Luke did wonderfully last school year, although he didn't seem his happy self as often as usual. When he told me one day in the car that he wakes up happy every day, but when he gets to school that goes away, I knew we had to look at alternatives. St. Francis has been great for our girls, but the classroom setup and teaching style just wasn't working for Luke. 3 weeks ago he started at Allen Park Elementary and seems to be loving it. He's in a classroom with kids that are more at his level, and that's allowing him to keep working and stay focused on doing a great job like he always does. He misses his buddies, but he's already made new friends, went to a party this past weekend, and has really adjusted well. One of my favorite parts of the new situation is that I get to ride bikes with Luke to school and home from school every day. It gives us about 10 minutes each way of time for just the two of us, which is so precious.
Kristin and I had a really hard time with this decision, but in the end it was the right one. The older we get, the harder it becomes to change from our patterns. But as you'll see later in this post, we got a chance for spontaneity over the summer.
Luke is playing guitar, he's learned parts of Enter Sandman, Back in Black, Smoke on the Water, Simple Man and Iron Man among others. He's a gifted young man. He's showing a renewed interest in playing baseball again, and asked if I could set up some golf lessons and take him up to the course to play. I'll definitely do that, and look forward to spending time with him out on the course.
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Claire has probably had the least amount of change over the past 11 months. Her school year had the typical bumps that comes with 6th grade. Feelings of being left out, girls being nasty to her, spending LOTS of time on her hair and nails in particular...all things Claire has been dealing with. 7th grade seems to have started out better than 6th ended, so I am hopeful that her friends have moved through their phase of exclusion, are all more comfortable with themselves, and can get back to being nice girls to each other. Claire made the 7th/8th grade volleyball team, she was very excited about that. She an excellent athlete, so it wasn't a surprise to the rest of us.
Claire also had a terrific travel basketball season. She grew a lot, figuratively, over the course of the season. She played a lot of minutes, against excellent talent, and played well. She was named the MVP of one tournament, repeated as the State of Florida free throw champ in her age group (made 60 out of 65), and her team made it to the state championship. I don't know how long she's going to continue to want to play travel hoops though. As she's getting a little older, the distraction of hair, nails, boys, etc. seems to be drawing her away a little. Obviously that sort of bums me out because I enjoy watching her play so much. But as long as she sticks with it at school, I guess that's OK.
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Olivia has experienced the most change since my last post, and it's been a whirlwind for her since about April of this year. She graduated from St. Francis in May, preceded by a graduation dance and a class trip to Busch Gardens. I was fortunate to be able to chaperone on that trip...what a blessing. I got to watch her have so much fun with her friends. It allowed me to remember back fondly to my 8th grade trip, running around the park with my friends, kings of the hill in our own minds. That's how she looked and seemed to me, and it was great.
After the dance we had about 20 kids over to our house. They were all very nice, and it was a great way to culminate the 10 years she spent with many of these kids at SFX. There were several kids I have known since they were 3 or 4 years old at our house. They were just babies back then. There was one boy left once everyone else left, his mother was late picking him up. I sat and talked with him for about 20 minutes. That's when it hit me how much they had grown. We talked about baseball and music, high school, vacations and things like that. Olivia sat on the couch and kind of just listened, I wondered what she was thinking about. She had been crying when I got to the gym to pick her up. I thought something was wrong, but it turns out she didn't want it to end because she knew her time at SFX was basically over. I'm glad that SFX provided so many great feelings for her, and I'm glad we were able to make that happen.
At her graduation, the principal and assistant principal stood and gave academic awards up on the altar. There were a couple of special awards, for different things. Then a representative from Bishop Verot High School, where Olivia now attends, came to the altar. He was presenting an award to a student that exemplified leadership, Christian values, determination and all the values you would want your child to have. It is named after a former teacher at Verot. As he was talking, it struck me...he's describing Olivia! When he was just about to announce the winner, I had this flush feeling come over me, I knew it had to be her. Sure enough, he said Olivia Woolam, and all the people in the church began a loud applause. Several of Olivia's teachers began to tear up. It felt so good for her, and for Kristin and I obviously. It was such a superb way to end her SFX life, and so well deserved.
Olivia immediately started playing basketball with our Verot team, going to camps over the summer at the University of Tampa and The University of Miami. She played well, and fit in with the team. One of the seniors had a team sleepover, and Olivia joined them. She's doing wonderfully with the team, and I'm sure she will continue to thrive.
School started for Olivia a couple of weeks ago, and she has experienced so much already. They had a freshman retreat, where they do service work, spend time with each other and seniors, play some games and sleep on campus at school. The next day there is a mass, with parents included. She was so EXCITED, even after the retreat!! She told us all about it, some of the new kids she met, etc. Last Friday was the first home football game, which we all attended. I enjoyed sitting and just getting to spend some time talking with my beautiful wife, while the kids ran all around the stadium. It was nice. The next night, Olivia went to her first high school dance, TWIRP. The girls ask the guys to this dance, and sure enough Olivia asked a boy she didn't know 3 weeks ago. Overall she had a fun time she says, even though she was introduced to high school girl behavior when someone started flirting with the boy she asked. Such is life in high school.
That's life with the kids right now. I've left off so many things that they have said or done over the past 11 months, too many to recount here. But they are in my heart. They are so beautiful, all three of them. They seem happy, they care for others, and each other. They are my lifeblood. I love how they think they can do anything (and they can), they always see the good in others, in things, in circumstances. They are wonderful role models.
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