Tuesday, August 22, 2017

A Story by William

William's letter about Lucky
    William sat down yesterday an wrote a letter about Lucky our dog. He wanted me to publish it. So I have decided to put it here so he can see it in a few years. I am going to attach the original letter and I will retype what he wrote. 

    I was impressed that he chose to do this in the middle of summer and without prompting. All of the punctuation is William's. Here is what the note said:

William and Lucky
" Lucky
First of all he loves to sniff and lick things he knows seven tricks shake he gives his paw and shake it. high five: you show your hand like you are going to high five. two legs: show the T-R-E-A-T above LUCKY and he will go on two legs (William spells treat so Lucky doesn't know when he is getting him a treat. The problem with that is that he spells it every time he gets a treat so now Lucky knows exactly what is going on.) , Sit, Down, Speak, treat on the nose: Unexplainable he is hyper and he is sometimes very lazy. the end"

    William is just starting to become friends with his dog. He is taking more time to be a part of Lucky's life. He pets him more and I can see Lucky finally starting to come to William for attention. William feeds lucky and gives him water everyday he is home. He wants Lucky to sleep in his bedroom but Lucky has never done that. They have about five or six more years together or more hopefully. I hope William remembers Lucky with fondness as he grows older.

Your Loving Dad

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Catching Up

William has been growing and the end of another school is fast approaching. We have been doing a lot of things lately. We have been on a few field trips with school, Lego League will be starting soon and William baked his first cake. Diabetes has been relatively quite.

Field trips:
Windmill Island
One of our field trips this year was an adventure to Windmill Island. The students from William's school got the afternoon to explore what Holland is about. They got to learn about the history and see the beautiful flowers. The windmill is a working windmill that is used to process corn into corn-mill. The windmill towers high above the visitors to this beautiful and historic landscape.  We visited many stations where the characters took us through the history and how it applied to their part of history. We met fur traders, shop keepers, soldiers, the blacksmith and many other locals. We made many stops and learned many new things along the way.

Tulips at Windmill Island
One of the attractions in Holland are the beautiful flowers that are planted each year. The tulips come up each May and are celebrated with the tulip time festival.  The festival celebrates the Dutch history of the historic city of Holland. The city grows dramatically each year for one week as visitors come to take in the Dutch heritage on display. It is wonderful to be part of a city that celebrates the history of who they are. The student have to learn all about Holland as part of the school year and before each tulip time celebration.

Lego League:
William will be moving to fourth grade next year. Things have gotten easier for him and school is getting easier. In forth grade William will be moving up to Lego League from the Lego League Jr program that he was involved in last year. This is a robotics program that starts when the students are in kindergarten and they can participate all the way through high school.  The Lego League program if for students in 4th - 6th grade. We are excited to be part of the team and we are looking forward to finding out the game we have to play.

William baked his first cake:
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One of William's most recent school projects was to use real world math to solve a problem. The project required the class to find a recipe to bake at home. They were required to have at least five ingredients.  They had to make the recipe and take a picture to bring to school. They had to double the recipe and halve the recipe. With William having Celiac disease, we had to find a gluten free recipe. William chose a chocolate, chocolate chip cake. The triple threat of chocolate.  The cake turned out delicious. The class also had to present a poster board of their project. William had a great time and is looking forward to his next baking challenge.

Many new things are coming down the pipe. Keep tuned in!!

Your Loving Dad

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Almost February

    Almost February and it has been quite around here. William's numbers are good and we have been plugging away at school. Robotics season is in full swing and things are progressing. I am getting to spend a lot of time with Jen this robotics season or at least more than usual. Work is going well and it is 2017. Wow it is 2017. 

    William had his check up with the endocrinologist a couple of weeks ago. Things went well. We made a very minor adjustments did his normal checkup and that was that. William also got a flu shot. That is really important for someone with an autoimmune disease. He was not very happy about that part. I am glad that things on the diabetes front seem OK for right now. We also had the dentist appointment last week and they told William that he was doing a great job. He loves to tell everyone that he is using mouthwash now. Kids are funny about what they think is important. I'm just glad that he is taking care of his teeth. They told us that he should start losing the rest of his baby teeth really soon.

    The robotics team is in full swing. We have most of our design worked out and we are trying to make progress to having a functioning robot before the deadline in just a couple of weeks. This year I have been working with a company that develops hardware for the robotics groups. I help write all of the drivers for the main pieces of hardware for navigation and we also started working on software to help make the robots more accurate and easier to control. The owner of this company has a pretty good plan for the next few years of what he wants to accomplish. It will be interesting to be at the forefront of this development. William has been helping out and the students have been including him and making him feel welcome. I am glad to see them asking him to help. He does tell me that the students swear once in a while. I try to remind him that it is not OK and that it does not make you grown up to swear. 

    Work is going well. It seems that we are going to get buried under work over the new few years. We are expecting the work load to almost double of the next year or year and a half. That is good news unless they don't add the people to do the work. 

Movig ahead together,

Your Loving Dad

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

How are Things Going?

Birthday Cake
    I haven't posted for a while but I thought i would catch everyone up on how things have been going. Thanksgiving was very nice. We went to Jen's moms house and everyone came over. The food was great and we all had a great time together. Next we had William's birthday party. We had another fun cake this year. William is becoming a responsible young man. We are still working with hm to take care of things better. He loves to just jump and no matter the consequences. This is a good thing and a bad thing all at one time. I know that he gets this from me as I tend to do this same thing from time to time. I sure hope that I am a little more metered when I do this however. It is always about making the correct or best decision. I am glad to to see that he has not fear and I think that will serve him well in the future.

Dinner at Jen's
    Christmas was a very nice time this year. We spent time with Jen at her house this year. It was a very nice setting with the whole family.  We had Ham and potatoes and a very good rice dish that Jen found online. Everyone ate dinner and then we moved to open the gifts. I went and picked up William and we went home in time to get him in bed before Santa came. When we woke up the next day Santa had come. William had a very nice Christmas at home this year. During our break we also stopped in to see the new Star Wars movie: Rogue One. William really liked it and even got some of the Lego's for Christmas.  He also got a few different science projects and a new Quad. It is very fast and can go pretty high. William broke it the first night but it was easy to fix with a new motor. We took it to an open field and tried again with much more success this time. It was cold out so we only stay long enough to use up the two batteries and then we headed home for hot coco. 

     I am blessed to have Jen and William to spend the holidays with. We did miss my oldest son this year. He is serving his country this year so it is hard to talk to him. William really missed him a lot. William also got really sick the last week of school. That meant that there was a lot of homework to do over Christmas break.  That was a real bummer.

    Well we are rested up for our long break and back at school and work today. It is bad that I am already looking forward to the next break. : )

I love you buddy,

Your Loving Dad

A Story by William

William's letter about Lucky     William sat down yesterday an wrote a letter about Lucky our dog. He wanted me to publish it. So ...