Day At the Aquarium

Kevin's parents came up and spent the weekend with us. They were ever so kind to bring some bricks so we could block in gaps around the fence. It looks really nice and I don't have to worry about small dogs getting into the yard or Freya getting out. Works wonders and like I said, looks great!

After getting those put down, it was lunch time, so we headed over to the main base and had Arby's for lunch. Nothing tastes better! lol.

Then we drove around looking for the old Vehicle Maintenance, which after a half hour of driving, finally found tucked back out of the way. It was fun.

After our adventure around the base, we headed over to Mandalay Bay for the Shark Reef Aquarium. Of course we hadn't told Derric this, so he got a wonderful surprise. While in line to get tickets, we kept telling him we were getting Subway since it was next door to the ticket area. He was getting so frustrated, but that was ok, it kept him excited.

Derric had a blast inside. He so enjoyed every exhibit and he was so knowledgeable with just about everything. Grandma and Grandpa were getting more knowledge then I am sure they cared for, but they enjoyed him sharing what he knew. And we were all impressed with just how much the little tour guide knew as we walked around. Those apps really taught him a LOT.

Swimming on a Hot Day

The Treasure Valley is currently in a Heat Advisory until the 2nd. Temps are estimated to be as high as 103 degrees, sometimes higher. It is currently 104 outside. I tossed three kids into the pool and they are having a blast. Added photos to the family album on Shutterfly. Head over and take a look at them splashing and having fun.

I am currently fixing supper, and hopefully it will cool off enough that I can head out and mow. Couldn't mow last weekend as it rained all weekend, but this weekend it is almost too hot. Will have lots of water on hand.

Really missing Xavier, wish he was here with us. Went grocery shopping this morning and I went to start buying foods I know he loves. Then I remember he isn't here for another month or so. Really miss that kid, he always could make me smile. Dokota and Kauchana are doing good. Kauchana is really enjoying her job, she is even looking into the charter schools to see if they have more in food then the public high school has. If they do, she is wanting to change schools. I am really glad to see her finally find her drive.

Well, time to go check the food.

Start of Summer

I know I messed up this weekend. I had lots of photo opportunities with the Grandparents here, and I didn't get a single one!

Grandparents got here Friday night. Saturday was spent in Boise, had a really yummy lunch at Olive Garden, wandered the Aquarium for a bit (Derric of course never wants to leave that place!), then ended it all with a trip to Cold Stone. Back home to get Xavier packed and Sunday they were back on the road.

The house feels different with Xavier gone. It feels off. I honestly can't stand not having the kids home, so having only one gone, feels off. Need to make a trip back to Boise to get his cell reactivated so I can send that down to him.

Derric started his ESY today. The older grades seem to actually have a schedule, pretty tight one too. Which of course made Derric "have the worst day possible" because he didn't have time to work on his iPad. Looks like that will be an afternoon activity instead.

Just waiting on the pool to warm up, after a fill up, drain, and refill, the pool is back up and chemicals are good. But that water is still cold! Only 68 degrees.

Here is to a summer of fun, I hope.

Another School Year Down

Yes, Yes, I am very far behind on everything. Trust me, I realize this.

I managed to lose all passwords and access to my server for the most part. But I had a wonderful hour and half, almost two hour conversation with tech support from my host and I am back in business. I am working on getting everything back up and fully updated, but it will be a process.

I have also added the ability to update the site via my phone, so I should be able to post more often with the littlest things LOL. At least I will try to.

So what is all going on?

Lets see. The school year has ended. Grades have been posted! This year's grades are current. I need to go and do a back fill, will get to that... eventually. Derric is now officially a Middle Schooler! That boy has moved out of the Elementary Field and will attend Hacker Middle in the fall. Where has the time gone? Dokota is officially a Senior. So next school year will be filled with getting him graduated and off to college. I swear, time is just flying by! Xavier is on his last year of Jr. High! Wow, he starts the fall as an 8th Grader?! And Miss. Kauchana will be in the 10th grade this fall. Wow. Everyone is moving on.

For here at the home, Kevin is off on Deployment. 35 Days down, no clue on how many to go.

Xavier is preparing to head down to Arizona with his one-on-one time with the Grandparents. Dokota and Kauchana are looking to get Y.E.S. employment here on the base this summer, along with whatever else they have going on. Kauchana is looking to spend her spare time babysitting and taking swimming lessons. Dokota has Boy's State in June. Derric has his Extended School Year starting June 3rd, where he will have school until mid July. Busy summer.

Well, guess that is enough to somewhat get you updated on what is going on. I will work on keeping this site updated more now that I have all passwords and such. That is what I get for keeping my information on a small sheet of paper in the back of a book. But now I am good lol.

Back to Normal

Many things have been happening that have thrown our family threw a loop this year.

Slowly, things are settling and getting back to normal. It is never fun having life interrupted, but we learn to adjust and re-settle.

The kids are home, Xavier is out of his cast, and Derric is back to being Derric. School has started and the kids are slowly falling back into a school routine. The hardest hit has been Dokota. With no sleep schedule during the summer, he is now finding it hard to sleep at night and actually get up in the morning. I had hoped I could get him back to being close to adjusted in the two weeks he was home before school started, but it is just not happening. It is going to take a lot of time and hopefully it wont effect him to much with school.

Xavier goes in on Monday to get his thumb looked at, but in all honesty, he will have to attend physical therapy. He found many ways to get around using his thumb, even when giving him things to do to work on it. Took away the motion controlled games and gave him old school D-Pad games, but he still found ways to not use his thumb and play them. Reminding him daily, hourly, sometimes minutely did nothing. So, not listening to anyone, he has let his thumb sit. Monday we will get the referral to physical therapy and he will be forced to work it. He will learn that we were not lieing and it will be painful because they will not be nice about it.

Kauchana seems happy to be home, back in her bed, with her stuff, meeting up with her friends. Being able to disappear for hours and not be bothered, headphones in her ears just like Dokota. (tho she will scowl if told that) And like Dokota, her nose is stuck to the iPod, texting and playing games. Or head phones in listening to music while she is curled up on the couch reading a book. Ever so much the teenage girl she is.

The biggest adjustment has been with Derric. He has latched to Dokota and Kauchana like glue. He can't really handle them being out of his site for long now. He has to be near one of them almost at all times.

School:
there really isn't much to say in that field yet. Today is only their third day and everything is still settling with classes. There were a couple of teachers for Xavier I just didn't care for, Kauchana seems to enjoy most of her teachers, and Dokota is, well, Dokota. He is working on getting out of one class and also seeing about getting things set up so he can have Senior status after the semester so next year he can spread his classes out and get a job.

Well, that is about it. Time for me to get back into my morning routine and get out the door soon for physical therapy. Oh the joy.

A Spring Day

After school today, I took the kids to the big park on base. It was a fight to get Derric to go, one that resulted in him having a major meltdown and crying fit. I think four years in an apartment wasn't that great for him, he doesn't like going outside now. It is such an odd behavior. I think the meltdown was a mixture of him just not wanting to go to the park, and me trying to get him into sandals. Whenever we change his shoes, even when he out grows a pair, it is always an adjustment and lots of meltdowns. So the sandals were just a cherry to the top of an already meltdown.

Once there, he opened up and started playing with the rest of us. First it was fun with Cody pushing Xavier on the tire swing. Then we moved over to the swings, and from there the marry-go-round. We spent a good hour and half having fun. Pictures are posted on the picture site, stop by and take a look. The kids have grown so much!

Fun Weekend

Wow! We had such great weather this past weekend!

Friday, Kevin asked what I wanted to do this weekend. I said I want to run by Costco and get some bulk shopping done, BBQ, then veg the rest of the weekend. Made plans with friends here for them picking up the bed they loaned to us and seeing about us getting the Fridge they are selling us.

Saturday rolled around and most of us slept in a bit. I ended up waking up around 9, but lounged in bed until my back couldn't take it any more. Waited for Kevin to get up so we could head out. He finally got up around 1, and we were off to Costco by 2:30. Since Costco is in Boise, it was a good 45 minute drive, which I really don't like driving. Very flat, very dull, very straight.

Saturdays are probably NOT good Costco days. That place was packed and tho I probably wanted to look around more, we got a few items and left, fast. Neither of us could take the crowd. If not for the BBQ meat, and some Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets for Derric, I would feel the trip was wasted. But we got some good meat for the BBQ, enough that we managed two days!

Got home and started the grill. Had some yummy steaks, hamburgers, and baked beans. Yum. Managed to get some family gaming in, then little ones wandered off to bed. I followed not too long after. Talked Kevin into playing on the PS3 so I could fall asleep listening to him play. All in all, Saturday was a very relaxing day.

Sunday turned out to be just beautiful. Kauchana was able to talk Derric into playing at the Park (with the promise of bubbles). So those two disappeared for a couple hours. Xavier didn't want to give up his DS, which he managed to finally bring his grades up long enough to have his game this weekend, so he didn't go out. Dokota and Kevin slept most of the day.

Enjoyed some more family gaming until the internet went down, then Kevin decided he was hungry. There wasn't much left over from the BBQ, so he fired up the grill to fix the rest. Since it was so nice and warm out, I wanted to head to the BX to get a sprinkler the kids could play in, but they only had cheap plastic ones that wouldn't last more then a day. Headed to WalMart, but they didn't have any better of a selection, almost ended up getting a blow up pool for the kids to play in, until we get the garage cleared and can get a good look at our old pool. But Derric managed to find a water toy that looked fun for him.

Got home in time for the back yard to be in shadow, and to find out that I need to get a work order in for the back faucet, water seems to be coming out around the spiket, not threw it. So even when we hook the hose up to it, no water actually goes into the hose. Grrr. Guess we will need to wait on any back yard fun until we can get that fixed. Hopefully the weather will stay nice so we can enjoy it.

My physically therapy got approved to continue, so I will be continuing that this week. Not sure how many more weeks the insurance has approved, but just glad I get to continue.

Not much else going on. Kauchana has her dental today, so I will be heading out to that soon. Derric's next IEP meeting isn't until the 26th, so got a bit to wait on for that. All in all, the kids are doing really good.

Priced it out, and might be able to get the kids into swimming lessons again this summer. The pool on base is open, and they have some Family Splash Nights coming up, I think the kids would really enjoy heading to those.

Well, that is all for this update. Once I know more, I will post more. Have a good week.

Spring Update

Well, I think we are in Spring Time, but I am not too sure here.

The weather here is never one to set a trend, it is a guess each day how it will be. And forget weather apps and websites. They never help.

The kids had their Spring Break, but it rained and was almost too windy most of it, for them to go out and enjoy it. Which didn't bother the kids too much. Right before Spring Break, the 3rd Quarter ended. Grades were sent out. I know, I had meant to get them posted, but honestly, when the kids are on break, my mind tends to head that direction too. It was rough getting up on my Physical Therapy days....

But, Kauchana and Xavier's grades have been posted. I didn't get a report card for Dokota ...... hmmm? And I miss placed Derric's. Ooops. Links to their grades are up top, just click their grade level. I will see about logging onto the online site for their grades and getting them posted.

Not much has been going on. Kevin has been working, the kids going to school, if I am able to move after PT, I try to get chores done. It is pretty much the same. I do want to see about take the kids up to see a movie this weekend, but not sure if Derric will be able to handle the movie everyone wants to see.

Speaking of which, did you know this month is Autism Awareness Month? I only found out about it due to a few favorites on FaceBook constantly posting about it. It is interesting to see the sudden jump in care, just because of this Awareness Month. Some online support groups talked about "writing letters" to their kids. I thought that was kinda a neat idea, but then I realized, I actually suck at writing letters. Really I do. I mean come-on, I can hardly write a blog post without months going in between... How would I be able to write a letter? Plus, I see him, daily. What would I write about? What would I write to a future him about today?

Instead, Dokota wrote a beautiful peace. I got his permission, so I am going to post it. It really touches the heart. So I am going to end this post with Dokota's writing.

My Brother Is Disabled

By: Dokota
My brother has Autism. To be specific, he has high functioning autism, which means he is really hyper all the time. He doesn't realize that everyone else sees the world different than him. I have best heard it described like this: how we view the world is like a movie projector, with the pictures on the film in order. How People with autism see it is the same, but the pictures aren't in any order. My brother is eight, and has the mentality of a kindergartner. He loves to have fun, play, question the world around, laugh at his older brother, eat dessert all day, have friends, enjoy school, love his family, and just live life. He is in his own world, one that makes sense to him. We realize this, and all hope that he will invite us in, it is all we can hope for. Why would we want to change him? Putting him in classes only would only be trying to force him into our world so he is 'normal' and can interact 'normally' with others. He does that just fine, he sees the truth of the matter more often than I ever could, and people call me a genius. I have lived with him for all his life so far. It hurts to see kids avoid him because he wants to run around and pretend play Stormtroopers or Transformers. It hurts to have his peers come to me and say he is weird, that all he does is talk about Star Wrs or Transformers, that he is annoying. I have stopped caring, for I learned from my brother. As an adult, I learned from my (at the time) six year old brother. He didn't care. If they didn't want to play, he would expand his world, and he would put himself in the middle of a titanic struggle between clones and giant robots, with him being th center of it all. He doesn't care what his peers think, never has. He has taught me far more about life and how I view it than any other person could. He has a disability. The world states that a disability is a limit or difficulty of some form. Yes he has trouble understanding the way the rest of us do, but that doesn't limit him from being the best teacher I have ever had. It is because of my goofy, spontaneous, insane, lovable, cute, Autistic brother that the world makes sense. It is because of him that I can proudly hold my head high and say with vast pride and love that "Yes my brother has a disability, a mental handicap. Yet he doesn't care, for he views everyone equal, and this has never had to be explained. He doesn't discriminate, hold grudges, or care. What's your excuse?" Thank you dear brother of mine. You will reach the sky Little One.

And Dokota says he isn't a writer....

 

One Week Down

The first week of school went off with very little issues.
The Middle School still does not have agendas for the kids, so I have created one for Kauchana, need to look into getting one for Xavier.
Dokota is having issues with a teacher at the High School.
Derric made a new friend at the Elementary School.

All in all, the first week was good.

Today I will be doing a lot of running around, have forms I need to get filled out and submitted. Kauchana has a dental today, so I will get those filled out, then when I drop her off, get the schools' forms filled out. Head over to the main base, get the forms submitted and hopefully get an appointment for the interview. Check mail and make it back home in time to get Derric from school....

Fun filled day!

First Day

Well, the kids had their first day of school today.

All in all, I want to say it was pretty anti-climatic. I think we have done this once or twice.

Derric of course was the first one up, wanting some mommy-derric time, so we cuddled for about 10 minutes before Kauchana pops in and asks if it is too early to be up. Oh well. Those two get breakfast, then I send Derric down to get dressed. Xavier shows up then to get breakfast himself. I work on Kauchana's hair while we work on getting Coda up. Finish Chana's hair then smooth out Derric's bed head. Coda wanted his braided so I fixed his too. Got a couple pictures of the kids, then off to school, Coda back to the High School, Chana dashed off to the Middle School, Xavier walked with Derric and I, he still lets me give him a good-bye kiss lol. Got Derric to school and went to check to see if his new Autism teacher was in. Stopped by to say hi, then off to his line for his class.



That was about it. I was expecting more of a fight from Derric, but I think taking Trooper Dog with today helped.

Walked back over to get Derric, found he did have a small melt down near the end of the day, but kinda guess he would. It will be tough on him, should be about a week or so before his classes all get back aligned and his schedule finalized. His teacher is fine with him bringing either Trooper Dog or Fluffy to help keep him calm, which I am grateful for.

Xavier got home not long after, I got his class schedule and the lovely forms to fill out for him. He sat down and started right on homework! (Can I hope this will last?!) Kauchana followed, but ran back out the door to give something to a friend that is now up at the high school. She didn't leave without first dropping off her forms and class schedule. Coda walked in right as she walked out, and I got his forms and class list.

Report Cards

Dokota - Grades: 9th | 10th | 11th	Xavier - Grades: 5th | 6th | 7th
Kauchana - Grades: 7th | 8th | 9th	Derric - Grades: 2nd | 3rd | 4th