Camp Kiesel

I'm not gonna lie. I have not being excited about Darren starting scouts. Not at all. The scout program is great, don't get me wrong, but for Darren it means A LOT of "stretching". Everything that Darren dislikes or is afraid of they do in scouts. For some kids these activities come easy and natural, not for Darren, but are hoping it will be able to find something he likes to do. He will work mainly on those social skills that are so difficult for him and hopefully he'll learn new things in the process.

Flipping through the cub scout handbook made me cringe and shake my head. We really don't have a ton of expectations but at least we want him to try it and be positive about it. Their motto is "Do your best" and that's a very important idea we would like Darren to learn and apply in his life and I'll be the happiest person on earth if that's the only thing he gets out of this. For us tough, the most important thing is that he experiments and tries new things and feels proud of himself when he's done.

I do get anxious about other kids picking on Darren because of his lack of skills on some things but  we hope he also learns that, in the words of Temple Grandin, he's different but not less.

So anyway, Darren's first activity was their day camp at Camp Kiesel and I gotta say Darren was all excited about it even though he had no clue what to expect. Daniel took the day off and went along. They met early in the morning around 7am and came back home around 1 or 2 pm. That's a L-O-N-G morning for a kid who loves to be indoors playing video games or on the computer.

They had a lot of fun activities planned for the kids like a nature walk, archery, boating, BB guns, leather crafts and an obstacle course. Overall and considering the situation Darren did great and much better than we thought. He was fine letting other kids ride in the car with him and Daniel, absolutely loved archery and the rope bridge. Towards the end he was tired and had a hard time with the bb guns (let's say he won't trying those any time soon) and even though he likes boating he did not appreciate getting splashed by other kids haha.

His den is taking the rest of Summer off (and I'm very happy about that :P) They will resume activities on September. There was only a pack meeting a couple of weeks ago and involved swimming and hot dogs. Needless to say Darren loved it! (and this time he didn't mind kids splashing and throwing balls in the water!!)

Power Tools

Daniel and Darren have been working on a wood project together. Daniel wanted to show Darren how to use some basic tools so they decided to make a little bench/table for him.
It's still a work in progress and so far they have completed the table and I helped him sand it so now it's ready to be painted/stained. I'll post more pictures once it's finished. In the mean time, here's the boys working on it.

Maybe I'll even get ambitious and have them make some simple shelves to display Darren's Legos since we're kind of running out of space in his room ;)

Donut Falls

We are not very "outdoorsy" people (and in Utah you'd be considered weird) but we do like to hike and take Darren for nature walks. He loves it too. On July 4th we decided to hike the popular, family friendly Donut Falls trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The drive up the canyon is beautiful and the weather was perfect. This was a rather short hike and very easy for little kids. The harder part was once we got to the falls crossing the log bridge and climbing the slippery rocks to get to the top. I thought for sure Darren would not want to go all the way up there but, lo and behold, he was more than ready to do the climb.... So there we went all the way helping the monkey reach his goal and I'm glad we did because we were able to see the the "donut" formation up close and the cave right below it where the water cascades down.
I'm so proud of Darren for being so brave, not ever did he want to turn around and leave even when he looked a little scared. We made it to the top and back down without a problem.
And just as I was thinking of how awesome it is that some of the best things in life are free we approached our car, which we left parked on the side of the road, and we saw the lovely parking ticket that a nice police man left for us as a souvenir. I can't believe we missed all 20 or so "DO NOT PARK" signs along the road!! I guess we had been warned, uh duh!

Yes, we climbed all the way up there

I looked out the window and what did I see?

No, not popcorn popping here but I love to see our winged "visitors" that come everyday to feed. Kelly, my neighbor and friend got me this cute bird feeder a couple of years ago for my birthday and I have loved it!!

We always have a ton of birds (all day long) and I find it so hard to get a good picture of them. This particular morning we had more than usual so I spent a lot of time trying to get a picture...

Darren was not that impressed, he worries about them pooping all over the deck, they can also be quite messy when they eat...but I love them and they make me happy :)

TWEET!

Slip & Sliding

Darren and Ryker have been good friends for a long time, they play very well together even though they have different interests. Ryker has helped Darren in many ways but especially with social skills. The best therapy for Darren has come from kids his own age. It's fun and free!!

We appreciate Ryker and his family (Lexy, if you read this we think the world of you too :D), they have been great to us...well not Ryan who has caused some bruises on Daniel when they play basketball in the mornings :P JK

This morning the kids were having fun together when I remembered that I had photos of them with the SAME slide a few years ago and I was dying to see how much they had grown. I probably need new water toys... bigger and more exciting...I can't believe how big they are now!!...time does indeed fly when you're "splashing" fun!

Random Shoe Post

I love running...There's something (or many things) about it that make me happy. I love the way it makes me feel when I'm done with a run and even while I'm running and I'm experiencing pain, I know, it  doesn't make sense at all, but ask any runner and I'm pretty sure most of them would agree.

Running has been almost therapeutic for me, it makes me take my emotional "junk" and leave it on the road. It calms me down and helps me think more clearly (unless some annoying ladies at the gym decide to talk non-stop and I can't tune them out), it makes me focus on my myself and the way I breathe. Henry David Thoreau once said: " Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow" and it is true.

I run pretty much every day, most days at the gym and some days around my neighborhood. I've completed a few 5K's and a 10K ( mud race). My numbers are not impressive but I am VERY consistent and I'm proud of that. My next goal is a half marathon, I don't know when it will happen but I know I will complete it...my real goal is to run the Disney princess half marathon, who knows, maybe one day I'll think about a full marathon ;)

Running has helped me learn and prove to myself (little by little) that I'm much stronger than I think. There's a constant battle between your brain and your body when you run, and this has forced me to "feed" my brain with positive thoughts and say "yes, I can", "5 more minutes", "run to the next mail box"...It's taught me that sometimes you have to go through pain to get the reward. In many occasions if I fight through the pain I notice that the pain goes away eventually and I'm able to run more comfortably. It's mind over body...  I love the fact that I can do this by myself, it's something I have to do on my own, nobody can get to "the next mail box" for me. It is personal. Every pain, every gain, every mile, every blister, every PR, every drop of sweat, every struggle, there are all mine... and I LOVE it!

Running has also been something I can do with Darren. Every now and then we will go together for a couple of miles and he does a great job keeping up. I really hope he develops a love for the sport someday. It's also something that Daniel and I have been able to do together. Last year we ran the Dirty Dash as the "Dash-mores" and we had a blast!!! It was a fun 10k on a muddy trail at Soldier Hollow in Midway. Best crazy experience ever!



 

How did I get into running? Simple, no rocket science here. Daniel started to run a couple of years ago and I saw how dedicated he was. We went to a couple of his races and I just loved it! So, I really owe it to him :) Daniel has been very supportive, always making sure I have time to get out there and run. He knows how important is to me and he benefits from it because I return home in a good mood ;)
He always makes sure I have new running shoes every 6 months because they wear out quick and he knows I have a hard time spending money on nice shoes but I guess that's always cheaper than paying medical bills, right?

I haven't experimented with a lot of shoes, the first time he took me to Striders I found this Saucony Triumph that I absolutely love so no need to try different ones...maybe I should but I'm pretty happy with them. So, anyway, this random post has more to do with the fact that Daniel bought me new running shoes and I'm dying to go try them out on Monday :) I'm just so grateful for him and the way he watches over me :)

 OMG They look so clean!!! 

Happy running to me!

Baptism

Finally!!! After a long wait June 2 came and Darren was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can go here to see the invitation I made about a month ago. Since I think this might be the only time I go through this I wanted to make sure we had a good, memorable experience. We started preparing Darren more seriously about a month ago and we included more baptism related stuff to our  family activities (like family home evening, etc). He was very excited and we were hoping we could jump over some "asperger- related hurldes" and make this a wonderful day for him.

Carmen, Daniel and Darren

My mom came to visit as well as Nedra and Dave. We had close friends join us on that day and it was just a wonderful bonding experience for us as a family.

Darren and my mom Carmen 

Darren with Nedra and Dave

Left-right: Dave, Ryan, Daniel, Max, David and Darren (front)

The week prior to his baptism, we encouraged Darren to pray every morning to receive a testimony of baptism and I think he did, he was happy, cheerful and very willing to make right choices, we tried to do a "baptism countdown" and have a little activity every day for 8 days prior to June 2... we started off pretty good but then it got hard as our routines got changed when our families arrived. Oh well, we had good intentions. I found the countdown at sugardoodle.com by Melanie Day and this is what we did:

Day One
A new birth: We told the story about the conversion of Alma the younger in the Book of Mormon.

Day Two
Have you prayed?: We talked about receiving a testimony of his decision to be baptized and we suggested he prayed every morning. We made "prayer pretzels" with Rhodes rolls that looked just like this ones from rhodesbread.com (of course I forgot to take a picture).

Day Three
You're on the right track!: We talked about road signs and how they help us when we go out on the road and we made the analogy to the "road signs" Heavenly Father has provided to guide us through our journey in life like the Holy Ghost, scriptures, parents, prophets, prayer, teachers.

Day Four
Squeaky clean: We changed it from the original one and instead of making cupcakes we had Darren wash his hands very well and then I squirted chocolate syrup on them and explained him how even when we make mistakes we can always repent and be clean again by washing the "chocolate spots" of our hands using "repentance soap"...he loved this but before he could wash them again he licked all the chocolate of his hands! Oh well, I think we made the point.

Day Five
Take upon us his name:
Daniel and Darren talked about our individual names and how we belong to the same family through our last name. He also talked about taking the name of Jesus upon ourselves and acting the way he would.


Day Six:
Bear each other's burdens:
We didn't get to this one but we were supposed to have 3 backpacks filled with books and help each other carry the "burden" so that not only one of us had to carry the entire weight. I also gave him during the baptism a teddy bear that he named "Covenant Bear" to help him remember the promises he has made to: 1. Bear the name of Jesus Christ, 2. Bear each other's burdens, 3. Bear testimony of the gospel.

Day Seven:
Baptism by immersion: We kind of did this one before the countdown started by taking Darren to the swimming pool and practicing going under the water. We talked about the word immersion means and why we have to be submerged in the water when we are baptized.

Day Eight:
Baptism Book: We were supposed to have Darren record his feelings about his baptism and we are currently working on this since he was gifted a few journals and a cute memory book that Nedra bought for him.

I also made Darren a special towel that hopefully he'll keep forever.

I found this cute quote and I decided to include them as favors using fun size Kit Kats.

I had Harmon's made some white cupcakes and I made the toppers with the number 8 on them and
used these new baptism cupcake liners  that I found at Desert Book.

Nedra and my mom helped me put together fruit skewers (which the kids loved!) and some mini sandwiches. Nedra made her special shrimp dip too.

I guess the most important thing was that Darren made a choice to be baptized, Daniel is a worthy priesthood holder who is able to perform this ordinance and confirm him a member of the church. I was able to enjoy that warm feeling and feel the love of my family and friends. I'm proud of Darren and I love him and Daniel so much :)