Memorial Awards

Yesterday was a busy day for me as I attended two school end of year presentation assemblies to present some memorial awards.

Just after Noah passed away Aaron and I both had thought about donating an award in Noah's name to both Punchbowl Primary School and Kings Meadow High School.  Noah's award at Punchbowl was called the Noah King Friendship Award and last year when I presented it both Aaron and I were feeling very emotional about it. 

Because we used to take Noah to the Child Studies classes at KMHS every year and talk about what life is like when you have a child with a disability, both Aaron and I wanted to donate an award to go to a student of Child Studies.  Last year Aaron presented that award on his own, and told me that he was in tears as he went up on the stage to present it.

This year I also wanted to donate an award at KMHS in Aaron's name.  I knew that I wanted it to go to a student who tries their hardest at all times and is kind and compassionate to everyone. I knew that's something Aaron would want it to be for.  I talked to the teachers about it and they decided that Aaron's award would be for 'a student who is hardworking, endeavours to do their best academically, is compassionate and has a love for all sports'.

Yesterday Kobe and I went along to the KMHS Presentation Day.  He was excited to see his name on the chair and said 'that's mine!'.

Before it started I got chatting to the guy who was sitting in the seat next to me. He was also presenting an award and was representing a business.  He asked me what I was presenting and when I told him it was an award for Aaron and Noah and that they had both passed away he was shocked.  I felt sorry for the poor guy and he said 'I really don't know what to say, I'm so sorry'.  He was lovely and came up to me afterwards and said it was nice to meet me, before he said goodbye. 

I was worried that Kobe was going to get restless as the assembly was around an hour and a half, but he did so well to sit quietly (and treats, drinks and the iPad on silent helped!).

I always feel happy to visit KMHS and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be to present the awards. I felt sad but was glad that I could be there to present the awards and to see the students and Aaron's friends from work. It's always nice to catch up with them.

Aaron's award went to Jacob McKinnon who is a student in grade 9.  Together we decided that it would be a grade 9 student who would win it, since that was Aaron's grade that he would've been grade leader over this year.  I heard from many teachers that Jacob was very deserving of the award and that Aaron would've been so happy for him to win it.  

The winner of Noah's award was Briony Frankcombe.  I had received a lovely email from a teacher during the week about how deserving she also was of the award.

After the assembly Kobe and I joined everyone for refreshments.  It was lovely to talk to the students who won the awards.  Kobe loved showing Jacob all his games on the iPad.

Last night the boys and I all went to the Punchbowl Celebration Evening and I was able to present Noah's award to two girls as the teachers couldn't decide between them.  The girls who won the award were Georgia Miller and Nicole Bassett.

As was lovely to be able to present the awards to four very deserving students.

Crashed the Christmas Party

It's a really hard month this month for a few reasons. The obvious one being Christmas - the second one without Noah and the first one without Aaron.  I'm hoping the month will go really fast so that we can say we got through our first Christmas without Aaron.

As hard as this month is I still look forward to spending time with family and friends, even when it's to do with Christmas. Weekends are particularly hard when we are out of our routine and trying to fill in the days without Aaron and Noah, so on Saturday we decided to gate crash the Deloraine ward's church Christmas party since it's my Mum and Dad's ward and we have lots of friends there.

It was a beautiful, hot sunny day and it was lovely to sit under the shade of the Porter's trees, eating and chatting.

My brother Jared and Becky and the kids also gate crashed the party :)

The kids had fun playing games organised by Simon.

Well some of the kids played the games.  Harri decided it was more fun playing with all the bigger boys. He's so used to hanging out with Jay all the time, that he'd prefer to hang out with the bigger kids. 

Jay on the other hand prefers to just sit quietly and hang out with the adults lately.  I just wish that he was like Harri, running around having fun with kids his age. He's been much happier in the last month, but I know how he feels so I'm trying to be patient with him and just let him hang out with me if that's what he feels like doing. I think we have relied on each other so much over the last ten months, that he just feels comfortable being with me all the time.

The kids put on a very cute nativity play for everyone.  Don't you just love the donkey :)

'Baby Jesus' was all set with his sun hat.

Rusty the bull was getting lots of attention as usual.

The boys still remember the last time we spent time there and Gus showed us how Rusty likes to eat his apples.  There were a few brave people who fed Rusty some apples by putting it in their mouth. I felt like I was going to vomit when I saw all the cow slobber all over their face!

Rusty is so tame and didn't mind giving people rides on his back for hours.

Kobe was so excited about the visit from Santa.

Santa and Mrs Claus gave out bags of lollies and as they handed out the lollies Mrs Claus would say each child's name. She had to ask a few kids what their names were and Harri grabbed his lollies and then said 'Santa didn't even know my name!!'.

Kobe patiently waited for his bag of lollies.

To end the party the kids all went on a hayride. 

It was a lovely day and it was nice to spend time with family and friends. 

Aaron would've been in Heaven

 Okay so the title of this post is a bit of a joke, but seriously if Aaron wasn't already in Heaven (literally!) then he would've been in Heaven yesterday if he got to go with his school footy team to a clinic with the Hawks.  I was so excited to see this story on the Hawthorn Football club website today.

I hope the boys had an awesome day.  I'm so excited for them that they got to do something so cool.  Aaron would've freaked out about having Peter Knights coach them.  I remember when he finally got to meet him in 2009 and it made his year! He was so excited about it and wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks. 

I wish so much that Aaron was there with them, but if he was still here then the boys may not have actually gotten to go. It probably wasn't as exciting to them as it would've been to Aaron, especially because a lot of them probably don't even barrack for Hawthorn, but hopefully they realised how cool it was to do what they were doing.   I'm so glad that they were able to go and it means a lot that the club even mentioned Aaron on their website. 

This is the story that appeared on the Hawthorn website today:

Tassie premiers visit the Club

The 2013 McDonald's Tassie Hawks Cup premiers, Kings Meadow High School, were special guests at the Ricoh Centre on Friday. 

The trip was a tribute to the school’s late Coach Aaron ‘Kingy’ King, a passionate Hawks fan, who sadly passed away on 26 January, 2012. 

The entire team flew to Melbourne to watch the Hawks train before taking part in their own training session led by Hawks great, Peter Knights.

The group enjoyed lunch with Hawks players, had a tour of the facilities before participating in two inspiring sessions taken by Head of Coaching and Development, Chris Fagan and Player Welfare and Development Manager, Jason Burt. 

Fagan delivered a stimulating session on goal setting, while Burt delivered an equally interesting session on the Club’s strategy around developing and looking after its players.

Students from Kings Meadow met Hawks players Shane Savage and Paul Puopolo.

Cyril Rioli stopped for a photo after training.

Peter Knights chanelled his coaching days, putting the Kings Meadow football team through its paces.

A team photo capped off the day post-training.

for hawthornfc.com.au

Footy Trip tribute to Aaron

This morning while I was getting ready for work I got a text message from a friend saying it was a lovely story in the paper this morning.  I had no idea what she was talking about, so was surprised to see a story on page 3 of The Examiner about Aaron's school footy team going to Melbourne today to go to a clinic with the Hawks.

Last week I ran into one of the boy's parents in town, and she told me that they were hoping to get enough boys to go over for a clinic with the Hawks, and they were able to go because they won the Tassie Hawks Cup. 

I didn't realise until I read the story in the paper today that the school had really tried to go to the clinic because of Aaron.  It touched me so much and I'm still blown away every day that the boys and the school do so much to remember Aaron.

I'm always thinking that Aaron and Noah will one day be forgotten and it makes me so sad, but it's days like today when I realise that they both touched many lives and hopefully will never be forgotten.

Below is a copy of the story from The Examiner newspaper today.  It's a pity the top of the photo is cut off on the online story. 

Footy trip tribute to Hawks fan teacher

By JODIE STEPHENS

• 
  Kings Meadows High School football team co-captains Jordan Bennett and Ben Murfett in front of the team going to Melbourne tomorrow - William Fisher, Ethan Goldfinch, James Kerr, Damien Bell, John Cario, Tyron Richards, Aaron Dakin, Sean Walsh, Wade Lello, Lachlan Wheatley, Jacob McKinnon, Mitchell Collins, Connor Williams, Nick Bennett, Kailem Baker, Bradley Murdock, Jack Dyer, Nathan Jackson, Aidan Collins, Andrew Rigby, Brice Simpson and Brayden Worker. Picture: PHILLIP BIGGS

WHEN the senior football team at Kings Meadows High School travels to Melbourne for a clinic with the Hawthorn Football Club today, former teacher and coach Aaron ``Kingy'' King will be in their thoughts.

The memory of Mr King, who died suddenly of a heart attack on Australia Day, drove the team to win the Northern region premiership against Riverside High School and take out the Tassie Hawks Cup competition against St Virgil's College in September.
Today, the team will travel to Melbourne for a one-day clinic with Hawthorn in ``a final tribute'' to Mr King, who described himself as an obsessed fan of the club.
Coach Adrian Dean said the clinic was offered annually to Tassie Hawks' winners until a few years ago, when the sponsorship was withdrawn.
``But we wrote a letter to Hawthorn explaining our story and they were very supportive, they helped us make it happen,'' Mr Dean said.
``We sought out sponsorship ourselves from local businesses and the school prefect board because Aaron King was meant to be coaching the team this year and he was a mad Hawks fan - probably the biggest supporter we know.''
Co-captain Jordan Bennett said watching the Hawthorn players train, touring the facilities and meeting assistant coach Chris Fagan would be exciting for the team, but for most, the day would be about Mr King.
``Basically we just played the whole season for him and when we're in Melbourne he will be in the back of our minds for sure - it will probably be a bit emotional for us,'' Jordan said.

Someone is excited for Kinder

Kobe has been so excited about starting school next year and wishes that he had more pre-kinder sessions to go to.  He keeps asking if he has pre-kinder and I have to remind him that he doesn't go back to school until after the summer holidays.

A few weeks ago we got a letter in the mail asking which days we would prefer for next year. Kobe was so excited to know that the letter was about 'my kinder!'.  We took the form back into school and thought while we were at it we would start getting his uniform organised. 

I thought he would be excited to try it on, but at school he freaked out about it.  He didn't want to try it on, and even after we brought it home he still didn't want to put it on to show Grandma and Grandpa.  He kept saying 'I just want to wear normal clothes'.  

I don't think he realised that a part of going to school was that you HAD to wear the uniform and didn't get to choose what you wanted to wear to school.

A few days later he decided that maybe it was actually pretty cool to wear a uniform to school and was excited to try it on again. 

When I'm really tired (which is pretty much every day!) I often lie on the couch after the boys are home from school and have a little nanna nap while they play around me.  Last week I woke up from my nanna nap and saw Kobe sitting watching TV with his uniform on! He had gone and put it on while I was sleeping. 

 

Now every chance he gets he runs off to his bedroom and puts his uniform on.  He doesn't even care if it's inside out :)

 

I'm so happy for him that he gets to go to school next year, because I know he's been ready to go for a while. I'm hoping to keep busy on the days that he is at school by working on the same days he's at school.  I'm so glad that I have work to keep me busy because I would miss Kobe way too much if I was home every day on my own.   It's going to be so different once all the boys are at school full time together. 

Aaron Loved Life

Every now and then I go to Aaron's facebook page just to see if any of his friends have posted something on there.  I have access to his account (thanks to Jay and I being good hackers and being able to change his password after he passed away) but have left everything as it was on the day that he passed away. He used to tell me his password all the time, but he changed it so often and it was always the name and number of some sportsman that meant nothing to me, so I would never remember it.

A few weeks ago I was went on his page and clicked on the 'about' section on his page and was so happy to be reminded that he had written heaps about himself and us on there. It's such a beautiful thing to read now, and I know the boys will love to be able to read it as the years go on as well.  Poor Kobe being called the devil in disguise by Aaron (it is definitely true sometimes though! :) 

This is what Aaron had posted in his 'about' section on Facebook.  I'm so glad that he did.

Christ-mas decorating

Every year I hang out for the end of November/early December. I LOVE Christmas decorating, and usually it was a big event in our family to decorate the Christmas tree together.  We would usually get right into it - we would put the Christmas carols on really loud, Aaron would put the decorations up around the house, while the boys and I would decorate the tree together (and I would move the decorations around while the boys weren't looking!), while Noah usually snoozed away on the couch.

Last year it was really hard to get into the mood to decorate the house for Christmas. It was just two months since Noah passed away and Aaron and I both didn't want to do it, but the boys were still excited about Christmas.

This year is even worse and I have no desire at all to do anything for Christmas  - decorating or otherwise.  I'm okay, but would rather just skip December and January all together.  Every day is hard, but it's especially hard at this time of the year when everyone is talking about Christmas and getting excited for it.

I absolutely hate going into town where there's hundreds of people rushing around doing Christmas shopping, carols playing in all the shops and Christmas decorations every where.

It's hard seeing things come up on my Facebook wall to do with Christmas.  People counting down the days, posting pics of their decorated trees, and doing cute things like 'elf on the shelf'.  I just wish I could hide away from it all.

I probably sound like the grinch but it's so hard to feel happy and excited this year, when all I want is to have Aaron and Noah here.  I'm happy for other people to be excited about Christmas, and I hope people don't avoid mentioning it or talking about it around me. It's just that I would much prefer to skip the whole month.

Unfortunately it's not that easy, especially when you have three little boys who are just as excited about Christmas as they always are.  It's probably a good thing that they are excited, because they keep me going and make me realise that life does go on, despite wishing you could just hide from it sometimes.

I was really dreading putting up our tree this year, and hoped that the boys would understand if I asked them what they thought about not doing it this year.   I'm lucky that they are so understanding, because they all said it was okay to not put it up this year.  I promised them that next year would be a lot easier and happier for all of us.

I'm so glad they were okay with it, because looking at a beautiful tree every night would just be too hard.  Instead I just pulled out our nativity scene and other decorations that remind us of the real reason for the season. 

I know that without Christ being born we could not live again, so really this year I have more to celebrate at this time of the year than ever. Because He came, it means that I will be with Aaron and Noah again.

It's still very hard to feel like celebrating when your heart just feels so sad, so instead of putting our tree up I just pulled out all our smaller ones and put them on the bookshelves instead.

We then went to the cemetery and decorated Noah's tree at his grave.  We decided that this would be our Christmas tree this year.

Noah's grave is now covered again with beautiful lush green grass.  It's keeps me busy going up every day to water it, but it's worth it to see how nice it looks.  The family of the little boy next to Noah also go up every day to water Thomas' grave.  The rest of the grass around the cemetery has quickly dried out with all the beautiful warm days we've been having.

During the week I found a live potted tree for Aaron's grave.  If anyone loved Christmas it was Aaron. He was seriously worse than a kid at Christmas.  I remember sharing his love for Christmas in my eulogy at his funeral.  I just had to mention it because he made me laugh with how he knew what he wanted for Christmas six months before, and would be more excited than the boys!

Yesterday we went and decorated his little tree at the cemetery. I also took up his Hawks snow globe that a student had given him at Christmas one year.  Harri insisted on decorating it himself.

It's crazy how different this December is to just two years ago.  Last week Harri made me laugh when he said 'Mum in 2010 we had 6 people in our family, then 2011 came - 'bam!' - 5 people, then 2012 - 'bam!' - 4 people'. It's nice to have a laugh about it sometimes because it's still so unbelieveable even almost a year on since Aaron passed away. It's still so strange to know that Aaron's body is at the cemetery.

Posts about putting the tree up (just after Noah came out of hospital) in 2009 here, 2008 here, and 2007 here (I'm so glad that I started blogging a long time ago and have all these memories to look back on).