Saturday Morning

I am missing Megan's soccer game today because Jason is down sick. It looks like it is a really bad cold but he sometimes has asthma attacks when this happens. It just seemed like a better idea to stay home with him. Steve is here so he went to the game with her.

Last night was Anthony's football game. It wasn't as bad as it looked. This is another really tough team. A 5A school when we are a 4A. It really makes a difference. One more out of league game to go before we start our league games.


Anthony looked good last night. He played a little offense but played some defense as well. He is thinking about making the switch. This kid is fast. We used to tease him about running like a chicken. I video taped one of his games and when he watched he said "why am I running like that?" Sweetie you have been running like that since you were little. That was the last time he did it. What ever he did, he fixed his run and he is fast.


He played in the JV game Thursday and took a pretty good hit to his leg. He took another hit last night. So today he is sporting a pretty good bruise. I don't like to focus to much on injuries because makes me start to worry. But having said that, another football player that Anthony is friends with from another team took a bad hit last night. I am not sure if it is one or both ankles are broken and he was looking at surgery last night. Jordan, our prayers to you for a very speedy recovery.


The final score was 13 to 49.











Thought I would throw this one in to. Ummmm, I think I have figured out what I want for Christmas.

Happy Birthday

Happy 16th Birthday Kagan.



I can't believe this is the most recent picture I have of her. I will be working on that fixing that.

Decluttering

While my house isn't going to be on the next episode of Hoarders, it does need some serious decluttering. This all started when Megan asked if we could redo her bedroom. She is 13 after all and the room needs a new look. Not to mention a new coat of paint.

Sure, your room can be redone, but it needs to be totally cleaned out. She is totally behind this project as well as Jason. He declared that he no longer needs baby toys. Cleaning out their bedrooms has motivated Steve and I. I have been going through stuff in our room and Steve is starting to work on the garage.

Where does all this stuff come from. I have boxes that were packed when we moved from California. It's all going to go. That way we will have a whole bunch of room for new crap......

Little bit of Sports

When I got Anthony's football schedule I decided that I would be making all the games. In town and out of town. Except for one out of town game in Idaho. It's two hours away and it would be to hard to do that and have to get up the next morning and go to Washington for Megan's soccer game.

I got a call Friday morning that Steve was on a dead head and coming home. Sorry, train talk. Dead head means he is in a car coming home instead of a train. They do this because either they have too many trains and not enough crews or not enough trains and need the crews to go home.

So I get the call and Steve will be home in a couple of hours. Up until Friday I had never planned to go to this game. But with Steve coming home......maybe we could pull it off and I would not have to do all the driving. We decided, let's go. I called Anthony while he was on the bus and let him know. He sounded generally happy that we would be there.

Now, I have talked about small town living, but this is a small town. We had assumed that the game would be at the high school, but we were wrong. We ended up driving through the town of 5,000 people. All we had to do to find the field was follow the people wearing red. Yes, the whole town was there. I laughed that our kids would be easy to spot. They were they only ones wearing blue.

This team is a tough team. Being in a small town in a remote area, we don't have a lot of teams to choose from to play. Our league only has 4 teams total. We play other teams not in our league to gain experience. These teams from Idaho that we play are at the top of their leagues. So having said that, the Tigers lost 41-0. But there is a bright side to that. They lost by less then they lost last year. And their injuries where far less then last year. As a mother, I don't understand why we play these teams. Steve and Anthony explain it to me and I don't care. I don't want my baby all beat up for a game that doesn't count.

On to soccer.





Megan played two games this Saturday and won both. Both these teams made them fight for the wins. I often hear parents talk about liking soccer because it is safer to play. I sat next to the parents of Megan's good friend, as the Mom talked about her oldest soccer player. This girl has suffered 4 head concussions last year and she is out of soccer for good. My daughter made a killer save and hurt her knee.

But this is not why I mention this. Brittney, Megan's team mate is in the hospital today. They where not sure last night, but it looks like her spleen has ruptured. Our prayers go to Brittney and her family for a speedy recovery.

Here is Jason. He could care less about the football or soccer game. He just loves hanging out with his buds and eating nachos.

The Box Arrived

We had so much happening in August that I just never got to ordering Jason's school books. We have decided that I would home school him again this year. I did start Jason with school the same time the other two started back. We just did some review and started reading. The same basic thing they do at the public schools.

Yesterday the boxes came filled with books, science projects, math books and all kids of cool stuff. Even Jason got excited.



He help me unpack the boxes and is still playing with all the packing paper. He wanted to take a look at all the books he would be reading this year. Sonlight is heavy on the reading. Both in Read A Louds (ones I will be reading to him) and Readers (ones he will be reading on his own). A couple of books have really sparked his interest.

I think this year is going to be fun. We are studying US history, plants, and biology. During the summer I picked up some books full of different projects to go along with history. I am a little stressed out about the spelling book that we will be working with. It's called Sequential Spelling and it was originally used to help teach dyslexics how to spell. Things used to help dyslexics always sparks my interest since Anthony has it. The book is completely different then anything I have ever worked with before. As I flipped through it last night, the method of teaching spelling was very interesting. It kind of makes sense. One of the great things about home schooling is I can do what ever works for Jason.



The whole process of opening and organizing those boxes can be a little bit over whelming. Thanks Steve for being here and taking over last night. I could sit down, look over the books and get the lesson plans together. As you sit and look at all the books, you can't help but think, "how will we ever finish all this." But, I can speak from experience. We did it last year and loved it. Jason raised his reading level 2 grades, learned all kinds of things about history and amazed me with how fast he picks up math. I wasn't crazy about the science program last year, but this years looks better.

The best think about home school. As long as the weeks worth of work is done, we have Fridays off. Jason works hard to make sure that happens.

A Long Week

I started writing this post about something completely different. I then realized that somethings should never be online. However, it was a good start to a letter I will be writing this week. Let me just say one thing. Parents, if you ask your teenagers for their opinion.....listen. It is the most important thing we can do as parents. Listen to what our kids are saying, they just might surprise you. Along those same lines: Anthony, Kagan and Megan - I am very proud of you guys. You stood up for what you believe in and never stop.

Ok, enough of that.

New blog title picture. Yeahhhhh #80 is awesome. He made a killer tackle and his name was on the radio. Another fun fact about small town living. Football games are broadcasted on the radio.

We won this game 36 - 12. I had a crappy seat and didn't get very good pictures.

Next off to Megans game.

They won their game 7 - 2. There wasn't much action on her end of the field so not a lot of pictures.

Today the steam engine came through town.

Megan and Amanda playing around. I have some good shots of just the engine but I must not have uploaded them. Oh well.

Look at Megan, she is taking a picture to. I am so proud....

Gotta love this outfit she is wearing. You can't see the red socks she has on too. I have been calling her the big tomato.

That Time Of Year

Yes, it is that time of year again. Football and Soccer season. I actually love this time of year. Anthony's first game he will play in is tonight. He's playing special teams because he doesn't have enough contact practice in yet. We had to miss the first week of daily doubles because we were back in California. Not complaining and either is he. It's just the way life goes sometimes.

He did however, make the "Got Grit Club". The boys have to make 70% of all summer practices, camps and daily doubles. Which boils down to being at practice every day all summer except for weekends. Even with missing the first week of regular practice he made it. He gets a really cool equipment bag with his name on it, name on the wall in the weight room and most important.......when the team goes out for dinner......"Got Grit Club" members go to the front of the line. Trust me, this is huge. We got to Jack in the Box after the football team and had to get in line behind them. It took us over an hour to get our food. Have I mentioned that Anthony is now 6ft tall weights 158lbs and is all solid muscle. This kid has been working out.

Megan's first game is in Washington this weekend. One of the downsides of living in a small town, there just is not enough competitive teams around for us to play. So every Saturday we head over an hour out of town to watch her play. We are looking forward to this season. It's her last with the Select Soccer League. It just means we are taking another step in becoming a teenager. Next year it's high school baby. The team looks great, new cool uniforms. The coach let the girls choose socks and matching shorts. Megan got to help select the new goalie shirts and gloves. Of course you can count on it, that I will have pictures from both games.

So with that, I must go. Both kids games are out of town this weekend and I need to get ready. I don't plan on missing any of them this year. GO TIGERS!!!!!!!

Tired

That is how I feel this week, just tired.

The kids are back in school as of today. So that means Jason and I started back up with home school. This week is just review. At one point he looked up at me and said, "Mom, I am tired and want to go back to bed." Me too buddy, but we got it all done. Then we hit the couch with a warm blanket and took a nap. It was cold here today.

I never do well with the first couple of days of school. It's an adjustment but we will have it down by next week. I have football and soccer pictures to look forward to. Anthony is playing varsity football and we are once again off to Washington for Megan's soccer games.

So, instead of complaining about being tired anymore, I am going to do something about it.

Good night I am off to bed.

2 Years, 5 Months

This is a hard post to write. Roger was given 3 to 6 months and he fought for 2 years and 5 months.

We got the call Friday the 20th that he had passed. On Thursday we struggled with what to do. Do we pack up and head back to Ca or just sit tight. We decided that Steve would take one more train out and we would leave as soon as he got home. I went into over drive. Suit cases started getting packed and we would leave early Saturday morning. Well, much like life, nothing every goes as planned.

We got the call, Steve rushed home and like clock work the kids did what we have been talking about for 2 years. Each one packed their bags and did what need to be done to get ready. We were just waiting for Steve. As a last minute decision I decided to hop in the car and help Megan do her paper route.

Half way through the route, she hopped in the car, I looked behind me and saw a truck aways back. I pulled out and was hit. Bent my rim and crunched the front left side of our new car. I was emotional and never should have been driving. Here is where I want to thank Logan and Denise at American Family Insurance. They knew what was going on and made calls around town to see what they could do to get this car back on the road as soon as possible. Thank you Cody at Les Schwab for getting the car ready to go as fast as he could. I can't say enough about these two companies. If you ever need insurance or tires, they are the places to go.

I did need to go to the ER to have my neck and shoulder looked at. The other driver was ok, just very hostile. She yelled at me, "didn't you see me!" Of course the answer was no. I mean really, yeah I saw you and decided I had nothing else to do but crunch my car!!!!!

Anyway we left Saturday morning after the car was fixed. Which was about 3 hours later then we originally planned to go.

We were relieved to finally be in Sacramento and with Steves family. The services were beautiful and I love it when people tell their favorite stories. We saw family and friends we haven't seen in years. Reconnected with old friends. And reaffirmed just how important friends and family are.

I am impressed with how well my Mother in Law has handled the whole thing. She is even thinking about visiting us during wrestling season. Poor thing, she has no idea what she is in for.

It was an amazing week. Tears, laughter and lots of swimming (over 100 degrees while we were there). Megan celebrated her 13th birthday. As I watched my kids over the week I realized just how grown up they are becoming and just how proud Steve and I are of them.

As the week started to whined down, I leaned over to Steve and whispered in his ear a line from "Steel Magnolias." "I don't know how you are holding up but your hair looks wonderful."

I love you all.