Ten is a lot!!

 Milestones that Tanner accomplished by his 10 year old birthday (June 2020- June 2021):

• Joined Little League for the first time and was an all star
• Went to 3rd grade. Did 7 weeks of zoom school, 8 months of homeschool
• Learned how to surf
• Took an IQ test, his IQ is 130
• Jumped off the high dive for the first time
• Went tubing on a lake for the first time
• Went rafting down a river for the first time
• built amazing Minecraft worlds
• built amazing Lego creations
• Visited Sacramento, Longmont, Boise, Tulum, Houston TX and Austin TX
• Learn to bake cookies, eggs, and quesadillas all by himself
• First job as a babysitter, and he even got paid (6.50 and hour)
• Made a pogo stick record of 306 jumps in a row
• Epic bike ride to mission bay, 14.5 miles

This was a very interesting year for our family and for Tanner, since Covid and homeschool pushed us to our breaking points. I am really proud of Tanner for all the challenges that he faced. We made some really important discoveries about his neurotype and how to best meet his needs. Tanner was diagnosed with Autism and dyslexia. I've documented most of this journey on FB, which is probably all lost in cyber space, but I don't have the emotional energy to recap it all here.

Let it suffice us to say that the diagnosis was somewhat surprising, relieving and validating for our family. Tanner has gone through phases of acceptance and avoidance with the diagnosis. I have a lot of experience with autistic children, and I admit that I've been going through a huge learning curve learning more about it. I am grateful to the worldwide community of Autistics that are speaking up about their experiences- rather than relying on others to speak for them- and it has been very helpful to our family. 

One thing has stayed constant through our journey of the past 10 years with Tanner. We love him to the moon and back. We are constantly amazed by him. There are lots of rough days, for sure. But that won't ever change our love for him. Tanner is our amazing Little One- smart, creative, strong-willed, musical, athletic, articulate, tender, goofy, anxious, thoughtful, analytical and fun. 

We had a wonderful time celebrating his tenth birthday and reflecting on being parents for an entire decade- WILD!

Tanner's 10th Birthday

 BIRTHDAY TIME!!! I (Tanner) turned TEN on June 28th, 2021. 

First we went out for brunch at Breakfast Republic. It was awesome but we couldn't finish the whole thing.

EGGS with mac and cheese.

The pancakes really were that big ;)

Birthday Party

After a heartbreaking loss in my All Star baseball game, we hosted my birthday party, although it was a couple days before the real deal (my actual birthday).

The theme of the party was hiking, biking, and baseball cards. Everyone brought their bikes and we rode up and down the canyon hill several times. 

 

Here we are getting ready to race down the hill. 

Dad gave me a treasure map, so we grabbed a shovel and went on a hike through the canyon. It was cool that my friends could see the canyon that I lived in. 

When we got to where the treasure was supposed to be, we had extreme difficulty finding where to dig. We dug like, three holes. Dad was laughing the whole time because we were standing right on top of two sticks that made an X.

When we had realized why Dad was laughing we dug a little bit through the mark. We saw a little corner of the box, meaning that we had to dig out the whole thing otherwise we could never get it out. But luckily there was 10 minutes less digging thanks to my huge friend Eugene (huge not only because he's a good friend but also because he's younger than me but as tall as my mom.). He pinched the corner of the box and ripped it out of the earth. Just like Superman would.

Inside the treasure box were bags full of baseball trinkets and goodies (and cards!). The thing with the cards though, was that the kid who knew the least about baseball, let alone baseball cards, got all the good cards, such as Rickey Henderson, Bo Jackson, and Fernando Tatis Jr., just to name a few. I would have traded with him except when I saw those cards I started screaming and yelling and running all over the place, exclaiming with excitement, "Oh my gosh!! What on earth? How did YOU get that!?" Then he realized the reason we were screaming was because his cards were insane, so he decided to not trade away any of his cards. 

We ate the ceremonial pizza and ice cream cake. 

Grandma Z made these t-shirts for me and my fellow TODers for my birthday. TOD is the club that me, Owen, and Dallin created, meaning that Owen got one too.

Birthday Service

My dad's work was hosting a service where people from bumble bee would meet up in Tijuana Mx to build a small house for a poor family. I decided to join them for my birthday service this year. 

On a Friday, me and my dad joined the group for dinner and stayed in a hotel. On Saturday and Sunday, we worked all day building a house from scratch. It was hot out. Some of the jobs I did were hammering nails to make wall frames, going up on the roof to lay down shingles, and working on the attic. It was really hot up there, especially when we put in the insolation. I also had fun talking to the other kids in Spanish. The family that we built the house for was also there helping. 

All the people were there with an organization from a church, so we did some praying and stuff, too.

Me and the other kids got tired working, so we decided to go dig from one of the cliffs next to the house. We found some dark, moist and smooth rock in the dirt. Then I realized that it was clay. We immediately started digging intensely, trying to get the clay out. I put it in a water bottle and ended up taking it back home with me. If was really fun finding the clay.

When we were all done with the house, everyone took pictures. It was so cool and the family was very happy. You can see me in some of these pictures, I was really happy too. One of the older kids (12 or 13?) said to me, "I've done 6 projects like this, and I'm learning stuff from you!"