It's Been a Long Road...

The cutest!

but I'm hopeful that Sadie is making progress with her bilateral knee surgery recovery. The vet said it could take 6 months post surgery for us to see any sign of real progress but I have. We are at about 4.5 months and I've been doing some therapy with her in our backyard (in addition to her 1-2 times weekly where I drive her 40 minutes away for her structured therapy).  

During our backyard sessions, she has been able to get up easily from a sit to a stand and then from a lying down position to a stand. I couldn't believe my eyes so I had to videotape her. See for yourself below.

This is like people rehab, really. She has to completely learn all over again how to stand up. Now it's harder when she's inside and doesn't have any real traction on our floors or carpets but outside she makes it look easy. Before the surgery, she would definitely struggle to get up even after her stem cell therapy. She could do it but it took a mighty effort. Now it's like no big thing to her. We just need to train her to tell her brain again where to position her feet to stand up. Often they are splayed out to the side and she has no idea how to tell her brain to get them underneath her. 

It's definitely been a long process - I mean we've basically been moving her on our own the last four years since we now first suspected she tore her knee. It's a lot of work to have a dog but to basically have a dog with special needs is like having four dogs! After this, I need a big long break with no animals! But Sadie will definitely live longer than Adler, I'm sure, because she's the most work!

Enjoying watching Hailey's soccer game

Backyard time

School, Homecoming, Football & Soccer

Austen finally started school the day after Labor Day. Due to construction on the high school, the district had intentionally delayed the start of the school year this year (and next) to get the most time over the summer in for renovations. Tom (being a school architect) said this is what happens when you delay 20 years worth of work and then try to cram it into 4 years.

First day of 10th grade

Anyway, I attended Austen's curriculum night last week and wish I had his teachers when I was in high school. Most are young, fun and interesting or maybe I'm just old now so they all seem young. He says his favorite classes are pre-engineering honors, chemistry honors and trigonometry honors. That definitely would not have been my top three choices in high school. More like my bottom three (and I wouldn't have been in honors in any of those). Coming in at the top too is his World Cultures class (I agree on that one). He definitely likes history. He doesn't mind Spanish (and his teacher is fun too). Last place is definitely English (which would have been my top choice!). I didn't mention PE because as Austen said, that grade doesn't count in my GPA. 

Soccer is in full swing too. He scored his first official goal of the season (against Uncle Mark's team) and their team had been doing very well until last night when they were dominating the #1 team in the state, scored the first goal and one of their top players (who had just scored the goal) goes down with a broken fibula with 12 minutes to play in the first half. The boys lacked composure after they saw their teammate get taken off the field in an ambulance and the other team capitalizes on this and scores two quick goals before halftime. We score another goal to equalize it in the second half and then just concede three more goals for a 5-2 routing. Hopefully, they can recover from this with two big games coming up. It's not going to be easy that's for sure. 

Football has been a totally different experience for Austen. He's enjoying it but definitely loves soccer and his soccer teammates more. He's learning a ton about steps to take to kick and how to strike the ball differently. He loves the big crowds and the pressure. He's got some great kick offs and field goals and PATs under his belt (only missing 1 of these). I think he has like 12 points total in 3 games. Not bad. Big Homecoming game tomorrow night under the lights for the sophomore football team. Then big soccer game on Friday before the Varsity football game. 

Saturday is the Homecoming dance. He decided not to ask anyone this year and said no dinner, just drop me off at the school and I'll let you know where I'm going for the after party (a bit scary for us parents now that he's hanging out with upperclassmen and getting rides from them). Completely different experience than last year much to Peyton and Hailey's chagrin.

Well, here's to sophomore year and hopefully a wonderful experience in sports and academics!

Concentration!

Homecoming door signs 

Kicking #6!

Busy, Busy and Busy

Hailey catches a fish

My three kids names are Busy, Busy and Busy. And they sure keep me busy. I'm their primary Uber (driving them to and from practices or events) and their primary parent volunteer. Currently, I'm co-president of Austen's high school boys soccer booster club (a lot of work!) while serving as chair of the Room Parent Committee for Hailey's school and also serving as her Brownie Troop Treasurer. Middle school is a little less volunteerism but I still worked Peyton's Back to School Day and am putting in hours for her swim team too. Not to mention the millions of emails and forms I need to fill out and just scheduling that goes on each and every day. So if you wonder why I've been delinquent with posting my blog, this is why! I do these posts as free form writing to get down significant events or not so significant ones. I write these quickly in between my tasks. So sometimes it's not edited and not perfect writing so don't critique that - it's just a journal entry so to speak! 

Anyway, last weekend I should've gotten an award! I was knee deep in helping to plan a big Senior Day event for soccer but then had to run to a baby shower with Peyton that was 45 minutes away early afternoon before rushing back for halftime and the after game activities. Luckily, Tom didn't have any kids that day except to get Austen to the soccer field so he stepped in and helped with some of my duties for Senior Day. I made it back before halftime only to see what surely would have been Austen's game winning goal called back. A VAR review would certainly have deemed it a goal (we watched the playback on a high school sports network channel). Bummer for him but I didn't have time to dwell on that. Needed to serve up an after game lunch to 30 kids and coaches before rushing home to do a quick change and drive another 45 minutes to Hailey's Brownie Campout. That was before getting Peyton and her friend (who was sleeping over) situated to head to the mall for dinner, shopping and a movie. Anyway, made it to the campout by 7pm. Luckily some great moms had already put up our tent but I realized I left my sleeping bag at home but made it work with an air mattress and a nice cozy fleece that I had brought. I had sent Hailey with her Troop Leader earlier that morning realizing that there was no way I could participate in the day's activities with her with my schedule. She had fun and was (somewhat) glad to see me that evening! 

We had a nice night with the girls hanging out and playing games while the moms caught up and had a little fun of their own. The campsite was beautiful with babbling brooks, a log cabin and running water (which made it so much better!). We broke down early the next morning before the heavy rain came and we were all home by 8:15am. It rained most of Sunday, and I was glad for the inside day of rest after what was a crazy Saturday!

Our tents! 

S'More time!

Troop shenanigans!

Austen's High School Soccer AND Football Debuts!

High school soccer tryouts started back on Monday, August 8. And, even though they weren't starting school until after Labor Day, the players still needed to be in attendance for tryouts, practices and games. So needless to say our summer ended just before August 8. 

Austen said he had a good few days of tryouts, and he ended up making the Varsity Soccer team with only two other sophomores (16 Seniors and 4 Juniors). We definitely weren't sure how much he was really going to play with this team being so heavy on the Seniors but now that we're about 5 games in, he's appearing to get some quality minutes playing 70 out of 80 minutes in most games. 

He takes a lot of corners and free kicks for the team too and is figuring out how to play against bigger and stronger players. He's working on getting better on his defending and knowing how far to be off of a player and how much creative liberty he can take to make some runs forward. In fact, I would describe Austen as an offensive player but now his role on this team is primarily defensive. It's going to be a season of learning and growth for him, and if he works really hard at it he can return to the Club season in November as a much improved player. That's what he's hoping for and he has some work to do to get there. He's figuring it out and where his place is amongst all these Seniors, and us as parents are figuring out how to give him some independence driving with the upperclassmen and attending their parties. It's a bit scary but we'll figure it out just like he is, but it's for sure a learning process for all of us.

So we have soccer, and then we get some messages from friends saying that Illinois changed their high school rules about allowing athletes to compete in two sports in the same season. Austen can now play soccer and football. 

I don't know if he's ever really kicked a real field goal in his life but we ventured out to Play it Again Sports to get a ball holder and he practiced some kicks before his tryout for the sophomore football team. They told him he made it and that was that. He picked up his football gear and played in his first game on Friday night. He does share the position with another sophomore soccer player so the coaches said Austen will take field goals and point after touchdowns and the other player will take the kickoffs. Well, the first play, the other kicker gets injured and Austen does all the kick offs and field goals for the entire game. He scores 9 points total and has a great first game. 

His teammates ask him, "So if you get a D1 soccer scholarship and a D1 football scholarship, which one are you going to take?" 

He easily replies, "Soccer, of course."

But what if you get a D1 football scholarship and a D3 soccer scholarship?"

He pauses and says, "I don't know, I'm going to have to think about that one!"

Scholarships aside, I just hope he has a great experience on two totally different sports teams this season (and that he does well in school without that study hall I wanted him to take but he didn't!).

Taking on his opponent in his Varsity debut!

Our #6 practicing his punting