Three Kids and a Dog: 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!