Christmas Newsletter 2017

Merry Christmas!

We have had another great year full of creating lasting
memories. Most of our trips were for sport or family,
but it was great to visit places like Salt Lake, Kansas
City (Westley and Jill), Alaska (Ben), and Disneyland..

Ben stays busy with work (still in the City)
and coaching the University Women’s Swim
Team. He graduated with his Master’s degree in Public
Administration in the Spring and was recently promoted
at work to Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation.
He was asked to serve in the Bishopric this year and that
has been a blessing to our family.

Jill has been busy homeschooling the kids and
chauffeuring the kids to all their activities. She
also volunteers for many of their activities,
including being on the board for the kids’ musical
theater group, and helping with costumes and
backstage at the dance studio. Jill is still serving in
the ward Young Women’s and at Girls Camp this
past summer. She also made a goal to run a 5K with
Westley and has run two this year.

Jenna has been busy with her passion - dance. She is at
the studio four days a week taking classes and being a
Teacher’s Assistant for some younger classes. She was
Glinda in the studio’s production of the Wizard of Oz
this year. Jenna recently turned 13 and is super excited
to be a teenager. She also works hard in her schoolwork
and is a great help to her younger siblings with their
work. She was in three plays this year, including being
Rapunzel in 12 Dancing Princesses. She loves going to
Young Womens’ activities and loved her first Girls
Camp this past summer.

Westley loves sports and anything that can be remotely
competitive. Much of his free time is spent practicing
sports. He played soccer, football, volleyball, basketball,
and participated in track, cross country, ninja warrior
training, and swimming this year. Football is his favorite
and he still says he wants to be an “NFLer” when he
grows up.  Westley qualified for Jr. Nationals in the
1500 M this summer and he and Jill traveled to Kansas
for the meet. Over the last year, he has also learned to
code video games and has spent many hours creating
projects. He won an award for Most Technical Project
in his computer science club. He also enjoys playing with
friends, scouts, and watching sports.

Charlotte enjoys art, musical theater, dancing, sports,
swimming, reading, and sleeping. She was in three
plays this year, including a part as Pocahontas in 12
Dancing Princesses. She participates in several dance
classes and loves to perform. She was very excited to
be taking tap with some older girls this year. She also
enjoys sports including volleyball, swimming, and
soccer. She also participated in track and field this
spring. She turned 8 and was very excited to be
baptized - she had been looking forward to it for years!

Westley's Eye!

Westley had a crazy accident in October. While at a party, they were launching paper rockets that the kids were trying to catch as they came down. The paper rockets being shot up multiple stories with an air compressor. Adults were doing all the launching and adults were all around, including myself.

Well, I guess our son took the "keep your eye on the ball" concept to a whole new level. He was staring straight up at a falling rocket, point come down first, ready to catch it when it hit him right in the eye. I was watching and I remember thinking "surly he is about to turn his head." But no. The rocket hit him right in the eye, and my first reaction was to turn away! I mean Westley screamed and he NEVER screams in pain. That kid can handle a lot of pain.

I did turn back to see my Bishop, the neighbor's house we were at, sliding across the road to Westley. He told me it was bleeding, but wasn't too bad.(Which means it was not gushing out. Which was good, because I was picturing his eye hanging out or blood squirting across the road or something.) 

I was pretty much frozen and good for nothing, so Bishop had us get in his car and he drove us to the Emergency room. And some others told me they will take care of the girls. I am guessing the party ended quite quickly at that point.

Anyway, to make a long story shortish, the next few weeks were filled with almost daily doctor appointments, often twice a day! He had a bunch of damage to his eye, but they thought most would heal. His main issue was extremely high eye pressure do to some damage in the area where the eye drains fluids. For awhile we were doing eye drops every two hours during the day. And usually we had to do multiple kinds of drops each time, with 5 minute wait periods between, it would take like 20-30 minutes to do drops. Then we had to start all over again in 1 1/2 hours. Westley also had to learn how to swallow pills!

I became quite stressed during this period of time because at the same time we had weevils in our pantry, our dishwasher was not working properly, and Ben had recently started putting in vinyl planks, so our main living area was torn apart! At one point I had food on my counter, was hand washing dishes, our fridge was in the living room, and our stove was in the dinning room, I was having to give drops to Westley every two hours, and we were going to the doctor twice a day. I don't really even know what the girls did for like two weeks. The picture below shows all the food from the pantry on our kitchen counter. You can see our new flooring too.

Well, the pressure in his eye was not improving like the doctors had hoped and we were sent home Friday thinking that after our Monday appointment we would probably we going to Salt Lake for a pediatric specialist. We decided to give Westley another priesthood blessing and have a fast for him that Sunday. At his appointment on Monday we were surprised to see all his numbers improving. We decided to give it a little more time on his current med schedule and all week he improved. Over the next few months we were able to slowly cut back on drops as his eye kept improving. We are very grateful for all the prayers and blessing that were giving on his behalf. 

In the end, one of his least favorite parts of this ordeal was missing flag football and having to wear sports goggles! And probably the few days of intense pain and the throwing up. (The high eye pressure caused headaches and throwing up.)

And while he was perfectly willing to show anyone who asked, his bloody eye, I did not take a picture.

Also, I blame this craziness for the lack of pictures and posts this fall.

Halloween in Black

Happy Halloween from Ginny Weasley, Darth Vader, and Hermione Granger!

Football Champions Again!

Westley's Football team tied for the championship. He was happy, but slightly disappointed at the same time. Because of an eye injury, he had to miss some games and was barely cleared to play the day before the last game. We were also missing another injured player. The boys still played well despite the less than ideal conditions and were able to tie for the championship. 

As can be seen in the picture, Westley had to play with sports googles which he did not particularly like.

Newsies

The girls love musical theater, so when I saw a family deal for tickets to see Newsies, we decided to go. We took Westley along too and I think he enjoyed it, even though he fell asleep at the end.

Nationals

 Westley qualified for track nationals and after looking up prices, we determined he and I could go! He was very excited for the trip. Westley had many firsts: plane ride (besides one as a baby), nationals, and trip with just mom. Overall we had a great experience. He was able to run at nationals and we were able to stay an extra day to explore the area. We were able to visit many church history sites like Liberty Jail, Far West, and the Independence Visitor's center.

Summer Swim Team

We made all of the kids do swim team this summer. We just felt that they all needed to improve their swimming skills and endurance. They had a fun time. Charlotte still did not really put her head in the water, but she was a very good backstroker!

Yes, Westley did swim team too, I just don't have a picture of him.

Triathlon

Westley does not love to swim so when he learned that you can just do running races, he stopped competing in Triathlons. However, do to a Black Friday sale, I signed him up for another one anyway. Since he had 6 months to think about it, he was actually excited when it was time to compete. He did very well and was only beat by a 15 year old. Great job for a just turned 10 year old.

Double Digits

Westley is now in the double digits. He is growing up to be an amazing person. He inspires me to be a better person. 

 

His sister made his cake.

Jungle Book

The girls recently performed in the Jungle Book. It was a cute short play. Charlotte was Kaa the snake with two other girls and Jenna was the old monkey. All of her ballet training made if really hard for her to really hunch over like an older person, but she still did well. Charlotte was very snakelike.

Disney Trip

We have been planning a trip to Disneyland for years and we were so excited to finally get to go. I read a bunch of books about Disneyland to make sure we had the best trip possible. We used the guides and plans in the book and we had a great time. We went to beach, played at the pool, and spent 3 days at Disney. Because of my wonderful research, we never had to wait in line for more than 20 minutes. Except for Peter Pan, because it was down for maintenance when we were supposed to go according to the schedule. We had to wait about 45 minutes for Peter Pan and the kids thought it was so not worth it. Otherwise it was a great trip.

The kids were able to do Jedi training and fight against some evil siths. Westley somehow was able to fight both. It's not every day you get to fight Darth Vader!

District Track Meet

Westley has really loved running, and he is quite good at it. He had a great time at Districts this year, even though it was hot and SUPER slow between races. He won first place in two events and third in another event.

Lazyman Ironman

Our city recreation department started a new program this year called the Lazyman Ironman. You have about 4 weeks to complete an entire Ironman at your own pace. This includes: 2.4 miles of swimming (70 lengths of the pool), 122 miles of biking, and 26.2 miles of running. After completing everything he earned a shirt and they posted a picture of him on Facebook. It was their most popular post ever!

Soccer Time

Westley and Charlotte both played soccer this year. They both had a great time. Running around and kicking a ball with your friends is always fun. Westley had some great goals and Charlotte was great at defense.