20 years and a Run away

Wow-we made it.  Curtis and I have been married twenty years.  It seems hard to believe.  When you first get married you can't imagine it all.
1- ever being this old
2-where you will be in twenty years, where will life take you.
3- I thought it went by fast...where did time go?

We wanted to do something for this big accomplishment,  take a trip or do something fun to celebrate and enjoy time with each other.  It is often difficult for us to get away with out our kids because we really don't have anyone to watch them.  Like really, nobody to watch them.  We decided this was worth it and we would search high and low to find someone to watch our kids for a few days.  We think at this point, they are pretty easy and self sufficient.  Not like watching a baby or toddler, they are in school for most the time.  We just needed someone to make sure they don't each marshmallow's for 4 days straight and crowd control (make sure they don't fight too much).  The search was on, I asked about 10 people, college students, newly weds,cousins, friends of friends.  No takers, I was starting to feel like this just wasn't going to be possible.  Then...Curtis has a brilliant idea.  He asked his mom if she would come out and watch the kids, they Curtis was pay for her to go up to her Grandson, Ben Judd's wedding the following weekend.  She would have to make arrangements as well, but she got everything lined up and agreed to come out.  I thought it was a great solution.  She doesn't get to see her grand kids very often, and I thought it would be a great opportunity for the kids to get to know her better.  The kids were excited for her to come and visit and stay with them.

Curtis and I made plans to go to L.A for our get away.  Curtis already had a conference he needed to be at there, and BYU was playing UCLA a few days before he conference.  Curtis and I could drive out to LA. go to the BYU game,  play around in Los Angeles for a few days, then I would fly home and Curtis could go to his meetings then drive home.  It seemed like a win win win for everyone.

Curtis' Mom, Shauna,  arrived Friday afternoon, we left early Saturday morning to drive out to Pasadena, we had a nice drive.  We check into our hotel, and get some food.  Curtis was starting to not feel well.  He was coming down with a cold.  Not Good.  I had wanted to check out the Pasadena Library.  My Dad's Grandparents were some of the first people to arrive in Pasadena, so I wanted to get access to the online Pasadena Library so I could do some family history. I left Curtis to rest, while I tried to find my way around in a strange city.  I made it there and back.  Then it was off to the game.

We made it to the infamous Rose Bowl

We had a great time.  BYU played well, they were ahead  the entire game, until they lost at the end, which is what unfortunately matters the most.  I really liked Pasadena, it has kind of an old 1950's look to the houses and buildings.  A very nice city, nice to see where my dad and family lived.

We got up the next day and checked out Newport Beach area. Newport is very nice.  It is a beautiful area without the large city mess like Los Angeles. A few years back Curtis had stayed at Pelican Hill Resort.  The pictures were amazing and he had always wanted to take me back there. We checked in a Pelican Hill and it was beautiful, and did not disappoint. We hung out by their beautiful pool, and ate at their yummy restaurant and just enjoyed walking around the resort.  It was amazing. A funny thing happened.  When we checked it, everything is so first class.  Everyone treats you so nice, they somehow have spies and they know your name immediately upon arrival and call you Mr. & Mrs. Johnson, it's fantastic.  We check in, they give us our keys, get a man driving a golf cart to escort us to our room to unload our luggage etc.  We get to our villa, insert the key, open the door, walk in and oops....someone is already in the room.  UGHH.  Our reservation somehow got messed up.  I'm glad the man was fully dressed.  He was polite and so were we.  We just went back to the front desk to clear it up.

Pelican Hill Pool.  Huge circle, seems simple but quite stunning

using our new selfie stick gadget.  We've never had so much fun taking pictures

Circle Pool at Sunset

I love yummy beautiful food.

Loved seeing my favorite "Bird of Paradise" flower all around the grounds.

Meanwhile back at home. Grandma and the boys are having a great time.  Grandma invited to Zoccoli's over to swim.  Everyone is happy

Joey Z.,Stephen Z. ,James Z. ,Issiah Z. ,Grandma Shauna, Derek J., Dax J., Kenny Z. and Trey J in front

Meanwhile...back at home Grandma and the boys are having a great time.  Grandma invited to Zoccoli's over to swim.  Everyone is happy

We stayed at Pelican Hill one night, then we moved on to Newport Beach and stayed in a cute little beach hotel.  They had bikes that we could use, so we took a nice bike ride along the beach.  We had a great time, we came back and ate a yummy dinner at an Italian restaurant.

We came back and about 9:00 p.m. we got a phone call from  Dax, the conversation went something like this:
Me:  Hello
Dax: Mom, something terrible happened
Me:What?
Dax: Derek ran away
Me: Go find him...

It turns out Derek had gotten upset with Dax about something, he went into his room to be alone.  Grandma Shauna wanted Derek to forgive Dax, which Derek said he did, but he still needed to be alone. Grandma kept pushing Derek to come out and forgive Dax.  Derek was done so he up and left barefoot and in PJ's.  I told them to go look for him.  He was likely in the park or the area around the pond.  We kept going back and forth with phone calls. They found him the park, Derek didn't want to be found, so he moved again.  At about 10:00 I told them to call the police.  The police found Derek under the Ramada around the pond.  They took him home.  Everyone felt bad, especially Grandma.  Derek still has a bit of a grudge toward Grandma.


Whew!!-Glad that ended well, hope it never happens again. 

The next night we stayed in Venice Beach, which was very interesting.  I don't know how to explain it.  The hotel was nice, but Venice Beach is just a questionable area.  Lots of homeless people, lots of drugs, very urban feel.  We were glad to see it once, glad we only stayed one night, then glad to leave.  We did have a good time sight seeing, and people watching.

Mural of Jim Morrison we could see from our Hotel Rooftop lounge

Funny sign "Bones Heal, pain is temporary and chicks dig scars" Evel Knievel

Venice Beach loves murals on the buildings, another view from our Hotel Room

View of Muscle Beach, Venice CA from our Hotel Balcony

The Canals of Venice, we loved walking around this area.  Lots of movies filmed here.

 We went to dinner at "Barton G's"  My counsin told me about it when they went to Miami.  I have wanted to go here for a while, it was only about 11 miles from our hotel, but 45 min drive in LA traffic.  This is a fun restaurant where they serve the food in crazy displays.  Curtis' steak came with the huge fork and knife, we ordered appetizers that came in a toaster.  The food was very good.  We were too stuffed to order dessert, because it was the head with a huge beehive hairdo to the ceiling.  Fun stuff.

This is where the trip ended for me.  Curtis went on to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel (I guess it's legendary) on the Hollywood walk of Fame.  This was the purpose of the trip.  To go the awards ceremony for the book he helped write.

 

Curtis getting his Quilly Award

Curtis with Jack Canfield

We must be bad parents

This week all three of the kids got in trouble at school, calls from teachers, principals, in school suspension. we covered it all.

1) Trey's teacher, Mrs. Condos, sends me an e-mails saying that Trey pulled down his pants and spit in his Math class.  WHAT?  This isn't like Trey, we talked to him about it, got upset with him, and made him write  apology letters to both Mrs. Condos and Mrs. Schofstall (math teacher)  Trey kept giving us the same story through tears, he only pulled his pants down about an inch, I still never understood what the spitting was about.  Spitting is not acceptable.  As Trey wrote his apology letters he kept saying "I'm sorry I rolled down my pants"  Now that everyone has calmed down a bit, I asked him what happend.  It sounds like he was in line and being a fidgety six year old,  with his athletic shorts that have an elastic waistband and he rolled them down about an inch (one roll).  Some nose-y tattle tale girl told the teacher that Trey was "pulling his pants down".  Hardly, compound that onto the spitting incident and we get a call from the teacher.  Stop wasting everyone's time and worry about real issues. The teachers were happy to get the apology letters.
  Ok NEXT-

2) The next day I get a call from Dax's Human Geography Teacher, Mrs. Novak, saying that Dax had plagiarized a paper.  He copied it straight from the internet and pasted it into his paper and turned it in.  He would be getting a ZERO for the assigned  WHAT??  Why would he do this he knows better than that, besides Dax is usually VERY honest. Ughh.  Dax can't afford a zero in that class.  I talked to Dax, the first thing out of his mouth is "I cited the works"  I had him pull up an electronic copy of his paper and he did in fact cite the works, and state that he did copy directly from a website (pretty honest) and listed the website. We asked him why he did it this way and he said he read the paragrah and he didn't think he could write it any better so it copied it and cited it.  I remember being told the exact same thing when I was in school.  It was ok to copy it as long as you gave credit, he just left out the part that he actually had to include his own research and write about it. I told the teacher,  we looked it over and Dax definitely deserved a bad grade for this (he really didn't do any writing) but don't call it plagiarism.  We're dealing with someone who takes things literally, if he was taught the same way I was he did exactly what he was told regarding plagiarism and citing works. Mrs. Novak told me she still had to refer him to the Principal. We (Dax and I separately)  met with the principal  on this, apparently it was just his first offense so other than the  bad grade it won't go any further than that.  I still don't think it should be called plagiarism, just laziness.

 I've told a few friends about this and they all laugh.  1- the schools make such a big deal over plagiarism, 2- It's just plain funny that he cut and pasted the entire article and turned it in.  NEXT

3) Continuing on the with bullying incident from earlier in the year.  Another kid named  Jack (Trey calls him Jack II) was harassing  Derek in math class, I told his teacher he talked to them both and hopefully that will go away, along with that (all the same week)  kids at school started calling Derek "Derek Springfield" again.  This started a few years back with the original "Jack the Bully"  the kids know it makes Derek mad, and he gets him riled up so they continue to taunt him.  Derek is getting upset and telling me it was being done by kids he doesn't even really know.  These seeds have planted a few years back, now they have spread.  Derek was just getting so frustrated with Jack, Jack II and now more of Derek Springfield.  We tried to talk to him about it, but this has been building way too long for Derek.  Derek told me the next time someone called him "Derek Springfield" (I have no idea what that means and why it upsets him so much but it does)  Derek said he was going to punch them, weather it was their first offense of not.  I told him I was ok with it, but he better "finish it" if he goes that direction.  I would not punish him if it happened.  I know how frustrated he has been, and I felt like he needed to stand up for himself.  I also didn't think he would do anything.

Thursday morning everyone was off for school about 8:20  I knew Derek was hesitant to go and face the Springfield crowd, I gave him a pep talk and sent him off.  About 8:30 I heard the front door trying open and I thought it was weird for one of the kids to be back home if they forgot something (school would be starting any second, no time to run home for forgotten homework).  Right then the phone rings and I see "Chandler Public Schools" on the caller ID.  I always answer those calls.  It was someone from the front office telling me that Derek had run off school, and ran away.  I immediately suspected the Springfield crowd had hit again.  I told her I could hear Derek trying to get into the house, let me talk to him and I would call her back.  Derek came in through the garage door, very upset.  I asked if it was about "Springfield", indeed it was, a kid he didn't even know, who wasn't even in his grade called him "Springfield" I asked him if he thought the original Jack was behind this. Since he was already busted for bullying, was he using his "Henchmen" to get to Derek.  Derek didn't know,  he  was very mad and locked himself in his room.  I called the school back they told me Mrs. Hull, the principal would be calling me back.  "Please and Thank You, I would like that"

About 11:00 I finally get a call from Mrs. Hull.  She asked what I knew, I told her what I knew, Derek wasn't talking much, and mostly locked in his room all morning.   I asked if the original Jack was behind this.  She said no.  She had been interviewing about 7 boys all morning (some got multiple interviews) and got to the bottom of it. The original Jack was not involved at all.    What she had determined is before school started Derek was sitting at a table in the courtyard with his friends, and a kid named Noah was dared by his friends to go up to Derek and call him "Springfield".  Derek was done, as promised he slugged the kid in the head.  Noah's twin brother (who was one of the taunters and encouraged it) went up to Derek and started shoving him.  Derek exploded ran off screaming about how he hated Hancock and ran home.

Mrs. Hull, knew of Derek's past experience with the bullying and teasing and sympathized with him.  She said although Derek shouldn't run off school like that she felt it was good he wasn't in school, so she could go talk to the entire 6th grade (5 classes) without him being there and tell them she has had enough and they need to knock it off.

I talked to Derek about what Mrs. Hull said.  He seemed to feel a little better and he started coming of his room.  I asked him what are we going to do moving forward, go to another school, home school etc.?  This has been going on way too long.  By the way, I wasn't upset he punched the kid, and I was proud of him for standing up for himself. I just wish he would've finished it rather than running away.  Derek said he did want to go back to Hancock, but he needed a few days to cool off and let things settle.  I totally understand.

As the day went on, Derek calmed down and life didn't seem as tragic.  Mrs. Hull and Mrs. Bollard called me back at the end of the day to tell me she talked to the entire 6th grade.  It went better than expected.  Instead of giving the kids the smack down, she said the kids had a great response, felt bad for Derek and wanted to work on being nicer to each other as a whole.  The other 6 boys were getting in school suspension in Derek's words they were being "dealt with".  On the other hand,  Mrs. Hull and Bollard had a delima with Derek.  He did punch a kid and start a fight (I think the other kid started it) , and leave campus.  There should be consequences.   I agreed, I felt like they wanted my opinion on how Derek should be punished.  I had promised Derek that I wouldn't punish him for hitting a kid, yet he had broken school rules.  Finally Mrs. Bollard spoke up and said she felt Derek deserved ISS (In School Suspension) the next day.  I thought that was fair, as long as he wouldn't be near the other kids.  Derek would be in Mrs. Hull's office, the other boys would be elsewhere through out the school.  I hung up and told Derek of his consequences, he was 100% fine with it.  Which I thought there would be a little push back, but he didn't seem to mind at all.  Friday, the next day, I walked him into the principals office and Derek had a great attitude.  In school suspension was a good place for him, I wanted him at school, but I don't think Derek was ready to be with the rest of the kids yet, I think Derek felt the same way. 

Right before  school got out I was waiting outside to pick up Trey, and they let Derek out a bit early and I ran into him.  I asked him how it went?  Derek's response "It was worth every minute of it", He felt justified to punch that kid and then get the punishment for it.    Hopefully now this can be put to rest, Jack, Jack II and the "Springfield" seeds that Jack planted.    Fall Break is just around the corner, which will also be helpful.

New Quorum assignment for Dax

Dax was recently called as the second counselor in his Teachers Quorum.  I'm not sure what exactly that entails since the leaders don't seem to put many assignments on these kids. If they ever do, Dax is willing and able.

With this new assignment they asked the new presidency (Jason Sillinpaa -President, Matt Layden- 1st counselor, Dax, and Jordan Pyper-Secretary) to meet Tuesday night at the Bishops office to get set apart.  Curtis was busy that night so he couldn't go, Scott Andersen gave Dax a very nice blessing.  The thing that stood out to me was in the blessing, Scott told Dax that he had a great witty sense of humor, and blessed him that he would learn the appropriate times to use it.  I don't know if Dax was paying attention but I thought the was very fitting.  It was a nice evening..