The Griggs Family: Jack's last day of preschool and Justin's on his way to China

Jack's first day at Lawson August 2011

Jack's at his end of the year party yesterday with his teacher Lynn

I may not have been the best blogger the past two months but I have some very exciting updates for this post. Jack is attending his last day of preschool (PPCD-STC) class today at Lawson. He started there when he was just 3 years old and is finishing up a big 5 year old! He was non-verbal when we started and now he lots of words and is starting to use them to form simple sentences and can with a partial visual prompt tell us "I want..." and has started to spontaneously ask his therapist and sometimes us for things he wants ( I want to go to dirt piles or I want to go to Target). His receptive language has also improved, he is doing better at following one step directions and can follow some two step directions in context of an activity that he is doing. He has learned to use the bathroom and his play skills have become much better too. He still doesn't understand or know how to be social with his piers but that will be something we will be focusing on improving this summer with the ABA social group program and some other fun summer activities we have planned this summer.

Yesterday was his end of the year party and it was fun watching how happy he was at school but sad knowing is was time to tell all his amazing teachers good-bye. I am nervous about our transition to kindergarten next year but we had our transition ARD (IEP meeting) and I believe we have a good schedule for him next year which will include some inclusion time for him during lunch, recess and specials (ie PE, Library, Gym, ect) with the support he needs for success. His new STC teacher seems great and she has several years of experience which will help him continue to make progress on his goals.

We also had to say good bye and good luck to Justin this morning he is taking multiple trips this summer for work to do some training for Fossil in China. His first trip that he left for today will have him in China until July 5th. He will then be back in Texas for about a week and then will be heading back east. The first trip is the only one scheduled so far but they will be able to figure out the rest of his schedule once he is over there and can assess the time frame of what the training schedule will need to be. This is a very amazing opportunity for him and his career so the kids and I will miss him but we know he will do a terrific job and hope he has a fun time experiencing the Chinese culture. I guess we both were destine for China adventures in our life time :)

The kids and I will be keeping busy this summer. Jack's summer schedule will consist of Summer Social on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 8:30-2:30, ABA on Monday's and Wednesday's (12:30-2:30) I will be doing a Gymboree class with both kids on Monday mornings at 9, and we have a new trampoline park we plan to frequent on Wednesday mornings. We will be trying to spend time with friends and hopefully get some pool time in there occasionally to get a break from the hot Texas summer. Tomorrow is the first day of summer and we are meeting several friends and a new park that just opened up in Frisco that was designed especially for kids with special needs.

I hope that everyone has had a good end to the school year. I am planning to try and get back into a good routine of blogging and I will try and keep everyone posted on Justin's adventure and our own summer time adventure here in Texas!