, the lady at customer service took pity on us and issued us free tickets. There were only 5 seats left for that evening showing. 4 seats were together and one seat was off in-between other people across the theater. Aaron was kind enough to take the 1 seat so the rest of us could sit together. Unfortunately that was one seat by itself was right next to jerk face guy.  When Aaron went to sit down jerk face guy sheepishly apologized for his reaction. His excuse was that he had had a bad day as a parole officer and took it out on Sarah and us. Whatever, he was still a jerk-face. I am still salty about it. There was no reason to yell at Sarah and us the way he carried on. Anyway, we did get to watch the movie and it was really good. It followed the book pretty closely which was awesome. Here we are discussing the movie as we walked out to our car in the parking lot afterward:

Noah had a track meet last week.  Noah ran the mile and the 4x400. Here's a few pictures:

He did great!

I got to see the dermatologist two weeks ago. Unfortunately I have some pre cancerous spots on my face along my hairline that got 'frozen' off. That did not feel great. I have to follow up in two months to see how it heals and to see if they need to do anymore to remove the spots. Wear your sunscreen!!  Anyway, here I am in my car right after it got frozen off in my no makeup glory:

Aaron was out of town last week. Thankfully, we still could all join in on Daniel's P-Day call even if we were not all in the same state:

Matthew got to flex his Special Olympics Spokesman Role this past week. Jimmy John's had a day where 100% of the proceeds went to Special Olympics Utah. They asked Matthew to go visit the store closest to his group home and to promote their connection with Special Olympics. Matthew was more than happy to  wear his Special Olympics shirt, show off his medals and 'help'. Here's some of the pictures that were taken:

Matthew with all the employees working that day at that location:

They even used a picture of Matthew to promote it on Special Olympics Utah Facebook page:

Roz, one of his staff, took him and did so great helping him while he was there.

Matthew has also been busy. He moved group homes yesterday. He moved to be closer to us and to get away from some issues he had with a previous house mate. He is now living 7 minutes away from us instead of 30. It makes picking him up so much easier for us. Hopefully he settles in okay.

Noah had a band festival last week. It was crazy because Aaron was out of town so I was solo parenting it. As soon as I got off work I had to go directly to Farmington to listen to him perform. Interestingly enough one of the judges was my old high school band teacher. That was crazy!  Anyway, Noah's band did great and I am glad I made it just in time to see them perform.

Sarah and Noah had a piano recital last week as well. 

It is always fun to see them play/perform. Despite having some performance anxiety they did great.

Sarah and Noah also got to report about their experience at the Leadership Conference at the City Council Meeting last week. They had three people give a report and Sarah and Noah were two of those people. They were both nervous, but did great. Here's some pictures that were taken:

Sarah went first because she is the youth city council mayor. She was really nervous, but did great!

My birthday was last week. Unfortunately I had to work on my birthday. However, some of the ladies at work made it fun and brought in a birthday headband, badge and banner that I got to wear. They even brought in some flowers and a birthday cake as well. Even if I had to work it was okay. 

After work me and the family all went out to get some sushi. YUM!

The next morning Sarah got her Senior Pictures taken. While she was getting them done I took this picture. Hopefully we will get them back soon!

In other exciting happenings....Sarah has completed her mission papers and submitted them with the bishop. She has an appointment with the Stake President next week to submit them to church headquarters then wait to get her call. Here's the mission picture of my baby girl we took to submit with her papers:

Josh is graduating from Weber State with his Associate's Degree in Laboratory Technology at the end of this month. Wahoo!!  He decided to walk at graduation a bit last minute which is exciting. He is continuing straight into his Bachelor's degree in Laboratory Sciences right away so he won't be stopping school. Here's a few pictures he shared of things happening at school in the last few weeks.

His class had a funeral potato casserole contest. Josh came in third place. I was happy because he made two pans--one to take to school and one for us to eat at home. YUM! Here's the 3rd place creation:

There were also some other weird things people brought. Josh didn't bring this dish, but took a picture of the interesting shredded carrot, pineapple green jello....

Josh also gets to do two weeks of a clinical lab rotation at the end of the month. He got to choose to either stay local or to try a rural lab. Josh, being the adventurous soul, chose to do his clinical rotation at a rural lab. He got his assignment a few weeks ago. He gets to go to a lab in a very small county hospital located in Superior, Montana which is an 8 hour drive away. Superior, Montana has a whopping population of only 830 people. The closest bigger city is Missoula, Montana. I think that may make for a long two week rotation, but who knows?! He will stay in some apartments across the street from the hospital for the two weeks he is there. 8 hours is a long drive so I will drive out there with him. He will drop me off at the Missoula airport and I will fly home. Then when it is time for him to come home two weeks later I will fly back out to the Missoula airport to make the 8 hour drive back to Utah. This will be an adventure for both of us--haha!

I did get an interesting text from my brother Bryan. His son Miles hiked Frary Peak out on Antelope Island last week. Interestingly enough when Miles went to sign the visitor log at the top of the hike he found his cousins Josh and Noah's signature from when they hiked that very peak last November. That was pretty cool!! Bryan texted me the picture he got from Miles showing their signatures:

Every Sunday evening we play some games as a family. It can vary between Jackbox which is online or different card games. Since it was my birthday weekend I got to choose the game. I LOVE the Trivia Murder Party game on Jackbox. It is a trivia game with lots of questions. If you get an answer wrong you have to do a little side game. If you lose the side game you die, if you win the side game you get to live and continue playing. One of the side games you can play after answering a questions wrong is who can do the best pretend tattoo design. Everyone else votes on which tattoo is the best. Josh and Noah were competing for the best pretend tattoo design. Something tells me they were hoping to win my vote--haha!!

Daniel will be finishing his mission in July. I CAN'T believe it so coming so soon!! To prepare for him returning he has been setting up all his college stuff at Utah State. We have secured housing for him. He also had a Zoom meeting with his Academic Advisor last week. Since Daniel only has his P-day to work on things he can't get everything done. We are helping him finish the things he doesn't have a chance to do. Because of that, we joined in on the Zoom meeting with the Academic advisor to know if there were things we needed to help Daniel with. Aaron and I did not say much during the meeting we mostly just listened during the meeting. I did take a quick screen shot of our meeting. I am there, but had my camera turned off. I was still in my jammies with no makeup and no one needs to see that--haha! Anyway the meeting went well and a tentative school schedule was developed for Daniel for Fall Semester. He has to try to register for Fall classes this Thursday and is pretty nervous about it. 

He also interviewed to be a Business School Ambassador. He made it through two rounds of interviews. We are crossing our fingers that he gets the position. We should know this upcoming week. It would be a great opportunity for Daniel. It is a great paying and flexible job which is always a plus for any student. Keep your fingers crossed for him!!

This past week was Spring Break for Sarah and Noah. Monday Sarah and I went thrifting. Tuesday we took advantage of the time off and went to play some Top Golf. Unfortunately, Josh still had to go to school so he couldn't come play with us. Here's some pictures:

Sarah:

Aaron:

Noah:

Me:

It was a fun day. I had to work on Wednesday and Thursday. However, Friday I got off from work since it was Good Friday and considered a holiday at my work. Wahoo!! Josh also had Friday off as well. Aaron had to work so we did miss him. We decided to go and try 5 different hamburgers from 5 different fast food places to see which one tasted the best. We cut them up into quarters so we could all try the same burger. We tried burgers from Carl's Jr (Famous Star), McDonald's (Big Mac), Wendy's (Bacon Burger), Burger King (Whopper), and Culver's(Butterburger). We did a blind taste challenge. Interestingly enough Burger King Whopper was the across the board favorite.

Later that afternoon Sarah, Noah and I went and did some baptisms at the Syracuse temple. Josh had to work so he didn't come with us. Noah got to baptize which was cool. It was an amazing day!

Saturday Sarah got to help with the city Easter Hop. It is where the city hosts a bunch of booths where families can come play games and get treats. They changed it a few years ago from an Easter Egg hunt to the Easter Hop because the Easter Egg hunt was too crazy and competitive. Here is Sarah and her youth city council friend helping at one of the booths:

Here's all the youth city council members that helped that morning:

Noah was not able to help at the Easter Hop because he had a track meet down in Orem. Aaron and I went to cheer him on:

Noah ran the 1600 meter in 5:23 which was a PR for him--wahoo! After Noah's race we brought him back home, but not after stopping to enjoy a birthday lunch with him at JCW's. They have the best burgers--that are not fast food or else we would have tried them out in our food challenge the day before.

The next morning was Easter and Noah's birthday. Aaron got Noah his 16 donuts since he is turning 16. That is crazy!!

The kids all found their Easter baskets, too.

Sarah had to work at the Assisted Living Center very early that morning so the Easter bunny hid her basket in her car the night before since it didn't want to get up at 5 am to hide it--haha!

Aaron also made his traditional huge Conference Breakfast as well. It was a good morning!!

After Conference we celebrated Noah's birthday. He chose to have tri tip for dinner and then an ice cream cake.

We also go to talk to Daniel that evening since it was Easter. That was fun!

The next morning we had an appointment for Noah to get his Driver's License. Eeek!!

He is pretty excited to be an official driver. Sarah is not as excited since they now have to share a car.  Sarah is also reaching out to her old boss at Little Caesar's to set up an interview for Noah. Noah wants to start working ASAP and since it is our family legacy to work at Little Caesar's--haha! Just kidding. Aaron went to pick up a pizza there last month and asked if they were hiring. The employee at the register told him no. Aaron then said that he was just checking since our other children Sarah, Daniel and Josh had worked there and wanted Noah to get a job there, too. At that point the employee said that they weren't hiring, but if they know someone with connections than that was different. Sarah texted her old boss Hailey and she said to let her know when Noah turns 16 so she can interview him. Hopefully that interview will happen soon. We are desperately missing our low cost pizza connection after Sarah quit there to work at the care center as a CNA last year--haha!

Unfortunately, Sophie's right eye started really bothering her Sunday morning. She wouldn't stop rubbing, scratching or messing with it. I ended up taking her in to the vet on Monday afternoon. They stained her eye and found that she has a corneal ulcer. Boo!! The poor thing!  You can see the neon green spot on her right eye if you look closely. 

She has been miserable. She was sent home with 4 medications-- two eye drop medications and two oral medications to help treat her ulcer. They also recommended she wear a cone to keep her from messing with her eye with her paws. 

Instead of a cone of shame which looks horribly uncomfortable I ordered a recovery collar to help prevent her from messing with her eye. So we call it her travel pillow of shame since that is what it looks like--haha! The poor dog. She does not like it.

She has been letting me do her every 2-4 hour eye drops without too much resistance which has been a blessing. The oral medications are a bit more rough to get her to take, but this is not my first rodeo with that. She is on some sedating medication to help with the pain as well. 

She pretty much is using her travel pillow of shame to sleep a lot of the time:

We have a follow up vet visit next week. I am hoping it is fully resolved by then. Until then she will need to wear the travel pillow of shame.