Flower Girls

I have been a bum on the blog lately. The last weekend in May was the big dance recital, and it was crazy busy. I was in charge of ticket sales (and other things), but had to sell about 2,000 tickets and deal with all of the issues that come with reserved seats. So glad it is over, it went well though.

Then the last week of school craziness including the kids missing the last day of school, Friday, June 6 as we traveled to Wisconsin for Emily's wedding. Akila and Imani were flower girls and it they both did a great job. Emily and Jesse got married at Devil's Lake State Park near the Wisconsin Dells which is where we stayed. The wedding was at 1:00 on Saturday, and the best part was when the park ranger was driving around the park announcing on their loud speaker that we were in a tornado warning until 1:45, this was at 1:20.

Many of you who have kids with special needs, may dread stormy weather like I do. I am assuming that it may have to do with Akila's sensory integration issues, but she goes berserk when there is really stormy weather around. She started mouthing to me (she seems lately to think that I am a gifted lip reader, and gets furious with me when I can't read her lips) something, I finally realized it was about the tornado warning. I mouthed to her that it was fine. The rest of the wedding, she spent mainly looking around the sky, with a little bit of fear in her eyes. She did come and sit with us for a few minutes and then returned to her post. She was actually doing a really nice job and not being too distracting. The best part was when she crouched down toward the end of the ceremony. I thought she was getting tired of standing (it was a pretty short ceremony), but later realized she was doing the crouch position they practise in tornado drills at school.

Michael had the camera and the picture above is the only one he got of the girls together, I will say nothing more about that. Today.


We stayed for three nights at the Wilderness Territory resort in the Dells area. There was something like 7 water parks at the place and we had a 2 bedroom condo with 4 TV's and a kitchen nicer and bigger than mine (that is not saying much). It was a blast, and the kids all did really well. Considering all of the stimulation, late nights and end of school year craziness, Akila did exceptionally well. We had a few meltdowns in the hotel, but all in all, it went really well and I am hopeful that we will do it again. Here are a few pics of the kids swimming:



Zekey in the yellow goggles




Here is Imani by the wave pool (which was a blast)

Here is Hezekiah in the pool:

And a picture of Akila at the dance recital: