Category Archives: Logan

Community Service Hours at the Animal Rescue Foundation

Son Logan’s school requires their kids to give back to their community via Community Service Hours. Logan has tried various things like the Food Bank and local libraries but he found something that he clicks with.

Tulsa’s Animal Rescue Foundation is a no kill shelter that puts dogs up for adoption. They bring a bunch of them to one of the Petsmart stores every Saturday from 9 to about 4. The need help of all kinds: setting up the tables and crates, helping people who want to look at the dogs and cats, and people to walk the dogs ever now and then to give them a break.

Logan is really liking this and is great watching him like it. He is a dog walking machine. They had about eighteen dogs last week and he walked every one of them, many of them twice during his shift. ARF has lots of teen volunteers and I am impressed with them. They pitch in and help where they can and they all love the dogs and cats.

The dogs vary from old and slow to young and exuberant and Logan gives them all a good walk. Plus many of the dogs appreciate just being held for a little while. Being on display stresses them out. By the end of the day the dogs are exhausted and are sleeping while waiting for their foster “parents” to come retrieve them. Almost all of the dogs are really good dogs who are victims of divorces or other life changes of their owners that are no fault of the pets. You can tell they are really confused about why they are not home.

Anyways, if you live in Tulsa and you are looking for a dog check out the Animal Rescue Foundation.

Senior Picture Shoot

I always claim the right to take pictures of people taking pictures in public places. I did that yesterday of the photographer taking pictures of son Logan. The guy was good! He put Logan, who hates getting dressed up and especially hates changing out of perfectly clean clothes into other clothes. I just tagged along.

Heather made a great assistant holding the reflector as the photographer did his thing. I’m going to have to get one of those things. I wouldn’t know what to do with it but it sure looks cool.

I think both Heather and I teared up during the session. Our baby is getting all growns up. It seems like just yesterday we loaded him up for first grade. He has turned into quite the young man. He has overcome a lot of challenges and I think will do well.

Anyways we get the proofs in about a week and a half. The guy was good so my expectations are high. I imagine we’ll buy almost everything. We might have to get a second mortgage but you only get Senior Pictures once. Well, at least hope it is just once.

Picking up the Pace a Little

Last Saturday Logan and I headed up to Ramona to visit the nice folks at All-Star Therapy Group for Logan’s horseback riding session. The weather was kind of blah so Logan rode inside. I don’t really mind because I like seeing the goings on in the arena and seeing what the other kids and their parents are doing along with the staff and volunteers. There is never a dull moment but photographically it is difficult with lighting and all. I have a new Ipod Touch, it is my third. I love those little devices and go through them. This one has a time lapse photography function so I made this five second video of Logan riding Cisco, round and round.

And while I’m picking on Logan I’ll go ahead and show this time lapse of him unloading the dishwasher. I’m one of those dishwasher loading nerds who prides himself on loading the dishwasher in an efficient manner and part of my plan in loading is how I am going to unload it. He doesn’t really share my enthusiasm for such things, which is a good sign if I think about it. Anyway, I used my new toy to do a time lapse of him unloading the dishwasher.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress we make, or don’t make.

Tulsa Clark Theater’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”

The long awaited (at least in our family) opening night of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever happened Thursday night and it went very well. The kids really had the play down and things went relatively smoothly. At least to those of us in the audience it did. Heather and I worked the event. I worked the concession stand so I got see the performance. Heather worked the green room and even though they have a closed circuit feed back there she wasn’t able to hear Logan’s five lines. Such is community theater.

Logan plays the Reverend and did his few lines perfectly (in his Dad’s humble opinion). All the kids did perfectly although Heather tells me that one girl missed her cue because she was looking for her lost halo or something. I hope that she found her halo. I lost mine a long time ago and I know better than to go looking for it.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, or just BCPE as the staff calls it, is the story of the worst kids in the world, the Herdman kids, getting involved in a church Christmas play. It is very funny and entertaining and at just two relatively short but satisfying acts is a good evening out.

And of course the cast got a standing ovation, and the leftover popcorn in the concession stand. Me and the other “concession dad” took in seventy bucks or so from the concessions and sold some raffle tickets. Hey it all helps.

The play has two casts who alternate playing. Even with the two casts Logan has been pretty busy juggling long hours of rehearsals with his demanding schoolwork. I can only imagine what the staff directing the play have gone through!!

So we are seeing the play Saturday afternoon with Logan’s grandmother and some aunt and uncles driving in from western Oklahoma. Then we’ll get to see it some more. I don’t mind. It’s worth it seeing Logan’s face after the performance.

Kudos to the staff for giving Logan a chance, and for working the long hours to get two casts in shape. Talk about a lot of hard work.

New School for Logan this Year

Young Logan has started a new school this year and so far everything is going great!! He has been going a week and a half now and he seems to really like it. He is taking some tough classes like Biology, Geometry, and Sign Language.

The school really makes an effort to make everyone feel welcome with several events such as as “Mud Night” which fortunately was more grassy than muddy but was still a lot of fun for everybody. The kids certainly got into it. We are so proud of Logan, despite not knowing anybody he went to the first dance and the mud night and had fun. We are also proud of the other kids. Some of them are really making an effort to include him in what is going on and making sure he has somebody to sit with at lunch.

It is not a special needs school but they do have a program where they make accommodations and support for the kids that need it. We are very impressed with what has happened so far and are hopeful for the future.

His old school served him well for years. He started out in public school and despite the efforts of his classroom teachers who put their heart and soul into their kids, the administration refused to provide the help he needed. We went to another school and it was a lifesaver. They gave him a voice (maybe too much of a voice!) and self confidence and he blossomed. We felt the need to change to a college prep school and encouraged by his speech therapist and an occupational therapist we started the search. Heather did all the work and it was a God thing, a door suddenly opened and we found a great situation. We know the going is going to be a lot tougher but we think he is up to it.

Further reports coming as things develop.

Logan is Back from Falls Creek

A few minutes after midnight the church buses pulled up at the parking lot bringing the kids home from Falls Creek summer camp.

Big hustle and bustle as the kids unloaded out of the bus and searched for the family and luggage.

There he is! All safe and sound with a big smile on his face. He had a good time. Got to know some other kids and was very happy with his experience.

Of course I checked his camera. It looked like he was having a really really good time.

And a serious time. Do you detect a note of homesickness here? No, I don’t either. That is okay.

He has lots of other pics. If he ever gets out of bed I will see if he would like to write a guest post about his time at Falls Creek. Heather is making pancakes right now. If that doesn’t get him out of bed, nothing will.

Wednesday – Musing with the Oktomat

Logan has been gone to camp at Falls Creek since Monday. It seems like a long time. We are missing our gentle giant of a son.

Heather got a text from the Youth Director indicating that Logan is having a great time and the YD is really enjoying Logan’s quick sense of humor. Of course that made us feel good. We know better but we had visions of Logan being all alone and miserable in this huge camp of over seven thousand kids including well over a hundred from the group he went with to the camp.

And the sense of humor thing. We know that the Logan we see is different from the Logan his friends see. We get glimpses of the other Logan from time to time and of course we like both sides of him.

Anyways we are looking forward to the whatever Logan steps off the bus at midnight Friday here in Tulsa. We miss the guy.

He took his camera. I hope he is taking some photographs. Maybe I can post a few this weekend.

The Kid is Going to Falls Creek

Son is going off to Summer Camp on Saturday morning. He is going to Falls Creek, a Baptist Summer Camp in the Arbuckle Mountains of south central Oklahoma.

Anybody up for a walk? Ginger always is. Look at that tail action.

This is a major step up for him. He has been to camp three times but they have all been special needs camps with all sorts of trained help and supports built in. Falls Creek is just a regular summer camp so he is going to have to step up a little bit. We think he is up to it.

(Our little pomeranian is uncontrollable at the start of a walk.)

At the other camps we or Heather have been there to help him get set up with his bunk and get unpacked, bed made, and gear stashed away. This time he is riding a bus from the church parking lot and will have to get himself set up.

(Ginger is old hat at this walking thing. She keeps looking back at me. She likes to be the lead dog.)

He is not usually nervous about stuff but he is nervous about this. So that makes us nervous. Which makes him even more nervous. He is going to be fine though. He will be with a friend of his and people who know him and who will watch over him.

(We are kind of all spread out. The family doesn’t wait while I take pictures of this that and whatever.)

I imagine that he’ll have a great time. At least I hope he does. He will be back in town at midnight Friday so he’ll be tired.

Meanwhile, we took the dogs on a walk tonight. They live for two things, eating and walking with lots of barking. After years of walking them, they still go crazy. We are failures at teaching them to walk or to quit barking.

(Home of our dogs favorite friend. Be patient, he pops his head up toward the end of the video.)

You can hear our three mutts coming for blocks so all the dogs are fully up and barking by the time we show up.

It is so embarrassing. At least it used to be

The Drama Club’s Performance of Crazytown

Logan’s school’s Drama Club had their play on Wednesday, Jonathan Rand’s Crazytown. Crazytown is about a city where everything is just plain wrong, and backwards, and doesn’t make sense. Logan was in a couple of segments including the one below where he plays a sportscaster. I listened to him and his mother practice the lines for weeks and it was great to actually see what was going on.

His mother and I are of course very proud of him. He has worked hard at his craft and is much improved in how he moves on stage, using his voice, and realizing that he can fuss and fidget while performing.

He is switching schools to a much larger private school in the Fall and we hope that he’ll be able to perform in something there.

Logan and the rest of the drama club did very well and the play was well received. They had been practicing for sometime once a week after school and it was great to see it pay off.