Juan's Job

 Juan continues to work at La Loma Assistive Living, which is a part of Sun Health. We are very proud of him for his dedication and the responsibility he has shown there. He has a tenure of over two years and they continue to promote him in both position and salary. He started out as a part-time dishwasher. He was then trained as an expeditor. He is now a cook. Because he is trained in all three areas, he is quite valuable to them in the kitchen and can jump into any of those roles at any time. As he looks towards high school and technical school graduation with his Coding degree, we are encouraging him to consider the full-time employment options at Sun Health in their IT department. Although he is also looking at college options, using his technical degree, working first, and maturing some first may be a better choice right now.

Juan's First Day of His Senior Year

Juan is not super excited to take pictures unless you get him on a good day so the idea of getting a first day of school picture didn't work so well. Although communication and our relationship isn't as smooth as we would like it to be, we continue to do all the same things we have always done. I have always celebrated special events in the kids' lives like the first day of school, the last day of school, holidays, birthdays, and special achievements. Not only was I brought up with a mom that also went out of her way to always make things special, but I feel like my kids never had this type of love and so if I can make up for lost time, I try to do all I can to show them we care. I hope one day they will look back and realize how hard we really did try. Sadly, their challenges started way before coming to our family and we were just not enough to solve them because they weren't willing to accept the help and guidance we could give them.