Kayaking

M and R just finished up an indoor kayaking class. It was offered through a therapeutic recreation program at a rec center about 45 minutes away. It was a bit of a trek to get them there each week, but they did have fun and learned so much. Watching them in the water, enjoying the kayaks so much, made me wish we had a nice pond or lagoon nearby that they could kayak on. They have seen video of their Uncle Steve in Ireland kayaking and at each class R talks about wishing he could see her... So here are a few kayaking pictures for Steve... ` M liked to just paddle around, he wasn't wild about getting wet.... `   R on the other hand, loved practicing rolls... ` ` ` And spent a fair amount of time working on building up strength to flip herself back upright... ` It was an awesome class, and well worth all the driving back and forth we did!

Resources...

We are incredibly blessed to live in a community that is rich in resources for young adults with disabilities. There are honestly too many educational, interesting, or just plain cool things for M and R to participate in... I've found I have to pick and choose activities and classes so we have a good balance of down time mixed in with busy times. (A good balance keeps us all feeling good!) 

 This past month was a little busier than usual though, M's having a busy basketball season (his team is doing to the State Games this weekend!) and the kids had the opportunity to take an indoor kayaking class at the rec center (and we couldn't pass that up!), and they've been going to the "Access and Functional Needs Citizen's Police Academy" down in town. The name of the class is a mouthful, but basically it's a citizen's police academy designed for young adults with disabilities. They went last year too and it was such a great class they decided to do it again! 

It was a five week class and here's what they learned each week: 

 Week One they toured the Police Department, seeing everything from the dispatch center to the holding cells, got their police academy ID's, lanyards, and T-shirts, and played some ice breaking games to get to know each other better. 

 Week Two they learned about about Disaster Preparedness, 72 hour kits and "shelter in place". They filled out emergency information sheets to keep at home, and, for homework, we had to make an emergency plan for our family. 

 Week Three was Basic First Aid and Fire Prevention and Safety and they really practiced the first aid skills they were learning.. splinting "broken" arms, applying pressure to "wounds" and even using a blanket carry technique to pull their instructor to "safety" (down the hall). An instructor from the Fire Department taught the second half of the class and they learned what to do in case of fire, how to put out certain types of fires, and even practiced putting out a grease fire by smothering it. 

 Week Four was Crime Scene Investigation and they learned a lot about the tools and techniques that are used to investigate crime, then they learned to take fingerprints (their own and someone else's!). 

 Week Five was 911 Dispatch, where they learned more about what dispatchers do, and how and when to make a 911 call. They got to practice with the 911 simulator phone, making 911 calls on the simulator and answering the questions the electronic dispatcher asked them. 

 Week Five was also graduation... The kids worked hard during the police academy and they were rewarded with a really nice graduation ceremony. The mayor was there, as well as several police department supervisors. (Unfortunately the police chief couldn't make it, although he was at graduation when M and R took the class last year.) I was running late that evening and forgot my camera at home.... but M did remember his. :) His camera doesn't take great photos but they are ok, and I'm glad we have a record of the graduation. 

 Here's M receiving his diploma from his instructor, with the Mayor, police department supervisor waiting to shake his hand, and his RCC adviser taking a picture

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 R receiving her diploma...

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 After graduation... from the group shot of all the students together.

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R and M with their instructor, she was their instructor for the police academy last year too and she's just awesome... She so good with the kids, and isn't afraid to have fun with them. 

They are both crazy about her...

 

 Both kids are happy and proud of the work they did at the Police Academy, and even though it was a repeat for them I know they learned... having the skills reinforced is always good. I'm so grateful that our police department spends the time and money to do this for our community...    

Tour of Five Points

We headed into Denver yesterday for a tour of the historic 5 Points neighborhood. It was a co-op class through our homeschool group and it was one of the best tours we've gone on... The 5 Points neighborhood has, for many years, been the heart of the
African American community there so I especially wanted R to learn more about it. It's an area rich in history, culture and it has a special kind of energy.

The one hour walking tour wasn't nearly long enough to do more than scratch the surface of 5 Point's history, but it was enough to give us a taste for the countless stories connected to the neighborhood and the people who've lived there, and make us hungry to learn more. Along our route there were signposts on some of the buildings, telling about their history, and about the people who were part of that history.

Needless to say R was fascinated... She knows it's likely that at least some members of her birth family lived in 5 Points, and so the neighborhood is likely part of her personal story too... even though she's never lived there.

I took a few pictures, but R wanted to be photographer for the day so she took most of these...

We started at 24th and Welton outside the Blair- Caldwell African American Research Library.

Here's our wonderful tour guide... an educated, enthusiastic guide makes all the difference. He really made the history come alive!



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Some of the plaques we stopped at...



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District 3 Fire Station then:

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And now...





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The firefighters on duty were nice enough to come out and talk to us a little about the history of their station. It's the city's oldest operating firehouse and has been at this location since 1931. (The original station 3 was located right across the street... it started operating at that location in 1884!)  M started talking to the firefighters and discovered one of them was friends with our next door neighbor (also a firefighter). Leave it to M to find a connection there... what a small world!



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R took a lot of pictures of the historical photographs displayed on the buildings around 5 Points... I especially liked this one of the mandolin and banjo players. ;)

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We didn't go into any of the shops or businesses during our tour, but after I saw this antique folding ruler star in a shop window I had to go back after the tour to get it.



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It took two stops to catch someone at the shop, but I did get it and will hang it up someplace here... Not only is it kind of an interesting star, but I'm hoping it will be a visual reminder to R of 5 Points (5 points on the star, get it?) and the rich history of her ancestors that we learned more about there...



Thanks so much Liese for setting up this tour, it was the perfect way to spend the day!

If you would like to see more of our tour and learning more about the history of 5 Points, check out Liese's post here, it's a great post about the tour and 5 Points!

Bits and pieces

Summer is zooming by at warp speed around here... the busy days just seem to fly by!

What have we been up to?

Working in the yard and gardens... Keeping everything watered when it's so hot and dry is a daily job, especially with the new sod I just laid. (Which is looking very good, by the way!) We're getting a few tomatoes, but not all the plants are doing well... it might be a small yield this year. The jalapenos are looking great, and producing well, and the green beans and lettuce have gone wild! They must like these warm dry days... and the pumpkin patch looks great. All in all a good year.. (it's so much easier to garden without the spring hail storms!)

We had the septic tank pumped yesterday... What a miserable job! I'm not sure what the people who built our house were thinking, putting the septic tank (and it's covers) in the middle of the front yard. It means every few years we have to pull up the grass and dig up the covers (for pumping) then lay the grass back down. The grass, of course, doesn't do well with being pulled up and replaced and always looks a mess for a year or so afterwards. :(

We had S over the weekend... She's doing "ok" but not great. We took her to the movie in the park Saturday night (brrr... it was SO cold) and the farmer's market Sunday morning. I think she had a good time...

After doing well for a couple of months, M's gastroparesis has been flaring up lately. He was sick most of last week, and still isn't back to "normal" (for him). His diet is still super restricted (which can sometimes be a fight) and most of the time he does pretty well. I'm not sure why he suddenly got so sick... hopefully his gut will start working better soon and he (we) can all relax a little.

The kids and I have finished the annual chopping down/pulling out of the purple thistles for this year. We ended up with 11 LARGE trash bags of thistles, countless tiny stickers in our skin, and a deep appreciate for power tools. (We finally ended up having to cut one of the patches down with a chain saw!!) As soon as the trash guys come today, the purple thistles are GONE... hallelujah!

I've finally started work on a project that has been sitting around for a year or so... fixing up a little handmade wooden kitchen for granddaughter Emmy. I found the little kitchen at a garage sale a long time ago and it's been sitting around waiting for me to spruce it up for our Miss Emmy. Yesterday I took all the hardware and doors off, wood puttied, and gave it a light sanding followed by two coats of primer. Today I'll (hopefully) finish up the painting and start shopping for new cabinet and "stove" knobs, and a new counter top.

And yes, we've been getting school done too. We are working primarily on life skills these days, with work sites and other volunteer work being a big part of our homeschool. But we are still plugging away at math, using Teaching Textbooks. Math is a subject that, if not continually reinforced, both kids tend to forget... so we are careful not to neglect math. R's also keeping up with her ukulele lessons (you'll find her playing in the park on Wednesday mornings, she and her teacher moved her lessons there for the summer) and we always have a read-aloud going.

We're in the middle of our "Comedy Movie Night" series too... We started with "Christmas Movie Nights" during the holidays last year, and it was such a hit we decided to have some other movie night series' throughout the year. What we do is pick our favorite movies, or movies we think will be favorites, of a certain genre and schedule them, one each week, on a particular evening after dinner.  The schedule is printed out and posted on the frig. Our movie nights are usually Thursdays, and we're working our way through such gems as Three Amigos (the kids laughed 'til they cried!), R.V. (an old favorite), and Open Season (one of M's picks :). I think we all look forward to movie night, it's a time to just kick back and be lazy for awhile. Comedy Movie nights will last through the end of August, then we'll take a short break and start "Scary Movie Night" sometime in September, followed by "Christmas Movie Night" again in November/December.

I guess I've rambled about this and that enough... time to get out to the barn and get our big boys fed. ;)

Fishing Derby

Last Saturday we participated in a fishing derby, and had SO much fun. It was an event put on by the St Joseph Kaffee Haus group the kids belong to through our church. The St Joseph group is for people in our community that have special needs... We meet once a month for dinner and social time. We've been going for years... almost since we moved here... and the kids love the community there.

So... Saturday was the first annual fishing derby. It was held at a lake on a ranch owned by one of the St Joe's group. It was an absolutely beautiful setting and a lovely day... not too hot, but still warm enough to feel like summertime.





We spent most of the day there... the kids just fished a little (like me, they aren't the most patient of fishermen!) and we also walked around the lake, visited with friends, and pedaled paddle boats around the lake.

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Sorry, no paddle boat pictures, I was too busy paddling various kids around the lake, while trying to steer and keep my burning legs moving at the same time to take any... )

But here is M casting...






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What an amazing way to spend a Saturday...

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I even got a few pictures of Joe...

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No, he's not clapping... he's cleaning sand off his hands.

Alas, we didn't catch anything, although a bunch of other people did. (I think you actually have to sit and fish for awhile to catch anything...)

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My beautiful baby girl...





I hope they do it again next year (and the year after that, and the year after that, and the....)

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aquarium trip

Our oldest daughter gave us a gift card for a trip to the Denver Aquarium... After never seeming to have time to get up to Denver for it, we finally headed up to the aquarium this week.

This was an especially exciting trip for R who LOVES sharks and spends a lot of time thinking about shark conservation. She couldn't wait to get there and see the sharks in the exhibits.

We started with lunch in the aquarium restaurant because we are, of course, always thinking about food...



... and we wanted to make sure to see the mermaid show.  (Honestly, the best part of the mermaid show was watching all the little girls lined up in front of the tank, open mouthed with wonder, watching the "mermaids".)





Then we started wandering...

We were members of the aquarium during it's inaugural year, back when M was little... We went several times that year and he was always afraid of the "flash flood" exhibit.  He puts on a good show of courage now but when the flood came....



... he went!







We saw so many incredibly amazing creatures...





...it's such a treat for us land-locked Coloradans to be able to see and experience a tiny bit of the richness and diversity of the ocean environment.









R and her sharks....





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Just a couple more pictures... ;)

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Shakespeare Festival

We had a lovely adventure last Friday... We drove to the nearest light rail station, took the light rail into downtown Denver (an adventure in itself to us), and visited the Shakespeare Festival (a DPS event).

We went to see our friend S. She is the young woman who was in my friend's foster home for many years but then had to leave... It's a heartbreaking situation. She lost everything... home, family, school, friends... her whole life disappeared in the 10 minutes she had last summer to pack her things and leave that foster home.

So we're her family now... she's is not able to live with us, but we see her frequently and try to fill a little of the void that was left when she lost her long time foster family.

Anyway, she was performing in the Shakespeare Festival, and I wanted to be there to cheer her on.

It was such a fun day... seeing all the costumes, the happy excitement of the kids, watching even the littlest kids performing Shakespeare on the many stages scattered around the DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts).

Here is our S, anxiously waiting her turn to perform...



Her performance... She did amazing, by the way, she had a lot of lines to memorize (she shares M and R's developmental disability) and she breezed through her scene. I was SO proud of her...



... and taking her bow.



I do love this kid... I'm so glad we could go and see her perform, meet her friends and teachers, and just be a part of her life.

No way...

... it can't have been a week since I last blogged!

Ok... so maybe it has.

The week zoomed by at warp speed... here are a few highlights:

1 blown truck motor

2 full days looking for a new truck for Joe

3 days (so far) of dd#2 visiting from Chicago... It's been so good to see her, it's been 9 months since she was here... the longest time she's ever been away from home.

4 hours that I had to fast this morning before a stress test... but it ended up being a 10 hour fast instead because the test was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. and there is no way I was going to get up at 4:45 a.m. to eat!

5 emails (yes FIVE!) back and forth this afternoon with the transition program M is going to, about finalizing his IEP. I'm so ready to throw in the towel... this is NO fun. I want my uncomplicated fulltime homeschooling days back!!

6 (or was it 60?) trucks we looked at trying to find one that Joe liked and we could afford

7 days until M's hip surgery... and we're all starting to stress and worry about how his gut will handle another surgery.

8 hours is the time I have, from right this minute, to completely organize my records from the past five years of M's homeschooling and create a "transcript" that matches their graduation requirements, for the transition program he's in. They say I really need to have it ready for the IEP meeting tomorrow morning. Let's see... sleep... or make a transcript...what should I do? Ha... sleep wins by a mile. They are just going to have to wait for their "transcript"!

We also celebrated a birthday this week (mine :) )... Can you tell how old I am? (I see no reason to constantly buy new birthday candles... reusing works well for me and if we don't have the right numerals, a little math will take care of it!)

... I had a wonderful time at my lovely granddaughter's grandparent's day at school...

... and found this cool Periodic Table of Elements game at the Goodwill store.

Life has to slow down soon. If nothing else, M's surgery will slow us all down...

If you have sent me an email or left me a message (which would be virtually everyone I know!), thank you... I'll call (reply) soon! :)

No way...

... it can't have been a week since I last blogged!

Ok... so maybe it has.

The week zoomed by at warp speed... here are a few highlights:

1 blown truck motor

2 full days looking for a new truck for Joe

3 days (so far) of dd#2 visiting from Chicago... It's been so good to see her, it's been 9 months since she was here... the longest time she's ever been away from home.

4 hours that I had to fast this morning before a stress test... but it ended up being a 10 hour fast instead because the test was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. and there is no way I was going to get up at 4:45 a.m. to eat!

5 emails (yes FIVE!) back and forth this afternoon with the transition program M is going to, about finalizing his IEP. I'm so ready to throw in the towel... this is NO fun. I want my uncomplicated fulltime homeschooling days back!!

6 (or was it 60?) trucks we looked at trying to find one that Joe liked and we could afford

7 days until M's hip surgery... and we're all starting to stress and worry about how his gut will handle another surgery.

8 hours is the time I have, from right this minute, to completely organize my records from the past five years of M's homeschooling and create a "transcript" that matches their graduation requirements, for the transition program he's in. They say I really need to have it ready for the IEP meeting tomorrow morning. Let's see... sleep... or make a transcript...what should I do? Ha... sleep wins by a mile. They are just going to have to wait for their "transcript"!

We also celebrated a birthday this week (mine :) )... Can you tell how old I am? (I see no reason to constantly buy new birthday candles... reusing works well for me and if we don't have the right numerals, a little math will take care of it!)

... I had a wonderful time at my lovely granddaughter's grandparent's day at school...

... and found this cool Periodic Table of Elements game at the Goodwill store.

Life has to slow down soon. If nothing else, M's surgery will slow us all down...

If you have sent me an email or left me a message (which would be virtually everyone I know!), thank you... I'll call (reply) soon! :)

my series of unfortunate (and fortunate) events

The other day Renee at A Baker's Dozen wrote a post about her Series of Unfortunate Events at Church. I love reading Renee's blog and felt her pain as one thing led to another for her that chaotic Sunday morning.

Last night we had our own Series of Unfortunate Events, so... believing that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... I've decided to post my own series of unfortunate events (with a few fortunate events mixed in too... )

R was signed up to participate in the Miss Colorado Pageant last night as a "special princess". It's really a wonderful opportunity for girls connected to Special Olympics to be partnered with one of the Miss Colorado contestants and to be introduced with them on stage at the pageant. We aren't pageant kind of people (it kind of doesn't really go along with mucking out stalls and digging around in the garden!) but we've done it a couple of years anyway... it's fun for R to exchange her normal wardrobe of jeans and mud boots for a dress and heels once in a while.

Anyway... the pageant was last night. It was up in downtown Denver and we had to be there at 5, which meant a 30 mile drive through Friday night (the worst!) rush hour traffic. M was staying home with Ruth (his
respiteformer respite provider), so it was just R and I to get dressed up and ready to go. I'd retighened R's locs that morning, curled them, and wove tiny silk flowers into them, she was wearing her FAVORITE dress of all time and new high heels and jewelry. But 3:15 we were ready to go. (Yes it would take that long to get to town... plus we had to pick up some prescriptions on the way.)

Unfortunately Ruth was late getting to the house... which made us late getting on the road. Ruth has been doing respite for us for a couple of years so I didn't think I needed to give her detailed instructions... she knows about M's GI problems and that he can't just eat all the time while we're gone, and she knows he can be edgy and just needs to be "handled" most of the time. So I quickly got out his bedtime meds, told her what I'd planned for them to have for dinner, and we left.

Unfortunately the car was almost out of gas. There was barely enough to get to the gas station... much less all the way to Denver. So we stopped to fill up. It seemed to take forever...

Unfortunately now we didn't have enough time to stop for the prescriptions. The pharmacy isn't open on the weekends, and M couldn't wait until Monday, so a quick call to Joe... Could he pick up the meds? (Fortunately he could... whew... one thing off my plate!)

Unfortunately traffic was terrible... stop and go the whole. way. into. Denver. It was also HOT outside (at least for here) up in the 90's. This will become important later.

Unfortunately I missed my turn for the parking garage (just slightly lost) and was circling around (through downtown Denver at rush hour!) when M called in a panic. R took the call and told him I couldn't talk. I was busy trying to figure out which lane to stay in, where the entrance to the parking garage is, and how to avoid being hit by the taxi the was swerving around me.

Unfortunately M couldn't wait so as I pulled into the parking garage entrance I took the phone from R because, by that time, M was completely falling apart. He was crying and starting to disconnect..  Ruth had tried to force him to do something (or not do something) by threatening him with no dinner. What?! Was she trying to trigger an episode? And anyway... she can't withhold his dinner.  M was frightened (when he starts to disconnect he becomes paranoid), afraid to go into the house with her, was in the garage (full of potentially dangerous things) alone, was falling apart, and I was 30 miles away. I paid the parking garage attendant as I talked to M, grabbed the parking stub, and drove through the garage and parked the car without really paying any attention to anything but M.

Fortunately we made it to the pageant in time. R looked stunning, her friend A was there so R was thrilled, and R is independant enough that I was able to keep trying to talk M down while she joined the rehearsal for their part of the pageant. I hung up long enough to call Joe to tell him to get home quickly and get Ruth out the door because M was escalating, then called M back and kept him on the phone until Joe was almost home.

Once the rehearsal was over there was time for pictures with a lovely backdrop (and a professional photographer posing the girls while he also took their pictures). Finally off the phone with M I pulled out the camera to take a slew of pictures of my beautiful daughter...

Unfortunately I'd forgotten the memory card at home, in the computer, and couldn't take a single picture.

The pageant went well. R was paired with "Miss Littleton"...  a sweet, lovely, girl, and they had lots of time to visit and plan their short "routine" for the pageant. R looked amazing on stage... so poised and happy. After her part was done we stayed and watched the rest of the pageant, until we were both tired, hungry (no time for dinner earlier, and it was 9:00 by then), and headachy from all the noise and commotion. At intermission we left and headed for the parking garage.

Unfortunately I'd been so busy trying to calm M down when I was parking the car, that I had no memory of parking it. I wasn't worried though.. I'd memorized the elevator we needed to take us to where we had parked. (I did think to do that!) So we took that elevator (level 4, elevator 5) and expected to see the car someplace close.

Unfortunately it wasn' t there. We looked all over level 4 and our car was definitely not there. Poor R's feet hurt by then, but I couldn't just leave her someplace while I found the car, so she followed along behind, sore feet in high heels, as I looked up and down the rows. It seemed unlikely that someone would steal an older Kia Sedona...  Where had I left the car?!

Fortunately after 20 minutes or so of looking, I decided to check level 5 elevator 4 and found the car right away. We were sooo happy to see it, and we immediately started deciding where we could find a quick dinner because, after all the walking, we were even more tired and hungry than we had been before.

Unfortunately this parking garage has a policy that without your parking stub you can't leave the lot without paying the maximum parking fee ($33!).

Unfortunately I couldn't find my parking stub  (I'd been so focused on calming down M, that who knows where I'd put it!)  But I'd already paid... and I was hungry, tired and wanted to go home. I was able to show them the receipt from when I'd paid going into the lot but, at first, that wasn't enough.

Fortunately they decided to make an exception to their rule and let us go... without paying again. (Although I did get a lecture about keeping the stub!)

Unfortunately we'd only driven three blocks when the car died.

Unfortunately it died on Colfax, right in the middle of town, six lanes... cars zooming around us, horns honking. I tried to get it to start... but it was not happening.

Unfortunately R's anxiety immediately kicked into high gear and she was close to total panic, especially when a couple of homeless guys came walking up to her window.

Fortunately they were just asking if they could push us out traffic. I said yes. What sweet guys.

Unfortunately the only place they could push us to was into a bus lane.

Fortunately I have AAA.

Unfortunately they said it would take 90 minutes to get there.

Fortunately R's anxiety was starting to calm down because...

unfortunately I'd left her anxiety medication at home.

Fortunately the tow truck was there in about 45 minutes (much better than 90!)... he hooked up the car and we headed towards home.

Fortunately the tow truck driver was really nice because...

unfortunately it took an hour to get home.

Unfortunately R's anxiety kicked in again, riding in such a BIG and noisy truck and I had to " talk her through" the whole ride home.

Fortunately we got home safe and sound (as did my car) and the tow charge was less than I expected, and the beeping of the tow truck didn't wake M up (who'd had a decent evening once Joe had sent Ruth home, and took him out for dinner!).

Fortunately it appears the car had just vapor locked (too much heat on the slow ride up there) and started right away once we got it home.

Fortunately it didn't break down on the highway or on the way to the pageant.

Fortunately R was still awake enough once we got home, paid the tow truck driver, and ate something (dinner at 11, how cosmopolitan!), for a few pictures.

Fortunately they turned out pretty good. Don't you think?

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It was a wild evening, but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat for this smile....