GO KNIGHTS!!!

I am presently at school, enjoying our teams' first victories!  We don't normally start our season this late in the year, but for one reason or another, here we are.  I think we can look forward to a good season this year in both volleyball and basketball.......not that we are so good that we'll blow everyone else away, but our teams practice their hearts out each week and are striving to do their best.  Only our girls have played so far, but both JV and Varsity won!!

Ashley played her very first official volleyball game today.  She's in seventh grade this year and excited to be on the JV team.  For the past couple of days, all I've heard from her is, "I can't wait for our first game!"  This morning she woke up and said, "Mom, today's our first game."  But her voice held a tinge of anxiety which only increased as the day wore on.  She began to get more and more nervous as game time approached, so afraid that she would make some horrible, glaring mistake.  (I began to seriously think that she would wind up throwing up!)  However, she held herself together just fine and played quite well (no prejudice here).  Coach even left her in for all three games, which greatly boosted Ashley's morale.  She's following in her older sisters' footsteps as a good volleyball player!

We've decided to switch Dale over to all PACES as he seems to do so much better working at his own learning speed.  We'll order the PACES now, but he probably won't begin them until next semester starts; this way we get a definite end-of-semester grade in each of his classes so far.  The possible negative of Dale having to stay in the Learning Center most of the school day will hopefully be offset by the positive of his grades improving.

Dale is growing by leaps and bounds---that might not be an apt comparison!  Dale is growing by shuffles and jerks.  :-)  He's taller than me (no great feat); he's taller than Katie now (slightly better achievement); he's grown so much in the last year that he'll pass Mandie soon and challenge Dad's height before he's done.  We tease him about the "caterpillar" on his upper lip......which I have to help him shave because, each time I envision trying to explain to the ER doctors why my almost fifteen-year-old son sliced off his upper lip, I shudder!  He has absolutely no excess fat on his body; his arms are long and bony; but his grip is super strong.  Sometimes when we are holding hands, walking together, and he feels shaky, he will tighten his grip on my hand until I feel like he's going to break my thumb right off!  And, of course, when I mention this, Dale just sort of shrugs his shoulders and chuckles like, "What did you expect, Mom?  I'm stronger than you!"  I threaten on a bi-weekly basis to walk off and leave him standing there to make his own way to wherever he's going, but so far I haven't carried through on my threat.  (I'm beginning to think he doesn't believe me!)

Well, tomorrow is the last day of school this week.  One more week before Christmas break!  The students have not been too crazy to handle, just crazy enough.  Sometimes they're bouncing off the ceiling which makes me want to climb the walls, but we've been able to keep our feet on the ground and still reach for the sky.  How's that for a mind-bender?!

I love the Christmas season, not just for the lights and food and presents, but because I get reminded every day to thank God for sending His Son to be born to die for my sins.  What an amazing gift God gave mankind that day!  It goes against all reason to suppose that the great God Who formed all things would create man, watch him walk away, and then choose to die for man to win him back.  Are we really that important to God?  The answer is---YES.  God loves us beyond all human comprehension, beyond all understanding, beyond all reason, beyond all boundaries, beyond all time limits, beyond all explanations.  He simply loves........us.  Thank You, Lord, for showing us true love that day millennia ago when You first formed the plan for our salvation.  You are truly a wondrous God, One worthy of all praise and all glory for ever.

Galatians 4: 4 - 5  "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."