Another Week Gone By

What to report on this week? As I look through my pictures of the week, I don't see fun things, I see real life. I see pictures from work events, pictures of receipts from bills paid and activities registered for. I don't see much that makes for a fun and exciting blog.

This week was actually really difficult. CC was not feeling well. Lots of tears were shed by her and by me. She has started having panic attacks and that compounds the situation. Tuesday, we were both at our breaking point and we ended up at the ER, just to leave without answers once again. Thankfully, we had a great follow up appointment with the doctor on Wednesday and came away with some solid action steps. We are not over this, not by a long shot, but we started having a few glimmers of hope later in the week.

Adding to this, work has been crazy for both Jeremy and I. He was only able to work from home one day last week and I had multiple evening work activities for the second week in a row. I just have to make it through one more week of September and then work should calm down significantly for me. 

While this week was tough, we ended with some fun yesterday. It was another busy Saturday. We had a volleyball game, a soccer game, and two basketball games. We never have a shortage of things to do.

Next week, Merrick is scheduled to take his driving test for his license, so stay tuned for more on that next week. Fingers crossed for him!

Fall Sports

 As promised last week, I'm here today with an update on the kids' fall sports that are now in full swing.

Merrick- Merrick is playing fall basketball. He tried out for two club teams, and made both teams, but decided to play for a team that our family friend put together. They will be called Willamette Select. They started practicing this week and games start next week. He is pretty excited for the fall season and thinks his team is going to be pretty good. I don't have any game pictures yet, but I do at least have a picture of the jerseys.

Merrick is also assistant coaching Elsie's soccer team, the "Fire Pugs". He is really pulling his weight as the assistant coach this year. Jeremy got caught at work on Thursday and Merrick ran practice all on his own. The girls did not make it easy on him, but he held his own!

Carrigan- Carrigan is doing both dance and volleyball, when she is well enough to participate that is. Dance is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and volleyball is Tuesday and Thursdays with games on Saturdays. She is very busy and we are working REALLY hard to find out what is going on with her and get her feeling better so she can keep up.

Elsie- Elsie had her first "Fire Pugs" game on Saturday. While it did not go the way we would have wanted, she had a great time. She is loving having her dad and brother as the coaches.

As for Jeremy and I, we are just trying to keep our heads above water. We have both been really busy at work. On top of that, helping CC is becoming a full-time job in and of itself. It's a busy season for sure, but we will get through this. We always do.

Merrick's Sweet 16

 What a whirlwind week it has been. Do I also say that? Why does life never seem to slow down? In any case, here we are again at the end of another week. This week fall sports started up again. Merrick had basketball tryouts with a few different teams, Carrigan started dance and volleyball (all while feeling terrible and barely making it through most days), and Elsie started soccer.  I’ll probably save pictures and a more in depth discussion of all that for next week. Today I want to talk about the biggest event of the week, Merrick’s 16th birthday.

How is it possible that Merrick is 16? For years we have told the kids they could not eat on the couch until they had a driver’s license because 16 seemed impossibly far away. And now, inexplicably, we are here. Unfortunately for Merrick, DMV appointments are ridiculously hard to come by these days so he won’t get his license for a couple of weeks, but we still celebrated him as best as we could.

On Friday, his actual birthday, we started the day off with birthday cinnamon rolls. He then had to rush off for seminary and school but I excused him from one class so he could go take an extra long lunch with his friends. After school, we went to the rec center so he could workout and shoot while I took Elsie swimming. We then went to dinner and came home for presents and his request of birthday rainbow sherbet. For his birthday he got some golf balls from his sisters, some money and gifts cards from his grandparents, some random gifts, like a new watch and sweatpants from Jeremy and I. His big gift was a shooting machine that we preordered and should hopefully be delivered this month. While I hope he felt like his birthday was special, our hands were a little tied with school and work, but we were able to make up for that yesterday.

Yesterday, Jeremy and I took Merrick and Colvin down to the U of O game in Eugene. Jeremy had gotten AMAZING tickets through work and we made a day of it. We left early to get down there so we would have time to get some lunch before heading into the stadium. The game itself was tons of fun! It was a complete blowout, we won 69 to 3, but the energy in the stadium was fantastic. After the game we went down to the field and got to exit out through the tunnel. We stopped for dinner on the way home and battled traffic along the way. In the end, it was about a 12 hour day but such a blast!

I’m so glad we had the last few days to celebrate Merrick. The last 16 years have certainly had their ups and downs but being his mom was worth every second. I hope he always knows how special he is and how much we love him.