Tough Decisions

The days have gotten short and gray, but life rolls on at a fast and furious pace. Jenna wound up her fall semester on Thursday and has moved home for the bear. The boys' mid-terms are this week. Hard to believe Christmas break is right here.

STATE CHAMPS!
Congratulations to the Davidson Academy Bears for winning the Division II-A football state championship! They have completed an undefeated season. Our cousin, Wil, has been playing on the team all four years. During the championship game, which was on November 30, he lead the team in tackles and caught a pass in the end zone for a touchdown. What a way to end his high school football career! There has certainly been a lot of excitement around school. Ben's friends, Corbin and Ian, spent the night with us before the game, and Vicki took all the boys to the game the next day.

IN OTHER SPORTS NEWS...
As the football post season has been winding down the basketball season has gotten underway. We have a pretty deep bench and the boys have played very hard. Still, the absence of those players who also play football was felt at the beginning when we lost our first three games. I think we're hitting our groove now, though. Last night's win brings our record to 4-3. I've been soaking in watching Ben out on the court.

Also, the Cross Country banquet was Monday night. It was really nice to hear the coach talk about all the runners on the team, and bittersweet when she got to the seniors. They all got nice pictures of their time on the team. Ben's picture is a cool shot of him running. It looks like he could run right out of the frame.

THANKSGIVING
I need to back up and mention Thanksgiving here. This is unusual for us, but we traveled this time. We left for Virginia right after school on Tuesday before Turkey Day, and enjoyed the holiday with the Jones family. There were all the usual activities along with our Thanksgiving meal. Even with all the eating we managed to work in a double-elimination ping pong tournament. By the end everyone had to concede that Uncle Will is still a force to be reckoned with. Our time in Virginia was quick. We headed back home on Friday. Once home we tore into putting up Christmas decorations.

A FUN DATE
Getting back to more current news, Vicki's birthday was Monday. We've been too busy to celebrate, but plan to work in some movies Vicki wants to see after Christmas. She and I did have a fun outing last Sunday. The Robertson County Historical Society put on a tour of homes and we decided to take that in. I used to walk a lot on my lunch break when I worked in Springfield, and there were many days I wondered what the insides of the houses I was walking by looked like. I also liked to imagine what the street I was walking on looked like, say, 100 years ago. Well, three of the homes I used to walk past were on tour, so at least I know what they look like inside in 2018. The best part, though, was just having a few hours with few external distraction to enjoy with Vicki.

A TOUGH DECISION
In the mix of going to ball games, heading out of town for Thanksgiving, and just doing life we have struggled with how to best take care of my mom. To get right to the point, we have made the tough decision to move mom to an assisted living facility in Springfield in the coming week.

We've been making sure she has round the clock care since the urinary tract infection I wrote about last time. Vicki covers four nights a week and the boys and I have been sitting with her a lot on the weekends. Stepping up the care has been good since she's had a second infection and we were able to catch it quickly.

We also got a little reminder of how quickly taking care of mom can present unexpected challenges when we had freezing rain on Sunday. This weather didn't affect the roads, but it did break power lines. Our house was without power for about three hours, but mom's house was dark for much, much longer. We were pretty confident that her power would be restored before her bedtime, but we had pause to consider a more serious weather event to be sure.

This has truly weighed heavy on my heart for quite some time. I know it will not be easy for Mom to leave her home of 51 years, but she has been so gracious through all of this so far. And for me, it is not going to be easy to say goodbye to the home of my childhood.

Joe