Well, we survived. Bekah left for her 2nd year of college and Steven started high school. I can hardly believe it. Steven is doing pretty well, but think he is a bit overwhelmed. There are so many students that just getting down the halls can be a challenge. He comes home and just doesn't have much left. He spends much of the afternoon in his imaginary world talking to his "friends". I think he likes it there because they do what he wants. Maybe I should try it:). It would be nice to be in a world where people do what I want. Hopefully he will settle in and get used to his routine and start talking to us. I'll try and keep you posted.

Sweet 16

I can't believe it. 16 years have flown by. For the most part I feel like the luckiest parent in the world. I know that feeling will change but I'll enjoy it while I can. Steven is a blessing in ways I could never have imagined and we have the best friends and support we could ever ask for. Steven has a way of bringing people together.

Steven loves to dress up. Some days I get so tired of it. It would be so cute if he were 6 or 7, but 15 almost 16? And some days I just give up! Still he’s pretty cute.

Steven has been saying the funniest things lately. It is so great to have him trying to use vocabulary even if he doesn’t do it correctly. It might even be better when he does is incorrectly. He calls hummingbirds, honeybirds-so cute. And one day when he was driving with his sister Bekah and she wanted him to roll up his window he was frusterated with her and said, “Oh Bekah, you leave me nuts”. I love it!
He went to camp last week and kept them laughing too. When he met his councilor she introduced her self with, “Hi, my name is Arden it sounds like Garden”, so he called her Garden all week. He stole her heart and told her he loved her. It was so fun hearing about all he did. Usually when he comes home all we get is, camp was fun, but this time he told us he swam, tried the zip line but chickened out (he said he would do it next year), danced, rode horses, and fished. When asked if he caught a fish he replied, “Almost”. He said he was afraid of them. He seemed so grown up when he got home. It is a nice break for us when he goes to camp but our home is just missing something when he is gone and it is always so fun to get him back. He was one of the councilors favorites (of coarse).
One thing that is a bit difficult when he gets home is that he wants to have something to do all the time and it is just not like that at home (boring). I try to do something each day, but still feel guilty when I see him wandering around or constantly trying to get me to do something with him or working on us to take him out to dinner (his favorite sport).
As bad as I don’t want summer to end school will be a welcome distraction.

I don't have a picture to go with this post so you will just have to use your imagination. I have been leaving Steven home alone for short periods of time for about a year, but that practice my have to stop. About a week ago I was leaving to have lunch with some friends and Bekah (Stevens sister) was on her way home from work, so I decided to go ahead and leave. I told Steven Bekah would be there soon (which meant within 15 minutes) and went on my way. I never dreamed how much could happen in 15 minutes. Steven called his sister twice, me once, his Dad once, Bekah's old boyfriend once and....911!. Yep, he did. They responded as 911 ought to with, "911, what is your emergency". Well some how he proceeded to tell them that there were bad guys in the house and someone was dead. They immediatly send a policeman to the house, but he can't enter until backup arrives, so he is parked
inconspicuously accross the street. Bekah arrives home thinking what is going on over there. But as she exits her car she hears, "Hey,...Hey you, come here", being whispered from behind her. She just about jumps out of her skin (and like any teenager immediatly thinks she is in trouble). The officer asks her to come out to the street behind some trees so they can't be seen from the house and tells her there has been a 911 call from this location from someone who speaks spanish and someone in the house is dead!!! She breaks down in tears and tells him the only person home is her brother. The officer can't go in because backup still isn't there and for about 6 or 7 minutes (but it seemed like an eternity) she thinks Steven is dead. Then suddenly Steven pokes his head out the door and notices his sisters car and says "Bekah?". The officer tries to get him to come out, (he still thinks there are bad guys inside), but Steven sees a police officer and jumps back in the house and closes the door. Bekah explains that if Steven doesn't see her he won't come out and he finally lets her get close enough to the house so Steven can see her and then he comes out. By then the other officers are arriving and they ask him if there are bad guys inside to which he enthusiasticly replies, "yes". Bekah tries to assure them that he is making it up, but they must respond as if there were a real threat. So 5 officers converge on my home from every angle and check every nook and cranny, but no bad guys. After they are satisfied that it was all a mistake they leave. All this happened in about 25 minutes while I am happily oblivious with my girlfriends having lunch. When I get home and hear the whole story I still want to know who the spanish speaker was that called 911. When I am able to speak with the officer who responded he assures me there was no spanish speaker. The 911 dispatcher couldn't understand Steven so she made and assumption. So needless to say, Steven won't be spending a lot of time home alone anymore.

wisdom teeth

Steven had to have his wisdom teeth pulled in May and yes it was stressful, but God had a lesson in it for me. Steven gets very nervouse going to the hospital because he had so many surgeries as a child, so going in for this we knew would be hard. They decided to do it at childrens hospital because there could be complications. So the morning of May 20 we arrive and at first things seem to be going fine. Steven is being so brave, but as we got closer to the surgery he was getting a little nervouse. It didn't help that we had to wait around 2 hours for all the pre-op protocol to be finished. They even gave him valum, but it had almost worn off by the time they were ready for him. Since he was a little uneasy they let us walk beside him down to the operating room. As we are walking he is getting more and more worked up and by the time we are going in he is crying and reaching out for us and begging us not to leave him:( It was so hard to see him like that. Inside the operating room there are about 6 people waiting to do there jobs and Scott and I are sitting on each side of the bed trying to calm him down, I am doing everything I can to assure him I will be there when he wakes up and that it is going to be o.k., but nothing is working. Scott finally grabs his hands and looks at him and says "Steven look at me, look in my eyes", and as soon as Steven looked in his Daddy's eyes he calmed down. It was quite amazing. Even the doctors were amazed, they had never seen anything like that. He took a deep breath and looked around the room and said o.k. I'm ready. It was so sweet, but it took me going half way around the world to Uganda a few weeks later to understand what God was teaching me through that. As I was sharing Christ with the people in Uganda and so out of my comfort zone that I was litterally praying while I was speaking I saw that picture of Steven looking into his Dad's eyes and how all the scary things around him faded away and he had the strength to go ahead with something he didn't understand and was terrified of, and that is what we are supposed to do, keep our focus on our heavenly Daddy and all the scary things around us fade into the background.

Oh, what a week. Steven must be able to sense that the school year is coming to a close. He just hasn't been himself. A little defiant, a little uncooperative, very focused on the fact that his sister is coming home from college in few days. He is so absorbed with this fact that it is all he talks about. Even to his imaginary friends. Which is about to drive me nuts. I would like to talk to a professional about this behavior that has increased dramatically this year. He talks to himself and his invisible friends constantly. He has fights with them and interacts with them to the point that he would rather not talk to people that are actually there. I don't know if it is a faze that he will outgrow or if I should worry about it and try to get him to engage with me more. Of coarse what I want to hear is that it IS just a faze and he will outgrow it in time. I have to laugh sometimes though as I listen in on his conversations. At times he will vocalize both sides; I have heard him insult himself and then reprimand himself for doing so. It is one of those times you wish so bad you had a video camera running (I would have won $10,000 more that one time if I had). So to top this week off, yesterday when Steven came home from school I noticed that he wasn't wearing his hearing aids, which isn't all that unusual, but when I asked him where they were he answered, "I threw them away at the movie theater." His class had gone to the theater to see the movie Oceans so there was actually a possibility that he was right! Aagh, No, he couldn't have. I continued to press, but got the same answer every time. I finally resorted to calling his teacher to see if they (the hearing aids) had been seen since the movie outing. Unfortunately the answer was no. So I angrily order Steven into the car so we can head to the theater to look through the trash. Yes, there is steam coming out of my ears. I am still quizzing Steven, where did you through them away, why? Why? Why, again? I am only being met with a confused look and the facts, "I threw them away at the theater.” As we drive I call the theater and ask if it is possible that they haven't taken the trash out since the kids were there, and to my surprise they hadn't. Yeah, a little hope builds. When we arrive Steven goes straight to the trash can and says, "yes, right there mom". We are met by a nice man who offers me plastic gloves and I go to it. Searching through popcorn, coke, and candy. I am thinking there is no way they are o.k. If I find them they will be floating in a sticky, gooey mess. After searching one and a half trash cans I see them! I am speechless (which never happens to me). There they are! I feel my heart begin to slow and Steven who is holding the flash light for me feels such relief that he begins to sob. I don't know for sure why he burst into tears, but after a difficult week with such a dramatic finish I felt a little like crying too. I can't believe it. We praise God and when we are in the car we pray thanking Him for keeping them safe and dry and showing us right where they were. It's only been one day and I can already laugh about it. The things we must do as mothers, dumpster diving! There aren't many things I won't do for this face.