Awards

Yesterday morning (Wednesday) Nathan was invited to his school for the AB breakfast. They have a breakfast for the kids who make the honor roll all year. So we went to that and he was presented with his certificate. This morning (Thursday) Sarah's school was having their awards program, so I snuck out of work and went to it. Sarah received two awards. One was for making the honor roll all year, and the other one was the outstanding achievement award in Science. We are so proud of both of them! Greg has his 8th grade graduation tomorrow at school. He tells me on the way home from school TODAY that he would like to go buy a suit for the graduation! He said he would even wear a tie!! I just about wrecked the car! This kid can not stand to wear a shirt with buttons on it and he is telling me he will wear one along with a suit and a tie!! We are going shopping!!! Greg is going to Pizza Hut tonight for supper with his band teacher. This is his reward for being able to pass all 12 scales in band. Him and another boy are going as well a a couple of 7th graders. I tried taking pictures of Sarah's program...but they did not turn out well at all. They were all too dark or blurry. I think I need a different camera!
All for now.

A Walk in the Park

Well, today sure didn't end up to be just another walk in the park. It started out really good, then quickly took a turn for the worse. Darlene (one of the aides in the room) brings in her golden retriever every Wed. to work with the kids. He is being trained as a service dog. The kids usually read a story to him or just sit and pet him. Anyway, today we thought since it was such a nice day that we would take a walk with the kids and Ted E Bear (the dog). We take the kids out for walks every once in a while, but this was Ted's first time going. The first picture I have posted is with Rick and Ted. I work with Rick in the mornings. Rick is a very high functioning child on the Autism spectrum. But he is afraid of dogs. Ted has really helped with this. I couldn't believe it when Rick wanted to hold the leash! Truly amazing!! He wouldn't even go near Ted the first time he was brought into the room. Anyway, we take off on our nature walk. Pretty soon, Ian (who I work with in the afternoons) decides that he wants to hold the leash. Ian doesn't talk very much, but he can let you know when he wants something bad enough. Darlene was a little skeptical about letting Ian have complete control of the leash, but she let him in the end. Everything was fine, Ian was doing a great job, until Gage (another one of the kids along with us) threw a stick into the river. Did I mention that the path we are walking on is along the Yellow River? Anyway, the stick goes flying into the river, Ian lets go of the leash, and Ted goes leaping into the river after the stick! Oh did he ever have fun swimming around in the river! We were starting to panic though because he was totally ignoring Darlene and would not get out of the water. He finally came out and we proceeded on our walk. We really should have turned around right then, but we were not very wise. The fourth boy that we had along with us was Travis. He also does not speak. When we started out on the walk he was finishing up with his listening therapy. He listens to special music Cd's. His CD player is in a little backpack that he carries on his back. The headphones are special headphones and cost over $100. Anyway...he was done with the listening therapy, and was just walking with his backpack on. He had been throwing little pebbles in the water, along with sticks back when Ted went for a swim. I guess he figured that since we were no longer allowing them to throw sticks that he would throw his backpack. And he did...right into the river! It got caught in some twigs... in the river... along the bank. It was a very steep slope so we ended up making a human chain to retrieve the backpack. It took three of us and a very long stick to get it out of the water. I don't know if the CD player will work or if the headphones are any good, but we are going to try and salvage them. We had some good laughs, so I guess when it was all said and done, it wasn't such a horrible day! I don't think we will be taking anymore walks until next school year though! We have two more days left of school. Tomorrow we have field day in the morning and a talent show in the afternoon. Friday the whole school goes over to the park and we cook hot dogs and have a picnic for the last day of school! Until then...good night!

Rick with Ted E Bear

Travis with his listening therapy (before it took a swim)

Ian

Darlene trying to call Ted out of the river!

Gage in the classroom

Weekend project

Well, Allen kept himself busy this past weekend with a huge project. He took out the door in our kitchen and replaced it with a window, and he took out the window in the dining room and replaced it with sliding doors. This is just the beginning too. He wants to rearrange the whole layout of the kitchen and then I want new floor down (tile). He worked all weekend on the door and window. They really look good. He had to cut out the wall for the sliding doors (I'm glad I wasn't home to witness that!) He has all the trim done outside and the wooden shakes put back on. He has the trim inside done too except for around the window. We also need to stain the top part of the trim that is over the sliding door. I didn't get a chance to take any "before" pictures (I was on a field trip that day with the little boy that I work with) but I did take some "after" pictures. Here are some of the after pictures.

Picture of the window where the door use to be.

Picture of the sliding doors where the window use to be.

Looking in from the living room.

I managed to find one picture of what the kitchen door and window looked like before. It isn't a super good picture, but at least you get an idea of what it looked like before.

Nathan's soccer game

Nathan had a soccer game this morning. Here are some pictures I took at the game.
We hadn't taken any yet this season, and next Saturday is his last game! The coach planned a tailgate party for after the game. Grilled hot dogs and everyone brought a dish.

The team

(Nathan's in front, 1st one on left)

fixin their dogs up

Nate winking!

Nate racing for the ball

Nathan running with the ball

Nate bootin the ball (you can see part of the ball on right side)
Nate getting ready to stop the ball

Nate lining up for a kick

Nate running