Maycember

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog, but the girls have discovered it and have loved reading old posts. And they've been mining it for pictures for various school assignments - which is better than getting a text ask for a baby picture for a school assignment RIGHT NOW...

Abby turned 14 this month and we celebrated with our traditional breakfast birthday pancakes and presents. 

Abby is doing great this spring, she is getting along with all her teachers and despite intentionally choosing not to do an assignment in English, she has As in all her other classes and it looks like she'll squeak out a B- in English even without the assignment. She said, "I know I can't do this next year when I'm in high school." and I'm not inclined to fight with her over it.

Abby's in Stage Crew and has learned so many things. At parent teacher conference, her teacher said Abby is amazing. She is so talented and creative. She will do anything I ask and just gets it done and figures it out. Some kids complain about not wanting to do tasks, but Abby will do anything no matter how hard or messy. She has a perfect memory and can recite word for word any instructions I give and follows directions exactly. I rely on her. I wish she were a little more patient with some of her classmates who .

She was on stage crew for a dance concert at the beginning of the month and she was in charge of lights. They had some lighting issues and last minute changes. The day of the show, Abby decided it would be easier to start over so she deleted all the settings and reprogrammed it for the concert. At first her teacher panicked, but then Abby showed her all the features she'd used - many of which her teacher hadn't even been aware of - and she was amazed. And it worked perfectly for the concert. 

She's in choir and had a choir concert this week. She also had a solo - just a couple of lines. Abby had such bad stage fright that last year in Matilda when she was in the ensemble, the young women from our ward came to see her. She saw them before the show, came out for the first number then had a panic attack and didn't come out until the finale. I was sitting in my seat worried because I didn't see her on stage. Ever since then, we've been careful not to invite people to her performances and we always hold our breath... so far she's done well in everything this year but I was really nervous when I heard she had a solo. But she did great! Stepped down from the risers, stepped to the front of the stage, sang her two lines beautifully and then went back to the risers and continued singing. She has grown so much!

Abby also got an award in science - each teacher nominated 3 students that have impressed them this year and Abby was nominated by her science teacher. For her final project she built a volcano. She will erupt it on Monday - there is a mini bottle of sprite inside the volcano and she has mentos and red food coloring to add. She wanted to use red cream soda but we couldn't find any. She also drew the most amazing poster about volcanos. I didn't get a picture of that, but I am so amazed by her artistic talent.

Yesterday, Abby went to Camp Williams for an all day teen resilience seminar. We got a flier from the school district, it included rock climbing so she said she wanted to go. I dropped her off at 7 am. While she was there, they did a free rappel (no wall or anything to brace your legs against). Her hair was pulled back, but the elastic snapped and the wind blew her hair into her face which got tangled in the rope. They sent a soldier down with scissors to cut her free, but her hair was so tangled in the rope that they couldn't cut her free. So another soldier took pictures to document for insurance purposes that they had tried the safest option (cutting her free). And they sent down an emergency rope and switched the rope she was tied into, then let the other rope go and when it went slack her hair came free. What a miracle that she got out safely with even her hair mostly intact!

Here's a random video of Liam getting a drink after he went to his Kung Fu class, which he goes to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He just started recently, and is taking lessons at Shaolin Arts, the same place Sandy has been going for about a year. We picked it because they are close - we could walk there, but have the kids ever walked there? No.

On Friday, May 3 I took Liam and two friends to the park for our ward playgroup. These three 10-year-old boys had SO much fun playing on the playground. And it was 2 hours of completely screen free fun with no complaints. I didn't get a picture of them, but I did get a picture of the "campfire" they built under the slide. 

I also took Liam to see a homeopath. Dave at Dave's Nutrition in Salt Lake does consultations. And I've taken the girls in to get their constitutionals done. It's kind of strange, but we have seen some improvements from it and it's really inexpensive and no harm if it doesn't work. Liam's constitutional is Pulsatilla. 

He has been so emotional lately. I really need to get him in to see a therapist. He's had some bullying at school and I think he has some trauma from various things. I've been struggling to find somewhere to take him, but yesterday our stake did an Emergency Preparedness Fair and one of the classes was on mental health in a crisis taught by a therapist in the Jordan School District. He told me about this amazing website they created and a spreadsheet for finding therapists in the area that lists which insurances they take, etc. I have already picked one to try and sent a message through their website about scheduling an appointment. It is an amazing resource. If the link doesn't work, you just go to the Jordan School District website and click on Health and Wellness from the home page.

Liam's finishing up 4th grade. He's doing great. He was the only student in his class that got a 4 (highest score) on the standardized reading test. Which is very amazing because he has struggled in reading, but it is really coming together for him. He gave a talk in primary today. Here it is:

Today we’re going to learn about Alma and his people. Okay, so they got baptized and made covenants to God. Wicked King Noah’s army tried to kill them, but God told Alma about the army and they all escaped without getting killed. When I got baptized the water was around 50 degrees. It was really cold but I was happy to get baptized. I knew that God wanted me to get baptized and I didn’t want to wait a whole month to get baptized in warmer water. I know God is happy when we choose to get baptized. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen

Bill is still looking for a job. He's had 1 interview, a phone interview with a recruiter for a Director of Technology at Sundance, but didn't get called for an in person interview. It's very discouraging. He is applying widely to everything that even kind of fits. 

He took Abby and Liam last weekend to see the Aurora Borealis. They went to Stansbury Island, got a few pictures then as they were leaving, he looked in his rearview mirror and stopped on the side of the road and captured this amazing picture of Stansbury Island. It's so cool how you can see the stars and the different colors. 

Bill taught a class at the Emergency Preparedness Fair yesterday on emergency radio communications. He did a great job.

Sandy finished all her driving hours and drivers ed this month. Bill and I have a few more gray hairs after all those hours of driving with a new driver. She's careful and responsible and will be a great driver, but there is so much to learn! Especially living in a city with so much traffic.

On Monday May 6, Sandy got hit in the cheekbone during sparring at Kung Fu. She saw stars, but kept going and got hit in the head a couple of more times by another sparring partner - blows she would normally be able to block. By the time she got home, her pupils were different sizes and she was not acting like herself and Bill took her to the emergency room. They checked her over and sent her home without doing a CT scan. Bill gave her a blessing and promised complete healing.

The next few days were rough on Sandy. She had a headache that kept getting worse, she was struggling with light sensitivity, nausea. Couldn't focus on anything, couldn't text (which is when you know a 15 year old girl is in really bad shape!). Thursday night she was supposed to go to State Choir Festival and she got dressed and walked to the car, but she wasn't walking very steady and she was obviously in a lot of pain, so I took her to the emergency room instead. When they asked her what her pain was, she said a 10 on a scale from 1 to 10. They did a CT scan and declared her brain healing from the concussion. Her neck and shoulder had some tight muscles that were spasming, though, so they sent us home with pain meds and muscle relaxants and an anti-nausea medicine and she started improving. 

She sang in her end of the year choir concert Monday, May 13. She has forgotten some things, especially in math, but other than that seems fine. It was rough timing and she really bombed her math final. She needs to be retaught some things, but we'll work on that over the summer.

Then this past Friday she went to a party and was playing frisbee and another group was playing soccer and Sandy got hit in the back of the head with a soccer ball and got another concussion. Yesterday, she was nauseous and in pain and said she felt like there was a curtain drawn over one eye - which can be a sign of retina detachment which needs prompt medical attention so we ended up back at the emergency room for the third time in 2 weeks. Luckily an ultrasound of her eye and another CT scan showed that her retina and brain are fine. She's in a lot of pain again today and back to pain meds, muscle relaxants and anti-nausea medicine. And we're wondering if we need to bubble wrap her for the summer. 

Sandy and I went over to a plaza + art night at Taylorsville City. Every quarter they have two artists come talk and then each artist usually raffles off something to donate. Sandy won this beautiful print of an oil painting by Chad Poppleton.