Great Wolf Lodge, Camping

The last few weeks have been busy and fun! We went to Great Wolf Lodge on the 4th of July and the kids had a great time at the water park. Adam had some issues the first day, he talked a lot about his mouth hurting so I got him some Advil. We saw a cavity in his mouth (very disappointing:-() but when we called the dentist he didn't seem to think it would be causing him very much pain. He was a lot better the next day so who knows what it was! That next weekend (last weekend) we went camping with the Neibauers at Larrabee State Park and had a great time! Camping is getting easier every time. I am learning what to bring to make it easier, and the kids as they get older are becoming lower maintenance. We have one more camping trip coming up this summer so hopefully that goes well, and who knows - maybe we will do THREE camping weekends next summer!

What else has been going on . . . this week was kind of weird because my birthday was on Wednesday, I feel like it kind of threw off my schedule lol. My friends took me on a tour of a winery and we went for dinner and a walk, topped it off with some Molly Moons ice cream which was delicious. Today Brian and I are taking the kids to Whidbey Island to finish off my birthday celebrations with a dinner at the place we went to on my birthday 3 years ago, looking forward to it! I hope they still have that delicious Creme Brulee! 

We had some "excitement" yesterday morning with Adam. I told him we were going to the park in a bit, and he said he didn't want to go and ran into the garage. I didn't pay much attention, as he often says he doesn't want to do something and then he actually does, it can be a bit confusing. Anyway, I don't know how much time had passed before I was ready to get him dressed and to be on our way, so I went to look for him in the garage. No Adam and the garage door was open. Strange, he doesn't usually open the garage door (at least not without telling us first) so I found that a bit odd, but kept looking for him around the inside and outside of the house. No Adam. I'm starting to get a bit concerned at this point and thought, "Maybe he walked to the park alone??". It's only a half a block down the road and he knows exactly where it is, although he has never gone there on his own before. Lynsey jumps on her bike and goes down there and sure enough, Adam was there - he had TAKEN HIS BIKE! I felt so many emotions right then - relief that he was safe, frustration that he had gone there by himself as that is one more thing for me to worry about him doing, and I felt PROUD that he had ridden his bike!! It must have taken him a long time to get there, it's a good thing our street is pretty dead as I'm sure he didn't take the sidewalk. But he can pedal his bike to the park, this is great! On the way back, he pedaled for a bit but it was so slow so eventually he got off and walked. I hope he keeps it up, imagine if one day we might actually be able to take family bike rides?? I guess Nathan will have to learn how to ride a bike first:-/.

Lynsey had a sleepover with her friends Alice and Maggie last night in the tent in the backyard, they had a lot of fun. I got my hammock that I ordered for myself for my birthday gift, but the boys are pretty big fans so I may not get much chance to use it myself:'-D. 

Schools out for summer!

Here we are, it's Canada Day! School got out on the 23rd and we have been adjusting to summer life! June has been a bit of a blur. Adam has gotten a bit more manageable the last three weeks, but we are still struggling with his need for us to repeat things to him. The day after my last blog post was the worst day he has had in I don't know how long (ironically also the day that I took that picture of him looking so happy with Lynsey on the swing - I had to document it because it was the only time that day he wasn't a total mess!). A week after that on team meeting Wednesday, someone from ORL that specializes in repetitive behaviors joined us and told us a bit about what he thinks is going on with Adam. We learned the term "Restrictive Repetitive Behaviors" for the first time. He explained to us that it doesn't really matter what we are doing, his brain needs to hear these things. It was a relief in some ways, since we have been beside ourselves trying to figure out the right strategy to curb the behavior, and yet kind of disheartening to know that there isn't really a whole lot we can do. We are back to pretty much just telling him exactly what he wants us to say, for now anyway. We can try to help him manage it, which is what we are trying very hard to do, and thankfully ORL is going to help us with this! It's been a hard few months with that boy, that is for sure. 

What else has been going on! Lynsey got to go to Great Wolf Lodge with her Girl Scouts troop for one night which was a lot of fun for her! We are going as a family on Tuesday so we will see how that goes - fingers crossed it goes okay! We got an inflatable waterslide for the backyard that the kids are having lots of fun with. Lynsey and Nathan just attended our church's summer day camp (essentially their version of VBS) and had a great time. I took Adam to a play place that is specifically for kids with Autism and he loved it - we will be going back for sure!

Looking forward to a pretty relaxed July! I am making my photo book for last year and just finished up with July - we were painting in our new house, then made a trip to Alberta with lots of stops visiting lots of people, then moved to our new house a few days after we got back, then Brian's parents came to visit and we had a weekend together in Cle Elum in a cabin, then the weekend after that we went camping with some friends. Yikes! A lot of fun but a lot going on for sure! This summer will be much more relaxed:-).