Time gets away fast! Not only from the last blog I posted but for Austin's past 15 years! His birthday falls at a hectic time of year but with lots of things to celebrate. He's always been talented at everything he does. He has tried just about every sport and activity and is pretty good at most of them. He has tried most forms of music and is pretty good at most of those too. The best thing about him, though, is he is such a nice kid. Many people tell me he's always so pleasant to talk to and comfortable with adults, girls, boys, and kids alike. He's as cool as a cucumber, which is sometimes aggravating when I'm asking him to do something and he just says, "Yup". There's not a lot of fire behind him in that regard. He just gets to things when he gets to them. However, he is responsible, it just sometimes takes a while.
One thing he does have fire in is his push at the last bit of a race. He has a really good kick and will use it almost every time, surprising us all, especially at his last track meet when he got sub-5! He kept improving his race times for the mile for the last 3-4 races in the mile by 5-10 seconds. He really wanted to get below five minutes for his last race, and he did! 4:54 to be exact! I didn't get a good pic of his finish because I was so caught up in how he had come from the back of the pack all the way up to coming in second in that heat! It was one of those exhilarating, proud moments. Here's a picture walk of most of the race.
He's 6th from the back here.
Notice the guy on the far right, almost out of the pic.
Austin's close to him (a senior) here.
The last 1/2 lap here in the back, he's hard to see, because he's starting to pass.
The last 16th of a mile he's still with that senior.
Past him. Not in the picture are the first 2 guys because they were so fast. This is where Austin passed one of them just before the finish and came in second!
Stoked!
He earned the sub-5 shirt!
He also finished up his piano year with a bang earning the second-level trophy for Federation and earning a medal for certain requirements throughout the piano year. His recital piece was beautiful too.
The most interesting thing about these two final events in his school year is that he had a sprained ankle the last month of track and he had jammed his finger and then it got infected, affecting his piano practice a bit. Yes, Austin is also extremely talented at getting injured. Remember my post about his orchestra concert on Jason's birthday? Thank goodness he didn't break his wrist again, but that was sprained too, which is how we knew his ankle was sprained because we asked the doctor about it when we were at the urgent care.
Jason's brother is a doctor and told Jason where to slice into the finger to let out the puss. I didn't watch up close, but apparently, he couldn't get the blade in, so Kade did. Just like that!
Flexing some scrapes he got at track, while icing his shins, and still wearing the wrist guard for his wrist and ankle was still sprained here.
Sadly, that was Austin's last orchestra concert as he will not be involved with it next year, but he thinks he will still play around on his cello. Maybe he will, but it's okay if he doesn't since he is still taking piano lessons. He just can't do it all. He actually chose to support his friends at their seminary graduation rather than attend his last orchestra banquet. He lost his interest in the orchestra and wanted to support his ward and stake friends in graduating from seminary.
His birthday weekend we played a lot of card games and I took him and a couple of his friends out to trail ride at Maybury on Saturday and we watched Dune 2 on Saturday night. His birthday fell on fast Sunday, but he opted to not fast. I made him French toast, which he ate 6 slices of! We had some good conversation and enjoyed the dinner of wonton soup and fried rice that he requested, which is funny because my wonton soup recipe is one I made up and is the easiest in all the land. Jason suggested he make the fried rice to go with it so we had something else for those of us who were hungrier due to fasting, plus Austin is a major shrimp lover and it included shrimp. We had chocolate chip bundt cake for dessert.
Goodr sunglasses
A comic from Kade.
Fancy nail clippers, which he was so excited about!
Crocs!
After dinner, we went to a last-minute gathering at a friend's to see a former missionary and his wife who were visiting from Canada. Elder Woodruff was in our ward for 7 1/2 months! The best part for Austin is that he was able to see some friends on his birthday and play basketball while the adults visited. He got more treats, too!
Jason's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, which is actually a less busy day around here than a Tuesday, so that's good. I made him a little sausage, egg, and potato omelet for breakfast before we both went off to work. He only had a meeting to attend in person and then was able to work from home after that, so he picked up some lunch from Peepo's for us to eat at 1 when we both arrived home. Peepo's is a delicious shwarma, salad, and sub sandwich place that has food with an Afrikano/Middle Eastern flare, owned by some families from Lebanon. It's one of our favorites!
After lunch, I had to take Kade to his well-child exam and Jason had some work to do, but it seemed like his workload wasn't too bad on his birthday, which is a nice gift. So we had time to chat, in between meetings and my comings and goings.
Austin and Kade had an orchestra concert that evening, which meant a quick dinner together, but a pretty nice evening with one main place to be. We had salad and meat-lovers pizza from Aldi, for my meat-loving husband. He opened a bunch of cards and just a few gifts. His main gifts are his backpacking pack, which we got yesterday from REI, and a new suit and church shoes, which we'll go shopping for soon.
Candy from Erik.
Cosmo bobblehead from Kade.
Trying on the backpack.
The concert was enjoyable and I think Concert Orchestra, Austin and Kade's group, played the best they've played! I will not include a video of it though, because where we were sitting and where they were sitting on the stage meant we couldn't see them at all! Just Kade's tapping leg and part of Austin, once in a while. I was glad he could play in the concert since he had fallen and landed on his hand the week before, and thought he might've broken his wrist, again. The radiologist sent us to the orthopedic specialist because the x-ray showed a piece of bone that looked like it belonged somewhere else, yet they didn't know from where. The specialist compared it to his X-ray from last year. His wrist is that way now, after that bad break, and his bones are healed and fine. It was just a sprain! Thank goodness we didn't have them put a cast on him at the urgent care, as they suggested, and only braced it. He wouldn't have been able to play at the concert in a cast, as we learned from last year when Kade was in a cast for the concert.
Farnsworth friends!
When we returned, we had a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting that I made, since Kade was too busy. They'd forgotten that I know how to make cakes too!
An exciting start to the weekend was the Northern Lights that we were easily able to see. I was so glad it wasn't cloudy that night, as so often it is. I fully expected not to see them, especially at the decent hour of 10 pm. We had a big day the next day, so I wasn't even sure if I would be able to walk outside at that hour, but what we saw energized me and we even drove to a nearby park to get a better view without the street lights around. Though I have to say that one of the best viewing moments was right when we walked outside our house. The Northern Lights ebb and flow, so you don't exactly know when the best view will be.
The moon was super cool!
The next day was Dancin' Feet's 50th anniversary. I was sad Victoria couldn't come back to perform at it with the other alumni, though not many young alumni came back this year. They had asked Jason to come back and do the Dad's dance, which he did and I think even had fun with it too! The best part about it was that I got to perform in the recital this year in the Ladies Tap dance. Two of my friends came to Victoria's last recital last year and got really excited by the Ladies Tap dance then. They wanted to take the class for the school year and asked if I would join them. It's funny because I'd been watching that recital for 15 years and the thought has crossed my mind that it could be fun to try, but since I've really never had any experience with tap, I was unsure. When two of my good friends decided to do it, I thought this was my chance. We also got Susie's mom to join as well. It was more special for her as this is Susie's senior year and her last recital.
So, after watching Erik's game Saturday morning, I got to watch 2 dance recitals, as well as perform in them. It was a Mother's Day gift to me!
About the tap class itself, I can't believe how much brain power goes into tap! It's tough mentally. Not as much physically for me as a beginner, since our moves aren't too challenging physically, unless you count the heel vs. toe movement that's always changing and sometimes my feet don't want to move in the right way! Somehow, Ms. Paige, our teacher who always performs with her students since she mostly teaches adults, decided I had enough potential and put me in mostly the front for the performance. Luckily for me, she was always nearby and I could keep an eye on her for reference. Melissa and Christina, who were the ones who convinced me to try the tap class with them, also were placed towards the front. Melissa was a ballerina for all of her young life, including through college, and Christina tapped in middle school and high school. Since we're all about the same age, it had only been 25+ years since they'd done anything of the sort!
For your viewing pleasure, I will post the video of us in the Ladies Dance if you're curious to see how us old ladies did! This was the first performance of the day and wasn't our best.
Susie was Mr. Monopoly in one of her numbers.
Jason's little head is in the middle. I have his dance recording below. He only practiced one time and so was hiding in the back for much of it!
Mother's Day itself was nice with meaningful conversations, nice meals, gifts, and beautiful weather.
Jason made me blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
Paella for dinner. He went all out!
Kade made me a strawberry shortcake. I have to say it was the best-tasting shortcake I've ever had!
Kade made a necklace and a dish to put it in. They all got me some ice cream storage containers for our homemade ice cream and shampoo bars so I can try to save my hair! Erik also gave me some of the things he made in LME.
We tried something new at Red Bell. In May we focus on the arts so we decided to host an art museum in each of the rooms. Mine was this past Wednesday. My students worked really hard in April to complete projects with a little more effort than some of them wanted to put in, but all of them were super excited to host the event and have their families come in and see their artwork
We handed out programs as the families entered the school.
3D art inspired by Antoni Gaudi. It was clay flowers and recyclable art made from egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and cups.
Water Lilies inspired by Monet.
More Water Lilies on the wall to the right.
On the bulletin board are their self-portraits, inspired by Rembrandt.
On the far table is some artwork that I didn't take better pictures of, but they just did "window" painting in between the taped lines. The paper was taped to shoe boxes. When it was time for the families to leave, I had them take their 3D art home in those boxes.
I had some student teachers this year and they created this banner with my students. It says "The Red Room Institute of the Arts" and has all the kids' handprints with their names below.
Flower Mosaics inspired by Sonia King. The kids really enjoyed looking at the book I brought in with mosaics throughout it.
The whole thing was a hit and we will do it again next year!
On Friday I attended the funeral of another victim of suicide. After being on a suicide watch for my own child, trying to recover from the suicide of my nephew, and now having attended the funeral and helped with food for the family of another suicide victim, I'm done. It's too much. Please, use the resources available for thoughts of suicide, or call a friend. Call me. This blog doesn't reach that many people, so my influence is small here, but I'm praying that I can help someone, anyone, as well as trying to take care of my family and myself.
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