Fishing and Faith

 The past few summers, our youth group has met on Tuesday nights during the summer at the home of some church members. This particular family owns a good bit of land and they have a large pond. The kids eat dinner (usually burgers and/or hot dogs), fish, and have a devotion. It has become a favorite of my boys and plenty of the other boys in the youth group as well (and several of the girls!). It's a hot time, but my children would stand beside that pond for HOURS to fish. James caught his personal best this summer and took it the next day over to a taxidermist to have it mounted for his wall for all time. I've never seen him so excited about something. We have some changes happening in the youth group right now, but I know that my boys hope that Fishing and Faith NEVER changes. Here's to many summers of evening fishing, friends, and becoming deeper in faith.

A Fall, a Fracture, and FSU

 Waaaaay back in June while the boys were at camp and Eddie and I were in the mountains, we got a bright-and-early phone call from our youth director letting us know that James had fallen playing basketball and had hurt his elbow. Activate: Grandmamma. Ughhhh. After a quick phone call to my sister-in-law who worked in a town close to James, she told us where to go for a walk-in x-ray. Because we were 4 hours away, Eddie's mom went and picked James up and took him to the urgent care where they looked at his elbow, x-rayed it, and sent him on his way in a sling. They were told a doctor would look at the x-ray and call us later to tell us what they thought.

That night while Eddie and I were having dinner, I got a phone call from the doctor who said that she didn't see a fracture on the x-ray BUT she did see evidence of a "fat pad/sail sign" that usually only appears if there is a fracture. She told us to keep him in the sling and to see an orthopedic doctor as quickly as we could to confirm the fracture and go from there. Double ugggghhhhh.

Because she called me after 6pm, I didn't get a phone call in to the orthopedic doctor until the next morning. It was a whole debacle of back-and-forth phone calls and we left it with the urgent care needed to fax James' x-rays to them before they would even make us an appointment. That was Thursday.

I think I called them back on Friday and never heard back from them.

SO...when we picked James up on Saturday we were just waiting for Monday to roll around.

MEANWHILE, James was supposed to leave on Monday for Swim Camp at FSU. Cue the tears. This was a VERY expensive camp with his club swim team and he'd been REALLY looking forward to going. On Thursday after calling the orthopedic doctor, I sent an email to the FSU camp and told them what had happened. They called me back and told me that it would be better to just cancel him (we had our fingers crossed that's what they would say, but I wanted THEM to tell me to cancel in hopes of getting some of our money back or giving us a credit for next year). It was such a disappointment, but also SUCH a relief to get some of our money back. They told us that the camp costs could be reimbursed, but he wasn't sure about the dorm cost. We wound up actually getting EVERYTHING back, though. He's looking forward to going NEXT year, but is bummed because a few of his teammates will be seniors this year and they won't go back next year.

In addition, we were cancelling/not committing to several swim meets in the meantime. He wound up missing TWO meets because of this injury.

Finally, on Monday (a week after he fell!) the orthopedic office called us and made an appointment for Wednesday. When we got to that appointment, they took more x-rays and as soon as the doctor walked in he said, "First of all, take that sling off - you don't need it." WhaaaaT? He said the doctor that read the x-ray was being VERY conservative and there was no break and he couldn't even see a fat pad/sail sign. Because they were conservative and because James couldn't be seen in ortho for another week after, he basically set himself back because he was in the sling for a week and didn't use his arm. He was cleared immediately for ANY activity that he felt like doing. He wound up taking about two weeks to get full use back - it was sore from being in the same position for a week and it was weak.

This whole thing was SUCH a bummer...but it could've also been MUCH worse. We were glad it wasn't broken! He was bruised and swollen so he definitely hurt it, but it could've been way, way worse. Whew!

Cherry Log, Part 3

 After The Bigfoot Museum, we had lunch in Blue Ridge at Fightingtown Tavern. Because EVERYONE told us to go to Mercier Orchards - we did! Summer is a little slow for them, but the market was HUGE and lots of fun to browse. I got a wine/cider slushy flight and picked up some apple cider donuts and maple syrup on the way out. It was so fun!

We left there and decided to drive to McCaysville, GA/Copperhill, TN - the cities with a line through the center diving Georgia/Tennessee! This was teensy with not a ton, but it was a fun little stop. We decided since we hit Tennessee, why not drive through North Carolina, too? Three states in about five minutes. Why not?

We headed back to Blue Ridge for more browsing, did a moonshine tasting, and had dinner at a place called Southern Charm.

And that was it! A quick little trip north and we were back in time to pick the boys up from camp!

Back to School!

 Well, I'm still working on getting caught up on our summer posts, but summer has officially ended for us. We went back to school yesterday!

This is a BIG year for us, as James moved up to high school. New school for him (this is his 7th school in his career - including preschools!), but it comes with an in-house aunt and several of his mama's good friends so he's in good hands! The HS has block scheduling so the 90 minute class periods will be a change for him. He has ELA and History this semester, which are his EASY classes. He's a little nervous about the load he will have in the spring with Math and Science at the same time. We shall see!

Will started his second year of middle school and felt MUCH more confident walking in this year. He's been a little apprehensive over the summer (especially about one teacher in particular), but after Open House he felt a lot more ready. We actually adjusted his schedule after school on Friday so he'll get two new connections classes on Monday - Weights instead of PE and Ag instead of Business.

Overall, BOTH boys had great days. They both got in the car in good moods and were talkative, which is NOT how it always is. 

We had MAJOR rain yesterday morning as we left the house (one area of our town got over 6 inches in an hour!!!) and the HS lost power at 9AM and it didn't come back on ALL DAY. So James' first day was in the dark with no AC. With a tropical storm rolling through on Tuesday, we hope we don't have a repeat of that in the coming week. What a weird way to start the year!

Cherry Log, Part 2

 So here's the part where I admit to you that I am...weird. If there's a disaster movie playing, I want to see it. If a movie has animals going crazy - it's probably one of my favorites. (Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Close Encounters top my all time favorites list.) I've loved all things paranormal and weird since I was old enough to read. I can vividly remember checking out books from the library on the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs. I also have a very distinct memory of seeing the Abominable Snowman walk through our yard in Lilburn when I was 4. (I am very well-aware that this didn't happen, but those giant, hairy legs - he was as tall as our house so all I saw was legs through the window - lives on in my memory!) I've watched all the Bigfoot documentaries and LOVED Finding Bigfoot a few years back! I am a believer! Eddie...is definitely not. 

Anyway, when I realized that Expedition Bigfoot Blue Ridge was just a few miles down the road from our cabin - I WAS IN. I expected it to be silly and small, but I was wrong! If you told me Disney Imagineers designed and created this place, I'd believe you. It was so well done!!! We spent a little over an hour browsing and reading all of the information. Anyone would enjoy this! It was so fun!

Sidenote: I stood in the parking lot here and sadly withdrew James from FSU Swim Camp. I'm so sad that some of his summer got cancelled. (I'll give the whole update in another post, but a few weeks were sad for him!)