While Alex was off traversing rivers in Samoa, the kids started school back at home. Owen is a senior this year, Weston is a sophomore, and Savannah is in 8th grade. She's still at the junior high and rides the bus 3 mornings a week and every afternoon. On Tuesday and Fridays, she has 0 period choir at 7:55am, so we have to take her in those mornings. Savannah's other elective this semester is art, which she really enjoys and is good at too.
Owen and Weston go to a scripture study class at the church every school day from 7:00-7:50am. Owen does the driving and also drives them to school most mornings (even though they're only about a 1/2 mile away from school). Weston bikes in some mornings because it only takes him about 3 minutes (quicker than driving), as he found a pretty quick route through the neighborhood that avoids the big traffic light at the corner. Weston is doing cross country, track, and jazz band as electives this year. He did cross country this summer with the school team and had a camp week August 10-14th, with a camping trip a couple of nights as part of that. He decided not to do marching band again this year, since it was such a huge time commitment. He still plays trombone for jazz band, which meets on Tuesday and Thursdays after school.
Owen's year is not turning out as originally planned, but it may be an even better year for him with his new plans. He did varsity summer league basketball with the intentions of playing on the varsity team this year. However, in August, he went to try-outs and didn't actually make the team. There were 14 spots available and he was number 15. The coach said he was welcome to keep practicing with the team in the first couple months of off-season. There were 4 guys playing football that indicated they wanted to be on the basketball team. Owen could try to earn a spot from one of those guys, or maybe someone would change their mind and not play. Owen decided to work for a spot on the team. However, during the try-outs, he also got an elbow to the nose pretty hard. When it started bruising and still felt really tender after a few days, we decided to get it checked out. It turns out that he fractured his nose, and the doctor said he should avoid contact sports for 6 weeks while it healed. Well, that 6 weeks was basically the time that he had to work to earn a spot on the team... So then he started thinking more about theater and music, something he had already been wondering if he should pursue this year. He talked to the theater teacher to see if that option was still open to him this year, being part of the musicals. It was possible, so then Owen just needed to make the decision. This decision also impacted his volleyball season, as he couldn't do both volleyball and the spring musical (both 4th period electives). Basically he was giving up his senior year sports to try out something new. In his father's blessing before school, it mentioned that he would have to make some hard decisions this year. I know this was one of them. He did decide to go the music / theater route this year. I think it was a good decision. He didn't actually have a spot on the basketball team and there was only one volleyball senior last year, so it's possible that he could have not really done anything this year if he didn't make the volleyball team either. He may have regretted not trying theater AND possibly not participated in sports either. All his best friends are also doing theater and music as well, so he's going to have a lot of fun doing this with them.
When talking about this with him after he made his decision, we realized that Owen breaking his nose was probably the best way that the Lord could have led him to make his decision. He didn't break anything that would impact his ability to do music or theater or keep him from doing all his daily tasks, but it was just enough that he couldn't participate in basketball. Getting that elbow to his nose seems like an odd catalyst for a decision, but it was what pushed him into doing what he probably would find the most joy in this year. But he does really love sports too and wanted to finish it out without feeling like he quit, so it was a tough decision. We just remarked at how the Lord works in mysterious ways. I know he'll have a great year because he's willing to be led by his heart and recognize the hand of the Lord in his life.
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