Love Turlock-Community Service

As a requirement for one of Ashlee's classes at school, she had to do a minimum of 10 hours of community service.  Ashlee's teacher was a bit of a stickler on what would and would not qualify as community service so it was bit of a struggle, but she was able to do it all.
Today, Ashlee and John (we would have all helped, but since Mikayla is in a cast, we could not) participated in a combined event through the community of Turlock and Mormon Helping Hands called Love Turlock.  They completed a 4 hour community service project at an elderly persons home, cleaning up their yard and removing debris.  Some of the volunteers commented on how hard of worker she is.  She did a great job, came home with some scrapes, but she got up early and went to help and serve in her community.
Some other things Ashlee did for community service were:
Make brownies for the homeless
Serve food at a homeless shelter
Visit the elderly
Attend Interact Meetings (a community service club on campus)
Read books to Kindergarten Students
Work
Help others with homework (tutoring)

Mikayla AR Award

One of the requirements every year at school is that the student's have to read a book and take at least 1 AR (accelerated reader) test a week.  Mikayla loves to read books, but she hates to take the test.  Mikayla will read chapter books, not take a test on them, read a little story book, and take a test on that instead of a chapter book (out of fear that she will get a bad score on a chapter book).  I spoke with her teacher about the issue at the beginning of the school year and she made a deal with Mikayla.  If she read chapter books, took a test on them, and got to 30AR points she would take her to lunch.  I also made a deal with Mikayla, the deal was, she had to read 10 chapter books, take a test, and she could do something fun.  Mikayla met her end of both deals.  She read more books than required, took more tests than she needed to and reached 50 AR points by April.  By the end of the school year she will be well into the 70's or further.  Mikayla received and award at a school assembly for her reading accomplishments.  Although, her teacher went on maternity leave before she got to have lunch with the teacher, and she is still waiting to do a fun activity.  Great job Mikayla!

Cast

After nearly four weeks of being on crutches and seeing a PA at an Orthopedist office, we finally were able to go see an actual orthopedist and found out that Mikayla's foot is fractured.  We had got nothing but the run around at the office we were going to.  I was getting fed up, and Mikayla was in pain and fed up too. 

On March 7th Mikayla was playing soccer during recess at school.  A kid (just happens to be the biggest kid in the class) was running to kick the soccer ball, missed the ball and hit Mikayla in the side of her right foot.  I didn't think much of it, just thought it was bruised or sprained. 

On March 11th when she was getting ready for school, she started complaining and saying it hurt to get her foot into her shoe.  That afternoon we went to the pediatrician and he sent her for an x-ray.  The next day the pediatrician called and said that they could not rule out if the foot was fractured or not, so he wanted us to see an orthopedist.  The pediatrician referred us to an orthopedist in town, but the only way she could be seen right away was if she saw the PA at the orthopedist office so that's what we did.  Mikayla and I both liked the PA.  He spent time with us, examined her foot, went over the x-ray with us and explained the treatment to us.  He said" we are going to treat it as if it's broke, but not cast it and put you on crutches for three weeks". 

At the end of three weeks, Mikayla went off the crutches.  We went shopping, she went to two soccer practices, she went bike riding, she was walking, playing and having fun. 

On April 8th Mikayla returned to the PA to see how her foot was doing.  He manipulated her foot and Mikayla said it hurt, he turned her foot the other way and Mikayla said it hurt.  The PA said,"well you seem to be doing fine on it, so if you have any more problems contact us".  When we walked out of the PA office, I knew something was not right, but Mikayla was not saying much.  A few hours later she went to soccer practice and about 30 minutes after soccer practice was over she was crying because the pain was so bad. 

The next morning I called the doctors office and long story short, got nothing but the run around for two days, they would not schedule her for an appointment.  I asked for them to order another x-ray which they finally did after a couple more phone calls (I was taking her to another doctor and I wanted the x-ray in hand, but I did not want them to know that), in the meantime, Mikayla was back on crutches and could not walk on her foot.  A friend, and neighbor of ours when we lived in Hughson, responded to a post on Facebook, telling me that her daughter worked for an orthopedist in Modesto.  I made sure the orthopedist was covered under our insurance, and got an appointment for the next day. 

The new orthopedist took a quick look at the x-ray, pointed out where the fracture was, looked at the knot on Mikayla's foot and said we are putting her in a cast, the lady will be right in to take care of it.  Why couldn't the PA see that?  Why could Mikayla walk fine for 5 days, walk into the PA office and come out in pain?  Why did we get such a run around from them when we tried to schedule another appointment?  I don't know.  It really makes you wonder how some doctors are able to stay practicing.  I wish I would have listened to my instincts sooner and took her for a second opinion, but I didn't.  Now something that could have and should have only taken 3-4 weeks to heal is going to take at least 10.  And she is missing out on playing soccer in the spring league with her two friends, on top of missing the dance rectial last week, on top of being miserable on crutches and having a leg that won't stop itching from the cast.  The list goes on and on....  What has happened has happened, so we cannot look back, we can only look forward right?   Hopefully she is on the road to recovery now and her foot will heal well.

Mutual

Ashlee was in charge of the planning a mutual activity in March.  She spent many hours and weeks, searching for a project that would be fun.  After she decided on what to do, she got approval from the 2nd counselor in the YW Presidency, only to have her released the following week, so then she had to get approval from the new 2nd counselor. She got approval and a date of March 26th was given to her.  Two days before March 26th, she gets a call saying that her activity will need to be changed to the 10th of April (which she was not happy about), but it was what it was.  On April 8th we get a call saying that the activity will be the 9th instead of the 10th.   The whole thing was just not turning out right.  This was Ashlee's first time planning and directing a mutual activity, she was excited and things were just not going as planned.  And anyone who knows me, knows that I am very organized, on time, and I stick to a pretty strict schedule (Ashlee is very much the same way), and all these bumps in the road were not meshing with our personalities too well.  BUT, the activity went well.  Ashlee did a great job, she came home from school, got her homework done and made Snikerdoodle cookies in less than 2 hours and we were off to the activity.  The girls enjoyed the activity.  This is what the shirts looked like when they finished.

Tie-Dyed Shirts using Sharpies and rubbing alcohol.  They all turned out cute.  But we did discover, that when you wash the shirt, the color fades a lot.  We need to know what to do to prevent the color from fading.

Family Time

Last night John asked if we wanted to go on a picnic.  We decided that once he got his work done and Mikayla's soccer practice was over we would go on a picnic.  After a 2 hour soccer practice, cooler than expected weather, and unable to agree on where to go, we decided to load up our bikes and go for a bike ride at California State University Stanislaus.  Shortly into our bike ride, Mikayla's front tire went flat (but she was a champ and kept on peddling), then we switched bikes, she rode Ashlee's, Ashlee rode mine, and I pushed Mikayla's.  After our bike ride, we went to the park.  We found a park that we did not even know existed.  The kids played for a while and then we went and had a late lunch, early dinner at Red Robbin.

Mikayla's 10th Birthday

Mikayla turned 10 years old today.  It's hard to believe that she is already 10.  Time flies!  Mikayla has made it through a lot over the last ten years and continues to push through and excel in all that she does.
Mondays, are difficult days for John, both at work and with the rabbits and chickens, so we let her choose where she wanted to eat dinner at on Friday night.  Unfortunately, it was late Friday night, so she didn't get to go where she really wanted to go (either Famous Daves or The Cheese Cake Factory, both in the bay area), but she did choose to go to Home Town Buffet. Monday, the day of her birthday was spring break, so she did not have to go to school and she liked that! I let her pick what she wanted to have for dinner, she requested chicken tacos.   Monday night she also had her first soccer practice, she was still on crutches,  so she went and met her coaches, and her team, and watched them practice.  After practice we went to Yogolicious for some frozen yogurt.  On Wednesday, I took Ashlee, Mikayla and my neice Hailee shopping in Livermore and Pleasanton, and took them to lunch at The Cheese Cake Factory (so Mikayla ended up getting 3 meals of her choice, instead of just 1).