I have never been so relieved for the calendar to be October 1st. Natalie and I ate breakfast together while watching Hocus Pocus 2 on my iPad before heading to her softball games. It was a perfect fall morning and Natalie’s team played the best I have ever seen them play. It was an easy win. She had an hour in between games so she got chicken nuggets from Wendy’s and we went to ARC Thrift Store to see if there was any good Halloween stuff. We didn’t find anything for Halloween but we find clothing and books to buy. Lol. Although we played a much better team for the second game Natalie still had an amazing hit her first time at bat and fielded well. I did kind of feel bad cheering for the Hurricanes after what hurricane Ian did to Florida this week so I only cheered by using their mascot once in two games. Lol.
The next morning we listened to General Conference after baking cinnamon rolls and brownies. It was fun to see how excited Natalie was to help me make treats and watch Church on tv instead of going to the building. Michelle listened too while working on her amazingly done social studies project. I loved her creativity and effort. She said she enjoyed it but also said she felt like she lost a weekend over it. True! Michelle only stopped to watch Hocus Pocus 2 with Natalie on Saturday and only stopped on Sunday to take a break reading a book outdoors in the perfect weather for a while. I heard that Michelle was the only student to do her presentation technology free, that the teacher showed another class her project, AND her teacher gave her a Rockin’ Rattler award for it. It absolutely made her day when the teacher wouldn’t let her take it home on Monday to make any changes and it made her week to get that award. I am so proud of her and so grateful for her teacher (and glad I went to parent teacher conferences to let him know she has a tendency to work way too hard in his class). Natalie's parent teacher conference went really well too! Her teacher is magnificent and we both think Natalie is simply brilliant and hard working and kind and all the wonderful things you would want to hear from a 4th grade teacher about your child.
The first Wednesday of the month found Natalie and I at Activity Days together sewing stuffed animals thanks to some great preparation and donation of supplies by my mom. Thank you, Mom! I don’t think I could do this calling well without your support! I was wearing Danny’s medical boot to the activity because when I came down the stairs the night before I landed on my right foot incorrectly and it felt like every joint in my ankle popped all at the same time (like people popping their knuckles) and my knee was sensitive to the touch. I wore one of Hubby’s ankle braces to work but wanted something more protective to wear to the activity after being on my feet all week doing things like wheelchair lifts while one of my coworkers was sick. One of the moms who had known about some of my potential country song circumstances took one look at the boot and said, “You can’t catch a break, can you?” I replied, “Oh, October is better.” Little did she know that while Hubby was at the gym a weight dropped on his right foot, severely bruising his big toe so that the two of us had matching limps that night. It made me wonder why I perceived October as being better. I think it is because I have a couple tender mercies to look back on. While I am at work I remember the Rattler Run and the joy it brought me to help our students have a wonderful time going through the obstacle course. I was so happy I was almost crying that day and I can look back on that moment as lifting me up when I was sad neither one of my middle schoolers could participate that day. The other tender mercy that keeps me going at home was a Sunday morning last month when Michelle, Natalie, and I got in my car to go to Church and I was seriously doubting if I had it in me to teach Primary that day. When I started the car Green Day’s song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” came on the radio after I had been singing it to myself and I just knew that I could indeed keep going even though I felt so spent and so empty. We are taking it one step at a time and trying our best in the moment. God can handle the rest.
Natalie's half birthday meant baking her favorite kind of cookie in the morning and playing her last two softball games of the season in the afternoon. After the second game the sun began to set and their head coach showed off his photo bomb skills. It was the perfect way to end some great 10U fall ball.
It was a joy to watch Kate play in the breast cancer awareness game at her high school with Natalie and Kate's birth mother. She got to meet both sets of parents for Kate's best friends, A & P, and P's mom even gave the talk about her current battle with breast cancer. She did an amazing job and I felt lucky that Kate has such a good relationship with her best friends moms. It takes a village and I think we have a pretty good one around here. Oh, and Kate had 100% great serves that night. She has been so very busy with volleyball and I am so impressed she has been able to keep up her grades at the high school level. Only a couple weeks left and then club volleyball begins the very next week but at least that will be 3x/week instead of 5x/week (which sometimes means not getting home until 9pm or later more than once a week) and we won't have any games/tournaments until January. I certainly am impressed by this girl, even when climbing over a fence to leave band night early was pretty comical.
I really need to give a shoutout to Hubby for helping so much with the dishes while we waited for the new dishwasher to be installed. I was about to have a count down to dishwasher arrival day. It happened to be the same day that Danny went to the neurologist so my mom took Maisie to her house to play with Piper on Wednesday and then came back the house on Friday to be there for the install. Thank goodness because I am so excited to have a dishwasher again. I feel so spoiled! And the neurologist appointment? Let's just say I think the hour long drive was totally worth it to be able to talk to an expert that also played football in college. Danny is cleared to return to non contact sports like baseball and basketball (even though we did talk for a while about whether basketball is really safe or not). To say Danny is excited is an understatement! I am relieved because I really didn't know how much longer this guy could survive without his sports. I also thought it was interesting that Danny is not allowed to play football or go snowboarding until January. We talked for a while about playing tackle football in high school next year and I think the doctor and I have Danny convinced that it isn't worth the risk for him after this accident. I'm also including a photo of Danny when he came home at lunch time with me one school day last week. He had gone to Terror in the Corn and the spinning and strobe lights were really hard on him. His friend, JH, had to walk Danny out with Danny's eyes closed. I am so stinking grateful for that friend. It was a reminder that Danny hasn't healed all the way yet. He missed so much of 4th period during Quarter 1 that we got permission from the principal to start over with Algebra Quarter 2 (next week) with a BYU Independent Study class. So Danny will now officially be coming home for 4th period and working on that, hopefully completing the course by Christmas and then we will re-assess. It was actually the counselors idea because I didn't like the idea of him repeating the math he did last year. (I had originally asked if he could just switch teachers since he and his got off on the wrong foot and weren't a good fit.) I think she got the idea from the fact that Michelle and I had been talking for weeks and Michelle had already been working with the counselor to get her a auditory processing disorder break during the day since the students aren't allowed to eat lunch outdoors anymore. So Michelle will be coming home 4th period as well but she will be missing language arts so we are signing her up for a BYU Independent Study class as well. I guess we should thank Michelle for paving the way and coming up with the idea so that when her brother got knocked silly and had to come home with headaches for six weeks we had another math option open to us. My parents will be helping out on days that I work and I am grateful they are on board with the idea. I really want to keep working at the middle school even if my two middle schoolers won't be there all day anymore. I am also so grateful I am only supposed to be working on A days this year because I wouldn't want my parents to have to help out every single afternoon.
After the doctor's appointment we drove about 15 minutes to Dave's Hot Chicken for lunch. Danny had to sign a waiver in order to eat their "reaper" chicken tender. The first bite seemed to be just fine but the second or third bite began to give him a run for his money. Danny wisely left that tender half eaten and he sure was glad to have a vanilla shake to help him handle the heat! There was no crying but I think he came close. Dave's Hot Chicken is Danny's new favorite chicken spot and he can now say he defeated the “reaper.” We also checked out a skate/shoe shop and walked around a little before Danny test drove a really nice mountain bike at REI. Boy am I lucky the employee stayed out on the test track with us because that $3,000 bike broke while Danny was riding it. I'm sure glad they knew my son wasn't doing anything wrong so I didn't have to pay $3k for a busted bicycle. What a memory. On the way home we stopped at another shoe shop and traded in my awesome Nike Polaroids that just killed my feet. I tried on lots of shoes and it turns out none of the SB style shoes are comfortable to me no matter what the size. So Danny helped me pick out a new pair that are comfy and fun and it was a great little experience. By the way, the dog at the store, Gracie, might be the most well behaved two year old canine I have ever met. On Saturday Danny slept in and then we went to the rec center with his bestie, C, in the afternoon. I finally worked out in the gym for the first time since buying my annual membership eleven months ago. Doh! It actually was pretty great and then I ran a couple errands like picking up Maisie from my parents house and then picked up the boys to go home. After dropping C off at his house Danny and I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and he loved it. I think I laughed even more than he did. It has been so fun to hang out with this kid this weekend.
Where were the girls and Hubby while Danny and I were doing things like eating dinner at Smashburger and buying a skateboard with O? They were in Moab camping with cousins and friends. We had all wanted to go but with Danny's neurologist appointment and wanting to try out for C's competitive basketball team Hubby and I decided to leave me behind while he drove his truck and a rented hard sided trailer to Utah. It sounds like they had a marvelous time with lots of hiking, good food and great company. I’m so glad they got to go!
Danny had a blast at tryouts and we even got home after my Hubby and daughters did. Partly because these guys just had to eat before they died. Lol. They certainly are entertaining.
P.S. Gorgeous rainbows we've been having around here lately and the owl that spends a lot of time in our maple tree but also an entire morning on our swing set, even with some blue jays tried to convince him otherwise. He made the neighbor's Halloween decorations look even better as I looked out from our kitchen.
P.P.S. I do not appreciate these little creatures destroying my grass. Hopefully the stuff Hubby purchased and put down does the trick. We had perfect weather for yard work at least.
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