Team Cruise!

Yesterday was the Walk Now for Autism Speaks walk in Sandy at Rio Tinto Stadium. It was pretty cold, but at least not raining. Dave had to leave for work in the morning to attend a meeting, so I got the boys ready and drove up there to meet everyone else.

We all put on our team shirts, which turned out so awesome thanks to my dad. The shirts featured a Superman logo, but instead of the "S" it was changed to a "C" for Cruise. Under the logo says "Team Cruise". Cruise got a kick out of them and was flying off of furniture all morning before we left. He also thought it was awesome that we all had on the same shirt as well.

I tried to prepare him as much as I could, but because I had never gone to a walk before, I myself didn't even know what to expect. But I kept reiterating that there were going to be "a lot of people" and "a lot of noise". He seemed to be excited. But as I drove past the stadium packed with vendors and people, he started to melt down. He cried to go back home, but I wasn't going home, we were going to do this.

We parked and I got Jett and Cruise out of the car and into a double stroller, where I placed Cruise's noise canceling headphones on and covered him with a blanket so he couldn't see all the people. The second that blanket went on, he calmed right down.

We first headed straight for the Kids On the Move booth, where we got to say hi to Brittany, Laurie and Ari. They had saved Cruise a ball and me, a bag, which was so nice of them because they would've all been gone by then. The resource fair had started at 8:30am and I definitely wasn't going to go with the boys that early and stay that long. They wouldn't have gone for that.

My parents and then Dave showed up and we waited at the start line. The best thing about the walk was that it was about half a mile. Lol! Once around the stadium. About half way through, Cruise decided to get out and walk a little, but then decided being pushed is a lot easier. But I was happy he had finally come out of the blanket and joined in.

We could've walked longer, but we wanted to visit the other booths. So we spent some time looking, and then we got in line to get a balloon for Cruise. He had a rocket ship made. Jett spent most of his time climbing on the Police 4-wheelers and covering the service dogs with loves. We didn't get to participate in a lot of the other activities, but that was fine, just as long as the boys were happy.

We really appreciate the donations from my parents, my sister Ruth and her family, and our good friend Bronson Dameron. And we were so grateful to have my parents walk with us. Hopefully next year we can get a bigger team and more donations to Autism Speaks. But for our first year, I think we did pretty good. I think this will be a fun and meaningful tradition to continue.

Friday Outing: The Fire Station

I am always trying to find something new and fun for our family to do each Friday. However, with the boys' sensory sensitivities and needs, and Cruise's autism, I have to work within certain parameters, otherwise things can go downhill very quickly.

A few weeks ago I called up the fire station and asked if they do family tours. The secretary said they did, but that they will be having a big safety fair in October that we could attend. I thought that sounded pretty good until she told me what kinds of things they set up and how many people show. It sounded so much fun, but it could be a terrible disaster if attempted. So I decided to just make an appointment for a private tour.

We went this Friday and it was just perfect for the boys, especially for Cruise. The fire house itself was very visually stimulating, so it was a little hard for him to focus on what the fireman (who turned out to be Brother Williams from our last ward) was saying, but luckily it was very low key.

First, Cruise got to put on the fireman's uniform

then the boys got to sit in the firetruck

Cruise got to hold the fire hose

and after spending some time walking around, I convinced Cruise to try listening to the siren. They had us stand a couple yards from the firetruck and Dave and I covered the boys' ears as they let the siren sound. They both did really well and Cruise even let me take my hands off his ears for the last few seconds.

The fireman talked to us about how to teach the kids how to get out of the house when the fire alarm goes off (which I never thought about) and how to practice on a regular basis. I thought this was so good especially because having boys with sensitive hearing, it would be such a stressful thing for them to wake up to a regular fire alarm without being familiar with it. So we have some work to do on that.

After the tour, the boys each got a little fire hat, a pencil and a sticker badge. They really had a blast and once again, we had a successful family outing.