Zion National Park

Our family got to experience the great outdoors over the weekend.....the great outdoors in another part of the state that is much warmer than our part of the state.

We went hiking, ran over and through giant red rocks and played with cousins.  We finally took the trip to Zions National Park that we have been saying we should take.  And we got to wear short sleeve shirts for the first time in months.

At least I did.

We have young men in the family and apparently, they don't need to stay warm during the winter months and can wear short sleeve shirts and even shorts when it is snowing.

In Zions, they wore their short sleeves when it was actually sunny outside with critters grazing peacefully in wild meadows as opposed to critters who are grazing in neighborhoods by our house because they are tired of rooting for food in the snow capped mountains.

On one of our hikes,  Chance and his cousin who were ahead of the group, decided to bypass the" trail closed", sign and continue on to explore up the path.

I don't know that the boys realized the path was closed as there was room off to the side of the sign to go on ahead and several people were coming up from the forbidden domain when Chance and his cousin arrived.

The long and the short of it is, Chance and his cousin casually continued past the path closed sign and I could see Chance looking around at the colorful rock walls that were weeping little paths of water down their  faces.

As is the case with my deaf boy, once he gets past a certain distance, he can not hear us. With implants that distance is quite remarkable, but when you are out in the wilderness, you can quickly get out of ear shot.

With young bodies and youthful energy, Chance and his cousin made fast work of covering the path.  One minute they were just off in the distance, and the next second they were scaling ever higher elevations on a hill opposite us separated by a large gulf.

We could see Chance's head pop up through the underbrush every once in a while, though he was now at a distance where a child with normal hearing would have a difficult time hearing us call their name.

We called to Chance to come back while waving our arms to get his attention.

He waved back  cheerfully and then continued on his way.

Funny thing with parenting a deaf child.....at what point is it disobedience, and when is it just not being able to hear? Sometimes it is just hard to know.

Chance's cousins parents said they knew their son heard them.  He just decided to pretend he didn't and continue on with Chance.

We were waving like we were trying to land a small aircraft and Chance thought we were just waving hello?

We'll never know exactly what the boys did and did not hear.

Eventually, we sent their two older brothers out to get them.

If you are going to have one boy on a forbidden trail, perhaps fraught with danger, the only logical thing to do is send up another son to see if death awaits around the next corner.

The older brothers made fast work of that trail and soon returned with their younger brothers in toe.

Chance works the drive-thru

Chance has found his future vocation....working the drive-thru window at Wendy's.  The restaurant chain donated part of each sale to the Boy Scouts of America this evening so Chance and his troop helped serve the masses looking all spiffy in their scout shirts.

This drive-thru experience was much less painful than the one Chance created a few years ago.  He decided that one of the windows in our kitchen was the drive through window and he served his siblings food out of it.

Chance and his Scoutmaster and co-scout as he is about to
receive his Star Scout Rank in May, 2012

Unfortunately it was the same window we had warned the kids about since the mechanism that moves it up and down was breaking.  After several "customers" were served,  the window slammed down on Chance's fingers.  I knew he needed stitches when I found myself looking through layers of flesh one can't normally see on his finger.

Tonight's drive-thru episode was much less violent.

Chance came home and cheerfully said," I want to work at the drive-thru at Wendy's when I am old enough to get a job!"

I was impressed that Chance could hear enough to produce orders in the mayhem that is a busy drive-thru restaurant.  The flow of people was steady, and the scouts were kept busy cleaning pans and handing food out to customers.

Who knows, maybe a few years from now, Chance will be a regular at the Wendy's drive-thru window handing out food to customers just like he dreams about:)

The Remote is Back!

Since it is Superbowl Sunday today, I am sure that many households are giving top priority to their remote controls.  These little rectangular gadgets full of the buttons that make our television sets perform are a hot commodity on a day such as today.

See - isn't that stylish ?!

At our house, we also have a love for our remote.......the remote that controls the cochlear implant.  If we had to choose between our remotes, we would ditch the television remote without even saying goodbye.


                                                  THE REMOTE IS BACK!


Chance has never been so excited to get a package before.  We could even use it as a disciplinary tool if we wanted.  Some parents take away Wii time if their kids don't get their jobs done, we take away Chance's remote.

Just kidding.  We are not that cruel and heartless.  The point is, Chance is attached to that remote enough that we could use it as a control measure if we were those kinds of people.

This remote is one that we let Chance have full time.  It is the one piece of technology that parents don't have to worry about wasting their kids time or being mishandled.

I probably have never said this before, but I really love cochlear implants.

I really love the remote that came with the implants and am so very grateful that we have it in our lives again. Thank you to all of those who support us in our journey to help our son hear.
We will always remember you and your big hearts.
You are a blessing in our lives.
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