Fisher Reading his word book

Holiday Card Pictures

So we took some pictures for our holiday card which will be mailed out shortly. These are some that did not make the cut.

Halloween

The pinata and birthday girl.

Handy Manny (Roque) and Ladybug (Christine)

Cheech (Shilo) and Chong (Nick)



Pirate Fisher and his teacher Melanie

Elk 2009

My 6x6

Aunt Ginny's 5x4

Our two bulls shot 20 minutes apart

Weekend Getaway

We were lucky enough to get to go back up to Aunt Ginny's and Uncle Gary's place again this weekend. Fisher got to ride on the 4 wheeler a bunch, which is one of his favorite things to do. Emily was lucky enough to be able to shoot quite a few grouse on Saturday night with her wonderful guide Grouse Gary. Only 2 weeeks til Elk season opens up, so Alex is getting extremely anxious for it to get here.

Labor Day Weekend

So we spent our Labor Day Weekend up at Aunt Ginny and Uncle Gary's house on the St. Joe river. Perhaps my favorite place on earth, especially with Elk hunting just around the corner. Nick and Shilo came up with us and the older two of the Johnson clan showed up on Sunday.



We hunted for grouse, shot a few...Emily shot her first bird ever and is pretty excited about it. We will post her first dead animal/holding a gun picture as soon as Aunt Ginny gets back from camping. I am excited that Emily seemed to enjoy grouse hunting and I look forward to her killing other things too:). Fisher enjoyed rides on the 4 wheeler and was there to witness his mom's first hunting success.



On our drive home we went through a freak hail storm. It was the hardest hail storm I had ever seen. We pulled over until it ended, it only lasted about 4 minutes. But check out the video, it looked like a snow storm came through.

August

August has been a busy month for us. Emily started at a new salon in Hayden and Fisher is continuing to do well in school. The top picture is of us with Jon Totten at my work Luau. The bottom picture is of when my old college roommate Scott Jurgens honored us with his presence all the way from Princeton. The rental car company screwed up and gave him a hummer for the week.

Fisher's Crappy Day

So I usually just put up good stories about our family on here, but I figured I'd share this one.

On Monday, while I was a work and Emily had gone downstairs to check on the laundry, Fisher decided to take of his pants and diaper so he could go poop in the corner of the family room. When he walked downstairs Emily noticed he didn't have any pants or diaper on, so she came upstairs to find what he had done along with footprints of poop spread around the family room.

She gave him a bath and then got a bucket of water to scrub the floor, while scrubbing the floor, she stopped to grab another rag, and in those 10 seconds Fisher picked up the bucket full of water and dumped it all on the carpet!

When I got home, I borrowed a carpet cleaner from Roque and Christine and cleaned the carpets. Wait there's more...Instead of sittting at home waiting for the carpet to dry, we decided to go have dinner at Applebee's. Christine, Erin, and her two kids joined. While eating our meals I smelled something coming from Fisher's direction. He had pooped again, and this time his diaper was not on right so he stuck his hand in to fix it. He then wiped what was on his hand on his shirt and pants. So we left Applebee's and headed home.

And that is the story of Fisher's(and our) Shitty Day!

Update on Fisher

So it has been awhile since we posted about Fisher's Autism. He started school on July 1st. He goes 4 days a week. The school is a Montessori based preschool for kids from about 2-6 years old. It is made up of about 70% typical kids and the rest are kids with many different kinds of disablilities. Fisher days consist of Emily dropping him off, at this point he meets up with his IBI (Intensive Behavorial Intervention) Therapist Melanie. She spends the entire day with him, and she is wonderful. He joins the class for snack, lunch, outside play, and circle time as he can behave properly. If he has trouble following the rules of the class Melanie takes him to his own therapy room where she can work with him one on one.

In the short time he has been at school he is working on staying seated while he eats and drinks, cleaning up after an activity, following directions, transitioning between activities, playing with his peers, and some sign language among many other challenges that come up from moment to moment. He also meets with a speech therapist and an occupational therapist on a weekly basis.

The other day when Emily went to pick Fisher up he was sitting at a picnic table with a bunch of other kids eating pretzels and drinking water. This may not sound like much, but it is a big deal for us. Fisher also told me "put me down" when I picked him up the other day. It showed that he is learning to use language to express his needs rather than physical actions.

We have also seen many small improvements in him following directions. We just take it one day at a time and also are very thankful for the support we are getting from our family and friends.

Swimming at the Johnson's house. (one of my favorite activities)

This was Fisher leaving for his first day of school.

4th of July and Fishers Birthday

Here is a collage of last weekends events. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger version.