Hannah's home!

Hannah's home and she's awesome and its awesome and the weather is great and life is good!

Adelle

I have been working all summer toward finally getting the details worked out to be a Big Sister with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. I did it before we had kids and found it very rewarding. I chose a girl from my school who has autism. I had referred her to the program two years ago and she never got a Big Sister so I said, "What the heck! I'll be her Big Sister!" She doesn't like the term, however, because she already has a real big sister. So tonight was our first outing. I was pretty excited and though I know her well, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. When I went to get her, she refused to come out from the other room while we did more paperwork. Then she came out and told her mom she wasn't going. Her mom explained that she had hoped someone else would be her Big Sister. I understand because I had to work with Adelle on her social skills and she doesn't really like to have her social skills corrected. But we were able to talk her into going. She got in the back seat and buckled up. I couldn't talk her into getting in the front seat. She answered my questions with really short answers sprinkled in with sports statistics which is her conversation fallback. We got to the house and she smiled at the dogs but they were pretty hyper. Someone had left the TV on so she took the controller and told me we were watching baseball. I sat down and she sat down and started watching. Joel's laptop was open so she asked if she could go to Espn3. I said yes and then it was like I wasn't in the room. I tried to get her to fill out an interest checklist and she checked all the sports and handed it back to me. I asked her if she wanted to make cookies or go for walks sometime...She said ok without enthusiasm. I told her 5 more minutes and we'd leave. We went to the gas station and she kept telling me she was going inside to get something to eat. I told her she needed to stay with me. She watched me put the gas in and then asked if she could wash the windows. She worked so hard but they were really dirty so she kind of just pushed the dirt around. I told her she did a great job! Just before she got in the car, she pulled her pants down and completely exposed herself and was touching something down there. I got out and ran around the car and told her to stop. She got in the car--whew! That is as "out there" as she gets and it happened on our first time out! So then we went to get ice cream. She really wanted "supper" which I had to be firm about. We got ice cream and actually had conversation as we ate on a table out front. Then we went to the park but she was disappointed that there weren't swings. On the way back to her house, she announced that she should come live at my house forever! I said that I thought her family might miss her. She said, "They'd get over it." She said we need to get together 7 or 8 times next week. I made arrangements to get her next Wednesday and walked her to the door to tell her mom she'd been good. I am really hopeful that just getting out and doing some different things will be good for Adelle. I know I'm looking forward to our time together.

photo

I am having trouble with the photos. The photo that made it to the blog is the patio of the USC cafeteria where Joel will most likely be eating every day. We took this photo on campus. The weather was amazing--perfect temp and sunny at all times.

USC visit and the week

It has been a whirlwind week. Sorry I haven't blogged and this will be a long one. Last Sunday Leah and I took Scott out for a Father's Day brunch then I set out for my Mom's to help her get ready for her colonoscopy the next day. I did her liquid diet with her (except I did sneak out to the kitchen and ate a cheese cracker in the night:) then took her for her procedure the next morning in KC. The things she had to go through to get ready for this test--unbelievable! She got all good news except that she needs to eat TONS more fiber then she came back to Manhattan with me. We had a good time but mostly ate--at Olive Garden and at the new Smashburger. Yum. Then on Tuesday evening, Joel and I took her home so that Wednesday morning we could jot over to KCI to leave for LA for his orientation.


USC and LA
LAX is a typical big city airport and we were picked up by a shuttle van. The van driver texted while changing lanes in a big circle near the airport. The freeway had 5 lanes on each side but moved pretty quickly and it only took about 30 minutes to get to the Radisson on campus. We dumped our luggage at the desk since we had some time to fart around before early check in. Joel showed me part of campus and we had coffee in a very cool coffee shop in the School of Cinematic Arts. More about that building and the campus later. Then we walked a few blocks off campus and got on the dash (bus). My first impressions of LA were not good--it was dirty and basically unimpressive. Another USC parent noted later that in New York and other large cities everyone rides the busses but in LA, it seems like it was just one class of people. I agree. We got off the dash at the Sprint center in an area called LA live. There was a film festival going on we figured out) and lots of people camping out for Twilight tickets. It was crowded and chaotic and I think Joel and I were just tired and overwhelmed. We found a place that looked ok for dinner, Trader Vic's and ate hamburgers (again). It was only 5 o'clock but that was 7 our time. We went back and checked in to our rooms. Joel stayed in the least impressive dorm that they are renovating. I stayed in the dorm floor of the Radisson. It was just basically a hotel room with dorm furniture instead of hotel furniture. About 6:30, Joel took off to see what the students had planned. At first I felt ditched but then I liked that he felt confident enough to go off on his own right off the bat. I walked down to the same coffee shop we had been at earlier and texted Scott, "I am sitting between the Stephen Spielberg building and the George Lucas building." He was impressed. Except that I didn't see any students that looked anything like Joel and there were sirens in the distance and I read the student newspaper crime reports of mugging, etc. I wasn't in a good frame of mind. I eventually found the parents informal get together and talked with some other parents who were also feeling overwhelmed and some student reps who were very reassuring. Joel came to meet me and walked me back to my room and I got some much needed sleep after calling Scott and lamenting.
Day two went much better. I got ready and went to the Town and Gown where I loaded up on coffee and sugar donuts and then found Joel (who had already made friends and hadn't saved me a seat) in the opening session. There were a TON of people there--600 kids and their parents. We heard some good stuff then they took the kids off and the parents went for more coffee and sweets and a heard a bunch of parent stuff. We sat with other parents of kids in the School of Cinematic Arts and I met some parents from all over, the midwest, etc. We walked together to the School and heard from the guy in charge of student affairs there. He seemed really nice and approachable. We then split into Joel's major, Interactive Entertainment. Four kids out of the 15 accepted into the program were there, Zoey, George, Danny, and Joel. Joel already knew George from facebook. He seemed nice, George was loud and obnoxious, and Zoey and her mom were very nice. I made friends right away with Kim, Zoey's mom and hung out with her quite a bit the next day and a half.
The presentation by Charlotte Riffey, Joel's advisor was really impressive. I almost cried feeling so blessed that Joel is accepted into this program. Kids are sought out by big gaming corporations to help with games while they are in school! She showed students' projects that were purchased and marketed by recognizable corporations. The kids all knew the games. For example, Sims came to USC and student's came up with the idea for Sims Halloween and they flew kids to their offices to work with their people--while they were in school! There are huge grants for projects too. The equipment these kids will work with is beyond belief. The school has access to games that won't come out for months. I'm not doing a good job of putting all this in words--but believe me, if you could have seen Joel's face while she was talking. I was fighting back tears of excitement and gratitude the entire time.
The next day and a half, we went to all kinds of sessions and learned everything there is to know about USC, walked all over campus, and ate and ate. The campus is HUGE! There are 38 fountains on campus, two unions, three bookstores, two cafeterias, 6 restaurants and a food court, about 4 cafe's, and 6 coffee shops. There are 167 security officers, three transportation services, two big libraries, two olympic size pools, two full size stadiums not including the collosium. It was very nice, huge trees, lots of green areas, a variety of beautiful buildings, ... We toured some other dorms and they look good. We still don't know where Joel will live because we messed up on his application but hopefully that will be straightened out soon.
The last day there was a parent sessions where they brought up all the emotions that parents go through and MADE us think about all the things I'd been suppressing. It was not pleasant. I needed to go have a long, loud, PRIVATE cry but here we were in this huge auditorium. There were parents crying all over the room. Please. I am so emotional because I am so excited for Joel and so sad for me to say goodbye but at the same time really ok with him doing this. This orientation reassured me a lot about all great opportunities that he'll be having and I'm sure this is a very good thing. But he's still my baby and I will always worry about him.
The orientation ended at 5 and we checked out. Joel and I went to the bookstore and the coffee shop and strolled around campus. We saw parts that we hadn't seen previously including the student recreation center and the south side of campus. We decided to eat at Chipotle that is right off campus near the collisuem. I can't spell that, by the way and spellchecker isn't helping me. The only bad thing was, and its actually kind of funny, there was a HUGE 12 hour live Rave at the collisium that night where 225,000 young people attended so the whole campus and the hotel were diluged with these kids who were partying hard and had very little clothes on. A new USC parent in the lobby asked me, "Are these USC students?" She was almost crying with panic! There were sirens all night long and damage to the elevators and windows of the hotel when we got up Saturday morning. We slept really great in a regular Radisson room, though, with big beds and 4 feather pillows each!
It is really good to be home even though I woke up at the crack of dawn. I am snuggling my Rexie while I write this but there was no coffee to brew and I need to go to the grocery store. Leah has David visiting and I haven't been a hostess at all to him. Later.

Hannah

I want to try to blog about my Hannah-bana because I miss her a lot and I've been thinking about her a lot. She's coming to visit in 13 days! Yesterday I made my phone lock screen and wallpaper photos of Hannah. (this was quite a feat as I had to upload some photos from her facebook onto picasa and then upload them to the wallpaper--technology is so exciting to me). I am so proud of Hannah. She is such a unique person. Hannah moved to Wyoming because she loves the outdoors. I will put some pictures here that will explain this without words. Hannah likes to climb and "boulder" and camp and explore--even fish! I'm proud of her setting up a new life there and for being on her own with very little help from us! She lives on little to no money! And she thinks she asks for too much help from us! She has great friends who do neat things together like share poetry and music, do those outdoor things, sit around in front of the fire drinking white russians, cook and eat healthy food, dance, and just talk. Hannah attends the University of Wyoming majoring in secondary art education. I think she'll be a wonderful art teacher. She had some bad experiences with art teachers who almost ruined that area of her life. Hannah is so talented and creative (a few pictures will explain that, too). Its neat that she will be able to share that with the world through teaching. Its so satisfying to a parent to watch your kid launch from your home, forge a new, happy life and choose a path that will give back to the world. Here are some pics from Hannah's summer in Wyoming album.

Step Class

I have to blog about step class. It is important to me for lots of reasons, but mostly because its so fun! I work out for health reasons and for stress relief and weight control because I do like to eat, but I also do it to add fun to my life. Traci's class is the best because it is challenging. We have to concentrate so I don't feel like I'm exercising! I do it after fit ball so my legs are tired and it is especially challenging. Its also challenging mentally and I feel like I'm exercising my brain muscle too! If you space out, you can mess up and get hurt! Yesterday we did these two basic routines over and over to get them down then did partner step! We paired up and did the routine facing each other on the same step! The routine had us moving around the step so we kept passing each other and ended up a few times facing each other (and she had us try patty cake at the same time!) It was so fun--I'd never done it before. It is so refreshing and important to have fun. None of us do it enough--I know I don't!

God in me

I feel like this blog is missing something since I do a separate prayer journal. This isn't all of who I am nor is my spirituality separate from who I am. God is the reason that I like myself, that I enjoy my life. He is my peace, my identity, my security, my reason for hopefully, everything I do. Today I did a fruit check in. I asked myself how I'm doing in each of the fruits of the spirit. Actually, its not exactly how I'm doing, its how yielded I am to letting Him develop these fruits in me: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. I know that God helps me grow in each of these every day. That's my goal, my purpose. I have another list of "goals" that I work on. I'll include it here. Its pretty lofty, but that's where God comes in. I don't do it alone and I don't do it out of obligation--I do it out of love and gratitude for all He's done for me!
serve others
honor others
make the world better
be grateful
model Christ
fling seeds
respond to opportunities to share the gospel
seek my identity and security in Christ
think eternally, not selfishly
love by the Spirit, not by the flesh
overcome temptation
be versus do
relationship with the trinity
enjoy life, think positively, live passionately
live by faith, not by feelings
slow down, develop Spiritual senses
ask God to show me hearts, then what to do
notice people
stop seeking approval of others
be renewed daily--attitude
be filled to overflowing
put on the armor of God
seek God's face not His hand
be conscious of His presence all day
walk in love all day
be an adder,not a subtractor
lift, not lean
ask what am I doing to make someone's day better
I know that I'm not perfect and that I fall short of all of these but I don't live by condemnation, either! I just keep close to God and He works it out through me! It's a cooperation thing. I hope that you who know me and love me experience these things (and thus, God) through me.