To celebrate the accomplishment of my book, Dainis took me to the Michael W. Smith concert. It was a three hour long concert of him singing all of his worship favorites. I generally pay all the bills so it was a great surprise for Dainis to pull this off. We enjoyed a nice dinner before the concert at the Tortilla Factory in Scottsdale. It has been a long time since we have been there, and it was a nice night!
Everyone had different plans this Halloween. This was Homecoming weekend for Juan so he spent the weekend and Halloween at his best friend's house. Ingrid was away at a church retreat for 2 nights and then went and helped with a Trunk or Treat Event on Halloween night. She was not happy with us because we said 10:00 not midnight curfew since it was a school night but her plans changed anyways and she ended up back home at 9 pm! She looked very cute though! Our furry children also dressed up and helped us pass out candy to the neighbor kids! We sat outside and handed out lollipops. The key to Halloween candy is to not buy the kind you like so you aren't tempted to eat it!
Ingrid now has the opportunity to work with real clients on Tuesday-Friday, since she is a second year hairstyling student and loves it!! If someone makes an appointment specifically with her, it is her customer. Otherwise, all the students take turns serving the customers that come into the West MEC salon based on their last name. When they are not serving customers, they continue to practice their skills on their manikin heads. This is one of Ingrid's first male hair cuts with a real customer. I love that the school gives the second year students this experience!
Juan is doing very well in his first year of computer coding at West MEC. Although I, as Mom and Taxi driver, will be happy when Juan gets driver's license next spring and can drive himself to high school and tech school every day, I am so thankful that he has had this opportunity and is exceling at it! He was recently picked, along with a few other students, to re-design the school's website. He was super excited about this. We are really glad he is getting these opportunities!
Juan started his first job at La Loma Village this past spring as a dishwasher. La Loma is an independent living community and located about ten minutes from our house. It was a great job for Juan because he could put in his air pods, do the job, not communicate with others, and just work hard. He has done very well there, and we are very proud of him! He was promoted to expeditor this summer and really enjoyed that position. The company just gave him another raise and is training him on some days now on how to cook and become a chef. I appreciate the life skills Juan has gained by being employed there. It goes so much farther than just a paycheck and has really helped his self confidence.
Ingrid loves hairstyling, and we are so proud of her for doing so well at West MEC. She has busy days, attending high school classes every morning, West MEC classes every afternoon, and working some evenings at Safeway!
As a second year student, West MEC hairstyling students become real hair stylists Tues-Fri from 1:15-5:30pm, by taking on paid clients. The salon is now open for business and all of the students are super excited to try out their skills! They offer all service from hair, color, chemical texturizing, to add on services.
The salon is located at the West MEC Southwest campus at 500 North Verado Way, Buckeye, AZ 85326. Their phone number to make an appointment is 623-872-6260.
Ingrid and her boyfriend, Jacob, have been dating for over 1 1/2 years now. They just went to their Senior Homecoming dance at Desert Edge High School and had a good time. The kids all missed so much with the pandemic last year so I am glad it has worked out, so far, for some of the past activities to come back. The kids both drive so they came to our house to take pictures first and then went out to dinner and onto the dance. The dance was held outside at a park. Gone are the days where we take everyone to dinner, drop them off at the dance, and pick them back up at the designated time!
For those of you who are recipients of our annual Christmas pictures and letters, you know that every year I include a professional family photo. We started taking these annual pictures with the kids when we first arrived home from Colombia beginning in Summer 2011 and it just became tradition, like so many other things. I don't really know why I started the tradition of dressing everyone up every Fall for a traditional family photo because neither Dainis or I grew up in a family that did that every year. I think I wanted the kids to have that sense of family and belonging, and I was always trying to make up for lost time. By this point in time, the kids know when it is family photo time, they just have to smile and cooperate, and they did a good job! We use to treat them to lunch or dinner out if they cooperated and now they just know it is an expectation. What it really boils down to though is a lot of work and stress for Mom to buy and coordinate outfits and schedules, make the appointment, make sure everyone has a haircut, and wakes up in time. We all smile and for that moment everyone looks happy, although with teens you aren't ever quite sure what their true feelings are. I purposely scheduled this year's photo shoot on Labor Day because everyone was off school and work. By the time Labor Day rolled around, both kids were scheduled for work after the pictures! I am thankful for the cooperation to continue the tradition and have another successful Christmas picture complete.
Juan passed his learner's permit test, and we went to the the DMV and received his official learner's permit this past week so we have another new driver in the house! We will start working with Juan, practicing in parking lots, and he will attend driving school, like his sisters did. Dainis and I bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible for our 20th wedding anniversary gift to each other and have enjoyed it on trips and date nights. Unfortunately, we have not used it as much as we anticipated, and we decided to sell it to Juan. He has worked hard at his job at La Loma independent living since this spring and earned enough money to buy it from us. Our agreement with our kids when they start driving is they have to have a job in order to pay half of their insurance and put a little bit of their paycheck in a car maintenance fund each time they are paid. Until they graduate, we pay for the kids' gas to and from school and work and the other half of their insurance. We are really proud of Juan and his hard work at saving his money!
