Mother's Day Weekend 2015

Mother Nature has said, "here you go, have a wonderfully hot and clear week to make up from the long, cold winter that you just lived through!"  We have broken a few high temp records this week. The solar heater has been hooked up on the pool for a few days and the water has gotten warmer and warmer all week until it reached 83 degrees this weekend.  The air temps have been in the high 80's and we have spent all of our time outside and Bobby has barely left the pool.

Even better news for the Mother's Day weekend.  My niece Ashley was accompanying her boyfriend to our area while he did some baseball recruiting.  Score us!!  They arrived on Friday and the first team that he was scheduled to observe just happened to be from my former high school.  We had planned to go to Grandma's house (my mom's) for dinner and go see some of the game too, as much of the scheduled double-header that Bobby could stand.  Unfortunately there was a major accident  just off of our exit which had traffic snarled and fires burning.  We decided to stay put until some of the Friday afternoon drive time traffic was more under control.  Bobby didn't care, he got into the pool and had some fun.

Eventually we got out of the pool, changed our clothes and headed to my old high school.  The game was in the 6th inning when we arrived.  Daddy went over to watch at the ball diamond while I walked around with Bobby and, of course, took some pictures.

 Bobby wanted to open the door and go inside, because "pee pee potty" was the mantra of the moment.   Oops, I think Mommy forgot to prompt you to use the bathroom before we left home.  I took him behind the auditorium to do his business...don't tell anyone!!...and we got back to the business at hand....baseball!!!

  We walked over to the baseball diamond and Bobby was awesome!!  He climbed to the top of bleachers and watched some baseball!!

Grandma is in the house!!!

I think that I see some familiar backs in this picture!!!  Cousin to the left, niece's legs to the right and her boyfriend's back on the right.  At this point, Bobby starts saying "slide."  We are at a school after all, there HAS to be a playground with a sliding board somewhere around here!!!!!  I decided to take him for a walk and we headed towards the football field.

 He loved the field and he wanted on to run around!!!  We did a lap around the field and checked every gate and they were all locked.  Boo!!

 "Open.  Open.  Open."  Sorry dude, Mommy doesn't have the key to this one!

 Pitiful.  All the poor boy wants is to run around!!

 When we were just about finished with our lap, I received a text from Daddy.  Game is over and there is no second game.  What??  We are finished.  I don't have to try to keep Bobby occupied any longer?  Whoo Hoo.  This is perfect.

We went back to the baseball field, met up with the family, stopped off to take a picture with the Husky statue....this poor statue....got in the car, and went to Grandma's house to visit for a little while.

Saturday, oh Saturday.  We didn't do anything but lounge in and around the pool all day.  Yes, we were burnt and totally sun drenched!!! The was our view of Bobby all weekend long......

We decided to host a Mother's Day cookout on Sunday.  Because of the weather, the cookout would have to be in the late afternoon, early evening so that we could have some shade in the yard, it was just too unbearable earlier in the day....90 degrees on Mother's Day! What??  It's only May 10th!!

 It's Mother's Day so there had to be flowers involved!!  Flower pots with spikes in the middle for me, the others for my mom.

Grandma, my niece Ashley and her boyfriend Chris, as well as my brother Chris all came for our barbecue rib cookout.  My camera was sitting out all evening, but I only really managed to get pictures during a ladder golf game.

 Uhh, Zoi, excuse us, are we in your way??!!!

 It's all fun and games until the dog gets hit in the head!!

 My brother Chris and Ashley on this side vs. boyfriend Chris and Daddy.  I have no idea who won, I was getting the dinner finished.

 Grandma was doing a great job supervising the game!!  If you are wondering what Bobby was doing while the game was going on......he's further back in the background still swimming in the pool.

Ashley took a break from the game and hung out with Grandma.

After dinner, I took the out of towners on a quick tour of Morgantown.  Since it was a baseball weekend, we started with a look at the new baseball stadium.

 Baseball with a spectacular view of Morgantown!!

The tour continued with a look at Mountaineer field football stadium, the Rec Center and a drive through the downtown campus.  Perfect time for a driving tour, the students are all gone since finals were finished on Friday.

It was a wonderful weekend spent with family.  The summer cookout season has begun!!  Hopefully this was just the beginning of a summer filled with family fun!

Happy Mother's Day.

It's FINALLY Here!

It has been a super long and extremely cold winter. The only thing that gets us through is the knowledge that Spring will eventually be here.  I have great news......it is HERE!!!  The winter coats, boots, snow pants, gloves and hats are all stored away until winter arrives again.  No more snow days and 2 hour delays from school because of the snow or even just because of the negative 30 degree wind chill for now!!  Even better news, the fun activities that have been written on the calendar that seemed just so far away are happening!!!

First up, Bobby's first school field trip.  Every year an organization that Bobby does many activities with holds an Arts Festival for special needs students and adults from our region.  They have added some fun get up and move activities in the past couple of years so it seemed like the perfect year for Bobby and his peers from his autism classroom to go to the Arts Festival.  Just so happens that I have volunteered at this festival for the past 4 years.  When they asked what I wanted to do this year, I asked for the bouncy house.  I wanted Bobby to be able to go in and jump as much as he needed and this way I could see that this happened.  Even better, my friend Shelly took off a day of work and she volunteered with me.  We were the bouncy house gate keepers!!!  LOL!!!!

 The boys immediately made it to the bouncy house as soon as they walked into the building.

 Bobby's favorite thing to do....sit in the bouncy house while his friends jump and he gets tossed around!!  Prompted him to get up and jump and he complied and jumped with his classmates.

 The kids went off with their teachers or aides and did an art activity then came back to jump before going off to do another activity.  Shelly was wondering why this kid was running towards her, then she realized......it was Sonny!!! A little face paint turned him into the HULK!

 Sonny was off to do another art activity.

 Bobby only did two of the art activities, arts and crafts are just not his thing.  He is more of a bouncy house guy!!!  He and Jacob were "dancing" while they were waiting in line.

Our class was the last one in the lobby waiting for their bus to arrive to take them back to school.  It wasn't a big issue since the school bus garage is 100 yards away, but it gave me a few extra minutes to take some pictures.

 Sonny was cracking us up.....his scary Hulk face combined with his big, green, floppy crate paper hat was so fun!!  Bobby didn't know what to think!!

 Those who know me can guess what happened next......"alright, everyone come over so that I can get a group picture."

 Getting 7 children with autism to actually look at the camera all at one time is never gonna happen.  But I love the result!!  Bobby's school crew!!  Now time to get on the bus and get back to school.

The next day of school was Friday, which is his favorite day of the week.  He gets to ride a school bus with his peers to WVU to attend Sports Camp, hosted by phys. ed. students. Bobby swims, his favorite activity, because he doesn't participate too well in the group activities.  Lucky Bobby got to ride the bus away from the school two days in a row to do something fun!!!

This picture was taken a few weeks ago at sports camp after Bobby was finished swimming and waiting to get on the bus to go back to school.  Another mom sent this pic to me!!

What could make this Friday even more perfect than going swimming at school???  Well Tiny Tykes special needs tumbling began!!  After school Bobby got to go to the WV Gymnastics Training Center with his peers and JUMP JUMP JUMP.  WV student volunteers are paired with each "athlete" and parents get to sit back and relax.

Bobby was WORN OUT after tumbling and the fun of the last two days.  He sat back in his seat and didn't say a word on the way home....which is beyond rare.  He also ate his dinner in silence....again a rare occurrence.  He was asleep by 9 pm and didn't wake up until 7 am........YAY, we need this schedule every day!!!

Grandma Carolyn called and wanted to know if we would ride to the Flatwoods Outlet Mall with her because the Fiesta Outlet was having their annual tent sale.  We said YES. Bobby loves the ride and he loves to walk up and down the strip mall sidewalks.

First we went through the drive thru to get some lunch to make sure that Bobby would be a happy boy at the mall.

Grandma went into the big tent and I took Bobby for a walk.  These chairs were lined up on the sidewalk in front of one of the stores and Bobby sat in all of them.  They were the perfect size for him.  Funny thing, he refused to sit in the hot pink chair....he's such a boy!!

Yes, Grandma is shopping under that big white tent!!!!  Grandma scored with some great Fiesta items at super great prices.

Daddy was beyond shocked that I didn't buy anything!!  LOL!!!  When we got home Daddy had mowed the yard and cleaned up around the house.  He decided to cut up a pallet that was in the yard so we got out the fire pit and had our first fire of the season.

 Bobby was a little intrigued by the fire for a minute and then lost all interest and actually turned his chair around so he could watch the cars go by on the road below.

We even had fun plans for Sunday.....an autism birthday party!!  These are the most fun thing in Bobby's World.  This party was scheduled to have a bouncy house.  Score!!  Twice in one week!!

 The party was in one of the gyms in the Falcon Center at Fairmont State.  Only downfall....we had to pass a super sweet indoor pool to get to the gym.  Bobby did much better with this situation than he would have in the past.

 Bobby, as well as the birthday boy, we extremely intrigued by this open garage door and the belongings inside.  Again, they both did great with this opened door, especially compared to years past.

 There were quite a few Fairmont State alumni among the parents at the party, including my beloved husband.  We heard the statement "this place sure didn't look like this when I went here!" many times during the party and especially when we moved upstairs for the food/cake/presents part of the party.

 I even managed one posed picture on the walkway back to the parking garage.

We played outside for much of the evening when we got home.  It is just amazing how happy we are now that the weather is warmer and we can get Bobby out to do things.  Happy Spring everyone!! May our summers be warm with perfect swimming weather on a daily basis!!!!!