September Life

Heart be still...I am so blessed with such a great husband! I LOVE this picture. I say it frequently, but to see my boys and their daddy together makes my heart full. John Gannon and Jackson are blessed to have such a great dad.

Thank goodness for a camera that date stamps pictures when you put them on your computer! Otherwise, I am not sure I would even remember what to write about! In this post I plan on just sharing some pictures and memories this past month so that our friends and families can see what all we have been up to the past month. As for John's broken bones, he is healing well! We have some of the coolest friends. When we got back from MS, our friends Ted and A.M. from Knoxville came to visit and guess what they brought John? A scooter and a folding chair with a leg prop!

He quickly mastered the scooter and was proud that he could get around in stores (and back out to the vehicle) quicker than any of us. As always with John's personality, we had to just sit back and let him get confident with the crutches and scooter. Once he got confident, he excelled. He ended up hiking up a (steady inclined) trail/road with me on crutches at Go Forth. We had taken Jackson and his friend, Brock, there to play, and they wanted to go up further and play in a pool. I was a little hesitant but he insisted he could do it!

The weekend that John and I returned from MS, we were able to share dinner with our friends, Ted, A.M., Bode and Evrette (From MS)!  Our boys get so excited to see their MS friends. I cannot say thank you enough to those who took the time to make a visit!

As for Jackson, he is busy with football. This year he has had to adjust to playing a completely new position on offense. He gets to block instead of running the ball. Bless him, he was so lost at first. He would come home and ask Johnny what in the world he was suppose to be doing. His coaches have been so kind in repeating things to him over and over--he even noticed. On defense he sometimes plays that position that he was good at last season--running down those who get away. He continued doing well at that--until after his brother broke his leg. The last few weeks I have noticed he hasn't even been running hard. I could tell when he was running alongside 3 of his teammates--he stayed with them the whole time, and I knew he could have run ahead of them all and made the tackle. I debated on talking to him about it, but decided to give him some time. I even told John 3 weeks ago that I thought Jackson was scared (a trait I have NEVER seen in the child). I am glad that I waited about bringing up the topic. Tuesday night on the way to a scrimmage game I could tell something was wrong with him . When I  asked him what was going on, he started crying saying he was afraid he was going to break his leg. He said he wants to get past the fear but can't. He said I know I could have made a lot of tackles in the last games but I didn't because I was afraid I was going to get hurt. I want to stop it in my brain. So, we did a little CBT and rehearsed some thought stopping techniques. I am so thankful he is getting to go through this. I think it is heathy for him to be able to go through this mental battle at his age. Will he overcome it? I have no clue. I know he wants to, he definitely doesn't want to quit, and he had the courage to talk about it--which is usually the hardest part! Oh the mental wars he will have to fight throughout his life...this is great practice!

Granny and Debbie (Johnny's sister) came to visit during Labor Day! They got to go to a ballgame, and we took a trip down the river with Debbie. At the end of the rafting trip we paddled to an old abandoned town/village on the Ocoee. Caney Creek was in existence from 1912-1943. It was a complete town that housed the workers for the flume line and dams. They parked on the Hwy. and walked over a 150' suspension bridge across the river to get to the town. The only things remaining are some of the walls and concrete pads of the houses and building. It was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not as the only town that never had cars on the streets!

All 4 of us made a trip to MS a couple of weeks ago. John got his cast off and put into a walking cast to transition to becoming full weight bearing. He is pretty much walking on his own now--with a slight limp. His biggest accomplishment during all of this was removing his own stitches last week! He was so proud! I thought that was a pretty good science lesson!

And for the final bit of excitement, Jackson got to take his maiden voyage down the Middle Ocoee in the ducky with Johnny. He was pretty thrilled. He has rafted 3 times and been in the ducky once now, he thinks he is ready to kayak it! 

I drove to the dam to meet them as they got started. The section of river behind our campground ends at the dam where the middle section begins.

Do you wonder how homeschooling is working out in the forest?  My next post will be an update about our school efforts since we have gotten in school mode!

Live a Meaningful Life!