Hanging with Kenneth

Yesterday I met Sarah, Joe and Kenneth (Cope! still can't believe that Kenneth Cope was in Tassie!!!) at the Penny Royal to go for a walk to the Gorge. It was such a beautiful day - supposedly about 29 degrees. I told Kenneth that we always have weather like this in Tassie! :)

It was the perfect day for a walk to the Gorge, although Joe and I were wishing we had our bathers as we would've loved to have jumped in for a swim.

I was loving that Kenneth LOVES to take photos and wanted to stop and take pics of different things along the day - mostly photos of leaves or plants or peacocks. He is a man after my own heart :)


It was so nice to spend some casual time chatting with him and finding out more about his amazing life. I asked if it's hard traveling so much and he said it is and that he misses his family a lot. I can't even imagine how hard it must be for them to have him gone so often. He was telling me that his daughters are all good singers as well. I loved hearing about how he gets inspiration to write different songs. He said that he wrote one of my favourite songs of his 'More' in a hotel room, and had it for years before he recorded it for EFY.

The whole time we were chatting I kept thinking 'this is KENNETH COPE!!!'. I have loved his music for so long and it was just so hard to believe that the amazing voice I hear on my CDs, was the guy that we were spending two great days with him!


He was such a nice guy and never seems to get sick of us asking for photos, although I'm sure deep down he was probably thinking 'not another one!!'. :)

I was joking with him that I was one of his 'groupies' and I think he realised how much I really do love his music when I asked him to sign all of my CD covers - I had about 7 or 8 - some of them are about 13 years old or so.

Later that night I was excited to go back to Deloraine to hear him sing again at the seminary and institute graduation/fireside. Aaron, Danny, Jack and Hannah all graduated this year and we all celebrated with the yummiest cake ever!

Kenneth speaks so well and sang four beautiful songs. I could listen to him sing all day. He is amazing as to how he remembers people and names and genuinely cares for them. Throughout the song he would direct the song to certain people and even mention them by name during the song.

I went up to him when he was having a quiet moment packing up to say goodbye and to thank him for coming and spending time with the youth. He said that he wanted to tell me something that really touched him. He said that at the concert Aaron went up to him and said to him 'thank you for bringing the spirit into our home with your music' and he said that touched him more than anything else, that anyone had said to him while he was here. He said that a lot of guys come up and say 'thanks, that was great' etc. and it's not something he would usually expect a guy to say to him as they aren't good with expressing their feelings, so he realised how genuine he was when he said it, and it really meant a lot to him.

He also said that he hoped that some of the music he played while he was here helped me to feel like I could get some strength as he knew I had a lot going on at home with Noah. I told him there are many times when I listen to his music over and over again and it always makes me feel great. We were so lucky to have him come and visit and is something I never thought would happen in my lifetime!

I was sad saying goodbye to him as I know the chances of seeing him again is pretty slim, unless he moves to Tasmania. I did try to convince him it would be a good idea :)



I'm so glad we got the opportunity to meet him and hear his incredible music in person. This is a little bit of one of my favourite songs that he sings 'More' from the concert on Tuesday night.

Kenneth Cope

Last night we had an amazing opportunity to meet Kenneth Cope and attend a concert that he put on. He is an LDS contemporary singer from the USA and I have LOVED his music for years - since I was a teenager. He has a lot of CDs out and is also a producer and mentor for other contemporary artists. I remember putting on the 'Greater than us all' firesides at church and absolutely loving the music. I was lucky enough to be able to have seen him in concert when I went to Ricks College (BYU Idaho) and never thought I would get the opportunity to see him again.

In March our youth from church had a convention where they were able to have a live link up with him via the net. They all loved it and so did Kenneth. When two stakes from Sydney decided to sponser him to come over to see them, we were excited to hear that he wanted to pop down to Tassie before he went back home to visit the youth!

Last night we had a BBQ for the youth before the concert. It was so exciting to finally meet him. The youth loved it and he was so friendly and amazingly remembered all of his friends from Facebook! When he would realise one of them was his friend on Facebook that he had 'spoken' to he would give them a big hug.

Lucy, Laurie and Abby were soooo funny. They came with t-shirts that they had put '#1 fan' on the front, and 'Lucy loves Kenneth' etc. with his picture on the back. Those girls crack me up. He thought it was hilarious.


Throughout the night he was chatting to people and was so friendly.


He didn't mind at all being asked over, and over and over again for photos!




After the BBQ we headed to the community complex for the concert. Mum and Dad had the boys with them at the park while we were at the BBQ. Jalen was excited to meet him, and Harri was his usual self and wanted to play with his friends instead! :) We had to bribe him to come for the photo!

The concert was so good. He sang a mix of contemporary and spiritual songs and even had the boys cracking up as he did some funny sounds into the mic including Darth Vadar noises. Harri even went up to him after the concert to ask if he could do the Star War sounds again!

We are looking forward to seeing him again tonight as he does a 'fireside' for us - a meeting at church that has more of a spiritual feel to it.

Chores

Both Jay and Harri have chores that they have to do each day or they don't get pocket money at the end of the week. The jobs that they have to do is clean their bedroom before school, empty the dishwasher before school and set and clear the table at tea time. Jalen also has to take out the recycling to the recycling bin.

Kobe has decided that he also wants to be a part of doing their jobs every morning, and as soon as he hears the boys at the dishwasher, he rushes out to help them.

The boys have to be really quick as he will drop a plate or bowl if they are not ready to get it from him!

The other day I asked Harri to empty the dishwasher and came into the kitchen to find this!

I couldn't stop laughing as he told me that he was 'Luke Skywalker'. I didn't know Luke Skywalker had a mullet! :)

School Choices

This time of year is busy in schools as teachers are writing reports and organising classes for next year. At Punchbowl Primary the kids get to list three of their best friends that they would like to be in their class next year. We always talk it over with Jalen before they have to do it to make sure he is making a good choice, which he usually does. They aren't guaranteed to be in the class as the three people they listed, but they will usually get to be with at least one of those people. It was no surprise to me that Jalen wrote down that he wanted to be with Brayden, Katherine and his friend Rani. Unfortunately Katherine is a grade below him, so they may not end up together next year if there is no grade 4/5 at the school. I think in a few years time he is not going to believe that he chose to have a girl in his class!

For Noah he doesn't get to choose who he would like in his class, as he isn't able to make that kind of choice but Aaron and I have have to think hard about what would work best for him each year. When he was in Kinder and Prep he went to Punchbowl full time, but as he got older we realised that he would benefit from spending a few days at Newstead Heights School (special school ) as well. Up until this year he attended both schools with Di as his full time aide. This year we switched him to three days at Newstead Heights and two days at Punchbowl which meant he then lost his full time funding for an aide. He still had Di as his full time aide at Punchbowl, but at Newstead he was just a part of the class which usually has one teacher and three aides to around 5-8 kids.

There are pros and cons for this and I'm still not entirely sure if I have made the right decision, but think he is getting the best of both worlds. At Newstead it means that more aides get to know him, his routines, his moods, his health issues and he gets to know others as well. The downside is that he doesn't have someone with him the whole time. This means he doesn't get his daily physio at school which means we need to do more at home those nights, he doesn't have someone that knows him REALLY well, and they don't have a lot of time as they have to deal with 5 other kids as well.

Because of this they don't spend as much time 'toileting' him which can cause physical problems as they can't take the time to get him to empty his bladder fully. Doing it properly can take a lot of time -sometimes up to 10-20 minutes. If he isn't emptied properly he ends up getting urinary tract infections. Because all Di has to worry about all day is Noah she can take the time to give him physio therapy and spend time toileting him.

The downside of having Di as his full time aide at Punchbowl is that there is never anyone to do relief aide work if she can't be there as they have to be specially trained to do PEG feed, suctioning, toileting, how to deal with his seizures and how to lift him etc. There has been a lot of days when Noah has just had to stay home from school as there wasn't an aide to look after him at school.

Both schools offer Noah different things, so for next year we have decided to stick with him going 3 days to Newstead Heights and 2 days to Punchbowl. I thought by grade 3 (can't believe he is in grade 3 next year!) that we may have chosen to send him to Newstead more, as I knew the gap between him and his peers would be very obvious by now, but Punchbowl have been so great with him and the kids really love having him there. I feel that having Noah at the school benefits the other kids as much as it does him and the Principal and teachers agree with me. The kids have learnt so much from him and it's lovely to see how kind they are to him there.

At Newstead he will continue to be able to go swimming twice a week, which include hydrotherapy in the pool with physio therapists once a week. He also gets to participate in 'community access' which means he gets to go out on the bus with his class once a week to visit different places. At Punchbowl it is a bit trickier for him to go on excursions as they either need to have a special bus which costs the earth, get a maxi taxi or arrange for me to transport him.


Noah looks totally excited to be out and about ;) Kobe, Harri and I decided to join his class at Punchbowl a few weeks back and Noah either slept or yawned the entire time we were there!


Hopefully next year will be a good one for him at school with a great teacher and class at Punchbowl, as well as a great year at Newstead Heights (and very little time off school!).

Make it Perfect

My cousin Toni is very talented - so talented it makes you sick ;) She is very clever at lots of things - cooking, quilting, sewing and even designs and sells her own pattens! She started a business up from home called 'Make it Perfect' and she is always designing new patterns and coming up with something clever and new and her patterns are distributed to stores all around Australia.


From time to time she has a giveaway on her blog and I'm excited about this one as you can actually win something that she has sewn OR you can win patterns. I'm not a sewer AT ALL, but am thinking that luck will be on my side this time and I am going to win the skirt she is giving away ;)

Go and check out her blog and giveaway and leave her a comment. If you do you could also win something - as long as it's not first prize I don't mind :)

Fashion Parade

For the last few weeks Aaron has spent every night doing things to organise his school's fashion parade. As the Prefect Coordinator it is his role to take charge of it, which meant he ended up doing most of it as he didn't want it to be 'a flop' as in his own words a lot of the students lacked 'initiative' in getting things done for it.

I would ask him if he could help me with something on the computer and his response for the last few nights has been 'after the fashion parade' as he has only had time to concentrate on that. The last couple of mornings he has left home to get to school really early. This morning he left at 6.40 am and didn't get home till 9 pm tonight as it was on today. Harri and Noah didn't actually see him all day except for when we dropped him off some tea.

Yesterday Aaron rang me with a lovely tone in his voice, which I knew it meant he wanted something :) He asked me if I could spend my morning today running around, picking up all the clothes from the shops, that were lending the school their clothes for the parade. Of course my first question was 'what about the gym!!!?', to which he went quiet which I knew it meant I had to skip the gym and help him out. He said he would keep Kobe at school for me so I didn't have to worry about him, so I thought that was an okay deal.

Kobe was very excited to spend the morning at high school! He straight away went off with a couple of girls and didn't care at all that I was leaving him in the hands of 30 high school kids for the morning!


I think I had the raw end of the deal as I parked in town close to one shop, but had to go to 5 different shops at different ends of town carrying huge gowns, boxes and even a wedding dress to the van! I could only do one at a time as they were so many clothes and I had to be extra careful with it all. After almost 2 hours of going back and forth to the van and driving here, there and everywhere, I finally got back to school with thousands of dollars worth of dresses, suits and clothes.

I was actually VERY nervous with it all as the shop owners would all say 'you are going to be VERY careful with it, aren't you' as they were trusting the school to care for the clothes so they could actually be sold once they were back in the stores. When I got back I cracked up at Aaron in his 'teacher mode'. I know it sounds crazy as I know he is a teacher, but actually seeing him with the kids is just strange as I still find it hard to believe he is a teacher! I now see where he gets his MC skills from as he has them all sitting there in silence as he is giving them this big lecture about caring for the clothes etc.

He sent them all out to the van to help me bring the clothes in and said to them 'by the way - check out the van while you are out there... it's available for the leavers dinner and we will give you a cheap rate', which of course cracked them up. The guys had to stand in front of it for a photo - I'm sure they would LOVE to arrive at the leavers dinner in it.

Kobe had a fantastic morning with Aaron and the kids, and would've been happy to have stayed there all day if I let him!

While I was dropping the clothes off, I said to Aaron I wished I could come and watch as a lot of the students that are now in grade 10 were in my Kindergarten class when I taught. Luckily Alison was available and willing to babysit for us (thanks Alison!) which meant Jay and I got to come along and watch together. It was a great night and they did a great job with everything - the modeling, music, and lights.





Jay kept reminiscing about when Aaron went in the fashion parade a couple of years ago and dressed up like a student. Jay thought it was great as Aaron came down with his shorts half hanging down, so you could see he was wearing Hawthorn boxers. The whole time he was acting like the students, texting, acting cool and saying funny things. Jay was disappointed Aaron didn't do that this year, but loved the guys dressing up in the girls netball outfits and pretending to be girls, walking around with a lot of hip action etc.

The girls then dressed up in footy gear and acted like guys - flexing muscles, grabbing parts of their body, and basically just being idiots :)

After the parade we hung around to help pack up. Jalen spotted a strobe light flashing and straight away went over to do some MJ moves.

It was nice to spend the night out with just Jay and to relax knowing that the boys were in bed (all except for naught Noah who stays up WAY too late!). It was fun seeing lots of my old students up there and seeing how they have changed (or actually not changed much at all!). Now hopefully we can get Aaron back for a little while as he can stop stressing about it and know that it was a big success.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Last week Alma (our Step class instructor at our very cool gym) asked us if we had any requests for this week's class. Sarah said she loved the track 'the way you make me feel' that we had done before. At the beginning of class we noticed Alma had an extra step up on the stage, and thought she must've been doing some funky track where you got to use two steps.

She told Sarah at the beginning of class that track six was her request, so we were waiting for it. Just before the track started she moved her step closer to her other one and asked us if we noticed the extra step. We said we did and she then motioned to Sarah to go up to the front with her as she was going to be doing the track with her on the stage up the front!! I couldn't stop laughing.

Sarah went up and said straight away 'you had better not have your camera', and luckily I did have a camera as I always have my mobile phone with me in case I get a phone call from school about Noah. She did a great job - even putting a few little hip shimmys in here and there with the 'cha cha cha' move which cracked us up.

We now know to never request a track ;)

BTW Sarah - you made me feel hot and sweaty!