We have a new teenager in the house! 13-years-old!

Here’s a snapshot of Cannon:

After closing his club soccer chapter, he’s had so much more free time. He’s turned his time and attention to tennis and he’s picking it up so quickly. He also just tried out for junior high volleyball and he made the team! So he’ll take a short break in tennis to focus on volleyball.

He loves to read. I often find him on the living couch or the game room couch turning pages.

Two of his best friends are girls. They live in the neighborhood and they’ve been his friends for years. In our area, where kids are abundant, friendships are largely based on proximity; who lives close enough to ride a bike to hang out. Junior high is a big change in friendships because the proximity circle grows a little more. He still has his best friends in the neighborhood but he’s developing some great relationships outside the neighborhood.

He is a creature of habit. As he’s worked to regain stamina/endurance after his health issue almost two years, he consistently runs on the treadmill. Everyone leaves for school and he goes and runs before showering and getting ready for school.

When he was younger, he loved playing games with Steve. He is still my gamer. When he has friends over, I always see him standing at the game closet making his selections.

Speaking of games – he is loving Secret Hitler and loves when he gets the invite to play with Hunter or Hallie’s friends.

He gets up early every Wednesday morning to go to the temple with his brothers and dad.

He is managing his health like a boss – he takes his medications without reminders. He tells me when he needs refills. He takes his blood pressure and records results and lets me know when it falls outside of his normal range. We never thought almost two years out he would still be medicated, but here we are. Taking it in stride.

He is a sensitive soul, just like his father. In fact, when I hear Steve’s parents or siblings talk about what he was like when he was younger, I feel like their describing Cannon. If I were to model my kids after someone, Steve would be him.

He’s a great storyteller. When he gets home from hanging with friends or attending an event, he does a great job at capturing the details and emotions in story form.

He looks like a teenager. His older brothers have helped shape his style by passing on clothing and style and I love the transformation.

He shares a room with Briggs and that is going about as well as you would expect. They get along so well and yet they fight just as well. I think they need a little more time together.

He’s got good taste in music and I enjoy his DJ skills playing music in the house.

He speaks Spanish beautifully and is a willing participant. Steve was just telling me how he jumped into a Spanish conversation at the doughnut shop with timely humor and had the older gentleman laughing.

Before he leaves for school, he comes and gives me a hug every single morning. He knows how to win his mom over.

He was so excited to join the Thursday morning AZ Brainfood group and he’s so helpful.

He’s actually really helpful at home. He recognizes need more than most and often sees me cooking dinner and offers to help. He will make sure the kitchen is clean after a meal and I love his attentiveness.

Happy Birthday buddy!

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Only one kid left at the elementary school color run! The kids start out so nice and clean with their bright white shirts. Briggs’ first couple of laps around the field left him relatively clean as he dodged the majority of the color stations.

But you can only stay clean for so long in a color run and before long his white shirt was a piece of colorful art.

The school has learned to time this race perfectly on a half day before fall break. So after a short run, Briggs was stripping clothes off to get in the car and head home.

It took some work to clean chalk out of those ears!

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Hunter had a soccer game late Friday night. After the completion of his game, the coach was taking a moment to talk to the team. The field next to us, girls teams around the same age as Hunter, finished up at the same time.

As I packed up my chair, I watched the girls make their way to the center of the field to shake hands. I turned my attention back to Hunter and his teammates, who were still huddled together, when I suddenly heard a commotion behind us. I turned just in time to see a fight break out between the girls.

This isn’t common in soccer, but it happens. Emotions are high. Something is said while players are shaking hands and common sense goes out the window. The scuffle can usually be stopped before it escalates and coaches and refs are right there to step in before it gets out of hand.

But this scuffle was different. This wasn’t just girls. This was parents. This was coaches.

I watched in disbelief as this scuffle escalated to the largest on-field fight I have ever seen – and I’ve been to a lot of soccer games. Dads were hitting dads. Coaches were hitting dads. Moms were hitting girls. Girls were kicking dads who had fallen to the ground. At one point, there were five separate brawls taking place in a 30 foot square. It. Was. Ridiculous.

The poor older ref tried stepping in to break some of it up and I think he realized he was powerless against the strength that was being used. There was only so much one person could do when the adults who should have been breaking it up were the ones throwing punches.

Our boys’ team saw what was going on and there were many rushing over, willing to lend a hand and help break it up. As parents, we were holding them back because the absolute last thing this situation needed was a bunch of 18-year-old boys jumping in on an already out of control brawl. (Not so ironically, they’re the same boys who have been known to join a fight in our games!)

So we sat on the sideline and watched. Police were called. It felt like forever before a field marshall showed up on a golf cart. Do you think the 16-year-old girl driving the cart was able to stop it? No. No she was not. But she called for reinforcements and another golf cart showed up. But by then, the fight had lost steam. People were tired. Some wilingly walking away bruised. I watched a teenage girl pull what appeared to be her dad off another guy and led him off the field.

Steve and I drove home baffled at what we witnessed. The best example of what NOT to do. Grown adults jumping in a girls brawl and then taking it up a few notches. What in the world are we teaching kids?

Obviously, there were some big emotions that game. I’m not sure who said what or who decided to make it physical. I’m not sure why the 4 coaches in the circle weren’t able to break it up. I’m not sure why a parent jumped in. But one thing is clear: Youth sports are no longer youth sports. Somewhere along the way, the adults have forgotten what the purpose is. There is no bad call, rivalry, name calling, foul, or poor sportsmanship worth losing control of yourself – and definitely not inflicting harm on someone else.

That night, they needed more adults. Adults willing to be the adults. Unfortunately, there is going to be some serious consequences for everyone involved. The players. The coaches. The parents. It was an ugly side of sports I hope I don’t have to witness again.

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After a summer of transitions and vacations, Hallie was anxious to get up to BYU and start college life. She made two large purchases: a laptop and a car. With that, she was ready to start the next chapter.

We made the 11-hour drive together and I thought stuff would be piled around us, but really she fit everything in the trunk! She had a friend’s homecoming talk and gathering the day we were supposed to leave – so we got a pretty late start. I was dreading the 2 am arrival time but we made the most of it. We switched off driving frequently and the later it got, the more creative we were. We read through old text messages and laughed. We rocked through old playlists and sang at the top of our lungs. We reminisced and shared memories and I knew in the moment that the drive was going to be one of my favorite parts of dropping her off at college.

Hallie is almost 21, but because she went on a mission out of high school, she is a true freshman, attending college for the first time. She had to arrive a few days before move-in day due to her job which gave us two days to explore and shop for her apartment. I’ve not spent much time on campus so it was new to both of us. She got her gameday gear and walked her classes.

My sister-in-law and niece joined us on move-in day and they were so helpful!

We made a successful ikea run. My niece just got married, so between a new home for her and an apartment for Hallie – Ikea was the perfect stop.

I highly recommend move-in day with helpers. They were with us the whole day, which made the process fun and helped me not dwell on the the fact that Hallie wasn’t coming home with me! The helped us move furniture, again, and again and again. That took half the day and I’m pretty sure there’s video evidence of us not being able to move any furniture because we were laughing so hard. We built storage cubbies, organized clothes and found places for all her shoes. If you want something organized – my sister-in-law is your gal!

Sidenote: Hallie was on her mission when she had to choose housing for the fall semester. She didn’t have anyone to room with, so she decided to pay for her own room in an apartment with 6 girls. The very next day, she contacted us and told us she found a girl in the mission and wanted us to switch her contract to a shared room so she could save almost $100/month. When we entered her room for the first time, I think she was slightly regretting that decision – her room was small and the furniture was large. But we made the best with what we had to work with and I think in the end she felt good about the space. And it was even better once we plugged in the Bath and Body Works Wallflower room scent and it didn’t smell like a gross apartment anymore!

We had spent four days together and I loved every minute. I didn’t want it to end, but I had to get back to taking care of the rest of my family. The next morning, we filled her cupboards and fridge with groceries and made one last Target run before she drove me to the airport. Saying goodbye was tearful, to say the least. I couldn’t help but vividly remember my own experience of being dropped off at college. I can still picture watching my mom drive away with tears in my eyes, wondering who in the world I was going to hang out with that night because I didn’t know a single soul.

History was repeating itself, but this time I was walking into an airport with teary eyes as Hallie made the drive back “home” without me. After getting her home from her mission, I had grown used to having her around again, and our time together this summer had been absolutely priceless. There is something so special about having your child home after 18 months apart, and I think I had quietly hoped I could hold on to that feeling just a little bit longer. But the truth is, she was ready to move on and that made the dropoff a little easier.

Unlike my own college experience, she already knew plenty of people and didn’t have to worry for a minute about who she would hang out with that night. Between cousins, mission friends, and high school friends, she has had a built-in support system from day one. Knowing she was surrounded by people who love her and would look out for her made leaving her a little easier, and for that, I’m so grateful.

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Our high school has a contract with a photography studio, so all the seniors are supposed to make an appointment and go in for a quick photo session. You’re not obligated to buy any of the pictures (and I’m not sure how many people actually do), but you do have to choose one for the yearbook.

Hunter timed his appointment to coincide with his haircut schedule. He didn’t want a totally fresh cut for his yearbook photo, but he also didn’t want his hair looking shaggy. 🙂

I went with Hallie to her appointment, so naturally, I thought I’d do the same for Hunter. Apparently, having your mom tag along is only acceptable if you’re a girl. Even though I’m a photographer and probably have more experience than the college kid taking his picture, Hunter wasn’t having it. (For the record, one of the sample poses legitimately looked like “Shots by Deb” from Napoleon Dynamite, with the guy resting his face on his fist.)

I wasn’t about to embarrass my 18-year-old by insisting on coming along, so I stayed home and let him handle it himself. He only had to call me once from the appointment to clarify something, so I count that as a success. He walked in the door with his proof booklet and already knew which photo he was going to select for the yearbook. He looks so old. He looks so much like Steve in high school!

It’s just the first of many “senior” moments. I feel like I just did this not that long ago and here we are again. Something tells me having a senior boy is going to be a whole different experience than having a senior girl!

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