Guide for Parents of Children Newly Diagnosed with SCD

Falyn was diagnosed with Social Communication Disorder (SCD) in 7th grade. Since this is such a new diagnosis, there was little to nothing available on it. I spent a lot of time researching SCD and used what I learned to create a guide for other parents of kids with SCD. It is available as an eBook and is free to download for Kindle Unlimited members. You can check out the eBook here.

Happy New Year!

I hope this year brings you joy, happiness, and success in reaching your goals! I pray that by this time next year the pandemic will be in the past and we will again be able to gather together and travel the world.

Merry Christmas

We were blessed to have all of our children with us for Christmas. Due to COVID, we were not able to celebrate with Dan’s parents and siblings like we usually do. I’m praying that next year we will be able to resume the Christmas dinner tradition with Dan’s family.

My Father’s Funeral

My father was laid to rest today at the historic Grange Hall cemetery in Rio Vista Texas. It is a beautiful and peaceful place. The boys served as pallbearers at the graveside service. We are thankful that his sister and several of his nieces and nephews were able to attend.

We Lost My Father Today

My father, Charles Parker, passed away peacefully this afternoon surrounded by family. We are grateful to have had him on this planet for 80 years. We love him and will miss him but are happy he has been freed from the torment of Alzheimer’s. He will be in our hearts forever.

Week 14 – Summer!

This week marked the beginning of summer! Falyn spent the week playing games and riding bikes with her friend that lives across the street.

Jared and Riley had their wisdom teeth taken out on Monday and spent the week recovering.

On Saturday I took graduation pictures of Kayli with her friends from elementary school. They graduated together from SBS 8 years ago and are now all college graduates.

Sunday was Father’s Day and we got to celebrate it with Dan’s parents and two of his siblings. Falyn was excited to see her cousin that lives in Ohio.

This week’s COVID-19 cases totals:

  • World – 9,041,900
  • USA – 2,356,657
  • California – 178,567
  • Orange County – 10,595
  • Westminster – 223

Week 13 – Last Week of Remote Learning

Jared, Riley, and Aidan all finished school this week. We are all hoping this marks the end of remote learning and that all the kids will be able to physically attend school in the fall. The twins continued working on their Eagle projects and are almost done. Riley is making games for a school and Jared is making a cart to store electronics devices for visually impaired kids at another school.

This weekend Falyn’s Scouts BSA Troop had a camp-in. Falyn set up her tent in the backyard and participated in zoom activities with the other girls in her troop. She said it was a lot of fun.

I did grad portraits for Kayli and her friend this weekend. They are friends from high school and went to different colleges. We went to several spots and got some great pictures of them.

This week’s COVID-19 cases totals:

  • World – 8,108,667
  • USA – 2,182,950
  • California – 155,601
  • Orange County – 8,759
  • Westminster – 193

Week 12 – Falyn’s 8th Grade Graduation

Falyn graduated from SBS today. It certainly was not the graduation we imagined when the school year started. They are suppose to have an actually graduation ceremony in July, but we went ahead and celebrated on the day she was scheduled to graduate.

That makes 20 years, 6 kids, and 5 graduations we’ve had there! It’s the end of an era and the start of a new one.

I took all the knowledge I’ve gained from helping Talia, Kayli, and Aidan get into college and put it into a workbook to help high school students with the college application process. It’s called Getting In! The best time to start preparing for your college applications is when you start high school. I ordered a copy for Falyn so she can start thinking about colleges and start to gather data she will need to apply. But don’t worry if you are starting the process later – this book will guide you through it, helping you get your applications turned in on time.

I was super excited to get a #1 New Release badge for my book this week!

Jared and Riley spent the weekend working on their Eagle Scout projects. They are coming along and hopefully will be finished in the next week or so.

This week’s COVID-19 cases totals:

  • World – 7,082,598
  • USA – 2,007,449
  • California – 131,710
  • Orange County – 7,440
  • Westminster – 169

Week 11 – Last Week at SBS

This week marked the last week of remote learning for Falyn. It wasn’t the last day of school we had expected to end our 20 years at SBS. She was supposed to graduate next week but the ceremony was moved to July. We will still celebrate next week.

Falyn participated in OCBSA’s Digital Dash. She has been riding her bike everyday for 1-2 hours and racked up over 90 Kilometers of biking between May 18 and May 29!

We were excited to watch the launch of SpaceX launch of two American astronauts to the ISS on Friday. We all held our breath as it took off and cheered when it made it to space.

We also watched the docking of the Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on Saturday. Since Dan and I both worked on the ISS project, it was especially fun for us to watch all the footage from inside the ISS.

This week’s COVID-19 cases totals:

  • World – 6,372,661
  • USA – 1,859,323
  • California – 115,234
  • Orange County – 6,474
  • Westminster – 134

Week 10 – Moving Out

When this all started on Friday the 13th in March, we never expected it to last this long. We are getting close to being under the stay at home directive for 3 months now. It looks like they will start to slowly allow businesses to open back up over the next few weeks. But the kids will finish out the school year on remote learning.

I once again ventured to Costco. That means I made it 4 weeks without have to go there. I once again filled up the cart and stocked up on food. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it that long again before having to go back.

This week we traveled up to Berkeley to move Kayli out of her college apartment. One nice thing about the pandemic is the lack of traffic. It was nice not to get stuck waiting in traffic for hours like we normally do. While we were there we took some graduation pictures on campus.

This was also Ziggy’s birthday. (Technically it was his adoption day.) Ziggy is Falyn’s bearded dragon. Falyn made a cake to celebrate the day.

This week’s COVID-19 cases totals:

  • World – 5,588,020
  • USA – 1,706,226
  • California – 96,868
  • Orange County – 5,469
  • Westminster – 104