Airbound Gymnastics Recital
Bottom picture: Justin and Michael, one of the kids he coaches.
Justin and Nathan absolutely LOVE tumbling! Nathan has progressed at the same rate that Justin did seven years ago but he has also picked up a few of Justin's tricks because Justin coaches him at home. Justin has also spent the last few months coaching a beginner boys class which has been perfect to give him more time around gymnastics without putting the full stress on his joints. He has missed doing to full apparatus routines but doesn't miss the extra pain associated with it. Taking one class a week to keep up on and learn new skills, combined with coaching, gives him the best of both worlds.
Justin's routine at the recital was crazy!! I think I held my breath the entire time.
The quality is terrible (thanks to my first gen, cheap, digital camera that is not really intended for distance video) but if you watch the tumbling pass on the tumble track in the background you can see Justin's glowing body flipping back and forth and back again. He is amazing!
Justin and Nathan with ValaRae - each at age 8 - at their first gymnastics recital
ValaRae helped Nathan and Camdyn put together a routine for their school talent show.
2nd Grade
The tumbling and jumping goes on outside of gymnastics as each summer day is spent on the trampoline,
occasionally in costume.
It was entertaining to watch them from the window but when I went out to take pictures I laughed right out loud. As they would bounce into each other they would holler banana split! and if they fell they would call out smashed banana! while doing a fruity death scene.
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My daily costume usually consists of a ponytail and cozy socks. With summer in full swing I felt it was time to get rid of the elastic hairstyle and doll up my toes.
Erika and I had a toe party at her apartment. The result was coral twinner toes with our own version of daisies and dots. Not bad for beginners.
I guess we do look alike. Except my toes show the wrinkly signs of a few extra years.
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Hyrum still maintains that he wants to be a chef. He even finds books at the library that include recipes and then we have a kitchen date to try out his new found recipes.
When his creative kitchen juices are flowing he pulls ingredients from the pantry, cupboards and/or refrigerator to blend together his very own snack.
Apples, peanut butter and marshmallows. Recipe for "Delish" (as he named it).
He's still trying to convince me that he's old enough to cut apples on his own but his chubby little hands wielding a knife
is just too much for me at this point. I'm not ready to let my baby go.
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Derek has been studying sleep disorders in school and came home with his self diagnosis. We have always know that he has a hard time falling asleep and is a sleep walker and sleep talker and he usually complains that he is tired no matter how early he goes to bed but after studying about sleep patterns and disorders he was determined that he has a sleep disorder (and I don't remember what it's called, just the symptoms).
Around the same time I got a Fitbit which tracks many things including sleep. Just to see how well he really does sleep, Derek wore my Fitbit to bed one night. He has not had any caffeine for a few days, went to bed at a decent time and, as usual, he was tired. The next morning his results shocked us!
The poor kid is right. He probably never does hit REM stage. As he describes his dream patterns it seems that when he should be in REM stage and be in a deep enough dream/sleep state that it practically forces his body into a type of paralysis to rest, he acts out his dreams. That's when he wanders the house, fights the enemy of his dreams, laughs at his dream state conversations or carries on conversations (and Justin is witness to all of this). We're not sure at this point what to do about it but it gives us a start point to have it looked into. We don't want him to go on a mission and never sleep while he's there. He and his companions need more energy than that.
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The final 2nd grade project for Nathan's class included geometry, measuring, sewing and oodles of parent supervision.
Each child took scraps from home, then cut, measured, laid it all out and learned how to iron, use a sewing machine, and sew on buttons. The final product was a place mat for each child to proudly display and use at home. Nathan was thrilled to show me his finished work and then went around the house comparing his place mat to each table runner that I have made. My crafty heart burst as he exclaimed that we are just alike! Our great grandmothers would be so proud.
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A senior at the high school was doing a photography project to show professionals at work. He contacted LeRoy because he had helped him with a scout project and asked if he could take pictures of him in his electrical shop.
LeRoy thought it was just going to be a small picture handed in as a class assignment but when I went to the school for Derek's project citizen presentation I walked down a hallway of 11x17 canvas photos displayed by photography students and there was LeRoy's picture.
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Derek's final project for his senior year was to break his wrist.
Our family was gathering the ward Memorial Day flags and Derek hopped off the tailgate of LeRoy's truck. With all of his science knowledge it didn't cross his mind that if he jumped off the end of a moving vehicle that he would need to run in the same direction of the truck. Instead, he ran the opposite direction of the truck and it forced his 6'4" frame to stumble and fall back, catching himself on his wrist.
Initially, he assumed it was just sprained. He is an expert in that area. But, after going through his last day of finals and still not being able to move his wrist at all, he agreed to have an x-ray done. The doctor wrapped his wrist in a cumbersome splint to allow the swelling to go down and we scheduled an appointment for Friday to have a cast put on. By Thursday, the day of his high school graduation, he had had enough of the "bulky, incovenient, ugly thing and was not going to cross stage with it on". He threatened to unwrap his arm for graduation and would still go in Friday morning for a cast. I called the doctor and they agreed to look at it and if the swelling was down they would cast it for him. He chose a red cast to match his red graduation robe.
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While the rest of us were winding up the school year, Vivien was looking at another month in school and she was not happy about that.
It's hard not to have her close to offer support or to have her part of our craziness, which, ironically, can offer comedic relief. I'm proud of her for sticking with it, even through projects that take forever and math that only super humans (like Vivien) would understand. High school is not easy but from what I've learned from Vivien, American high school is a whole lot easier than European secondary school.
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The first item of summer business was camping. Derek, Justin, Bret, Erika and Aaron called Uncle Dean to set up a camping night in Menan at the Fullmer family homestead.
It's good for these young adults to do their own camping so that when we go as a family they have already followed through on their dangerous ideas like standing on a pallet over an open fire or sleeping in a tent when it's still in the freezing temperature range or taking guns with them. That way, they tone it down to a G safety rating when we all camp together. I do give them props for the meal planning. None of this hot dog business, they go for tin foil beef and veggies from fresh ingredients.
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While the others were roughing it in the great outdoors, Nathan and Hyrum put together an indoor camp.
They slept on the floor of their bedroom for nearly a week.
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