Nathan is 18!
He is about 5'10" tall and weighs 143 pounds.
When he grows up, he wants to do something in Mechanical Engineering.
His favorite subject at school is Science Fiction. He does love all things science and space! He really likes school and always has! He loves to learn about pretty much everything. Science is his favorite. At this point, he is leaning towards going to WSU Tri Cities. With his food allergy issues, it would be impossible for him to live in a dorm and eat in a dining center. All universities in WA require this for freshman. Even if he moved straight into an apartment (the law would allow this since he does have a disability), it would be very difficult to deal with roommates who do not understand the seriousness of anaphylactic food allergies. Plus, he'd have to cook all of his meals. Living at home would make this much less difficult.
He likes to run, play video games, garden, take photos, and bike.
He is in 12th grade. He is taking LA, Science Fiction, Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, and Pre Calculus. His high school offers various "College in the High School" classes that he can take that will count for college credit. This year, he will be taking English 102 during his LA class, College Pre Calculus, and College Physics. So half of his classes will count as college credits. What he majors in will depend on whether or not the credits actually count for anything. His classes this year are all through CWU.
This past summer, he had his first job. He got a high school paid internship at Pacific Northwest National Lab. He worked full time. He worked in the National Security department learning coding and developing a software application to display extraction data. It was a fantastic experience for him. Since he is local, he was told he can continue to work on his project throughout the school year when he has time. Fall is hard with cross county taking up all his time so he will only be able to do a little bit of work, but hopefully over the winter, he can do more with his project.
He's been running all summer in preparation for cross country this fall. He runs in the evenings around 8 when the sun is setting and it's cooler outside. We both take our runs/walks then. It might still be 95 degrees but when the sun isn't beating down on you, it's not too bad. His Cross Country practices begin the week before school starts.
Food allergies are still the same. He's highly allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, and kiwi. He's intolerant to squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, peas, and bananas. He has Oral Allergy Syndrome to some fruits and vegetables. His OAS has gotten better as he's done allergy shots. Still not perfect, but he can now eat some things fresh that would have made his mouth itchy before.
We had his senior photos taken a few weeks ago. When we get them back, I will definitely add one to the top of this post!
The first cross country meet for the Hanford kids is always the Hanford Jamboree. It's a 2 mile run around Leslie Groves Park. We haven...
