time goes by

Every time I get interested in the Blog again, I have really good intentions.  Then I write a little and have a hard time keeping up.  This past year has been a whirl wind.  I know I wrote about Megan trying out for the Silver Creek Starz last year.  She subsequently made the team and it was a wonderful year.  She learned so much and has come so far in one year of training.  Most of all she grew emotionally and socially.  Megan has a rough time in our community.  She does not have a lot of friends.  She talks to a lot of people, but doesn't have a lot of FRIENDS.  This is very hard for me to understand because she is such a kind hearted child.  She always looks out for the "little guy". The group of girls that she became friends with through Starz see Megan for who she truly is.  No preconceived notions of who she is, or who they think she should be.  She is free to be herself.  For a mom of a pre-teen this is a dream come true.  We decided to stay with Starz again this year for a multitude of reasons.  The training she gets is top notch, the softball experience is great, but the friends are priceless.  Megan will be starting school in 1 week.  As she moves into this school year, I believe she will have greater self esteem to deal with the daily grind.We are very lucky that Megan is such a hard worker.  She will not be defeated and this too is a trait that a preteen needs to possess. We are so proud of her.
Joshua has had a stellar year too.  He completed kindergarten with very good grades.  He is a social bug.  He loves to be the center of attention and often his personality allows him to achieve that.  Baseball was his sport of choice over the summer and this year, his team won the championship.  His team was amazing.  The children that played on his team all come from wonderful families and we had such a blast supporting these boys and girls.  The boy that never threw a ball before this season, became the "clean up hitter" by the end of the season.  This fall he is playing football.  This is a sport that I thought for sure would  be "too much work" for him.  I thought he would hate it.  I was wrong.  He loves it.  He works really hard and can't wait to have his first game this weekend.  Josh is so independent.  He has a hard time doing things any other way than his OWN way.  That's ok.  We hope that he uses this determination as he grows up to fight the temptations that will come before him.  We are so proud of him too.
Dutch and I work hard to be good parents.  We spend all of our time with our kids and truly enjoy being with them.  We do things as a family and the biggest challenge this summer came when we had to separate to attend the kids events.  I call it "divide and conquer".  Those were the hardest days of our summer. The proudest moment came just last weekend.  Dutch was playing in a benefit softball tournament to raise money for a local scholarship fund.  Normally, It would be just Dutch playing.  But this year, he asked Megan to play on his team and later in the day, even invited Josh to play.  He was the only dad who allowed and WANTED his children to play on the team with him.  It was the first game that they all played on the same team.  I was so proud!