We got into the ER in decent time, but then it was an hour 15 minutes of waiting to see the doctor. Jackson originally rated his pain an 8 and the doctor ordered him some ibuprofen. Obviously that didn't help, so then they gave him some Tylenol with codeine. Eventually, it got so bad, he started crying. The doctor finally saw him, examined his foot asking if different movements/touches hurt while having his back to Jackson. Saw him maybe a total of 2 minutes and finally ordered the x-ray. After being there for 2 1/2 hours, he was diagnosed with a pilon fracture. Dr. Bailey was on call and he was already at the hospital, so he saw us pretty quickly and we were surprised to hear that he decided to take Jackson to surgery that evening. He went back a little before 7 and got back to the ER a little after 9. Dr. Bailey put 2 screws in to attach the broken off piece at the back of the tibia back together. And he just had a boot instead of a cast. They attempted to put the screws in from one direction and then had to do it from a different direction. While we were waiting to be discharged, they had a trauma patient come in, so we ended up not getting discharged until close to 11. My parents were back with the kids by that point, so they eventually took them back over to our house and got them to bed and left Ellie in charge until we could get there. Jackson handled it all pretty well. We even tried to get him to sleep down in my bed so he didn't have to go up and down the stairs, but he wanted to sleep in his bed.
It took a little bit to figure everything out. He only made it for the first half of the school day on Monday, but then figured out a plan for when he needed his backpack and when didn't so he didn't have to crutch it all over the school and to the Vo-Tech. Friends offered to help him, but he would never let them. The first week was a little rougher, but by the 2nd week, he had quit taking the pain meds and was doing okay. He took a week off of football and then went back. All he could do was watch on the sidelines for practices and games, but they expected him there. But he got good news at his 4 month appointment. He could go off crutches 2 weeks early, wear the boot just one more week and then an ankle brace for a week. Then he was cleared to get back to practice. He was pretty excited...able to get back at it after 6 weeks.
Jackson may have considered himself a bit lucky in one way with the timing of his break. Andrew had planned to seed the new area of land we "acquired" from our neighbors. Andrew leveled it out with a skid steer and then we all worked together to put seed and straw out. That is actually how we spent our anniversary. We were going to go out to eat the night that Jackson got hurt, but instead ate some DuKum that my dad and Ellie brought to the hospital for us. Then Andrew spent the next couple of weeks watering it and having us all come out and look at his grass :-).
September and October were spent going to a lot of football practices and games, soccer practices and games and cross country meets. The twins and Lincoln had flag football and Andrew helped coach both of those. It was Lincoln's last year of flag football and we aren't quite sure what he will do next year. Soccer is his first love, but I'm not sure if he will try to fit tackle football in there too. Andrew played with the 2nd graders during the game and got to quarterback for them. The twins had a lot of fun with him doing that. They were supposed to finish up their season the end of September, but their last game got rained out and they had to play it the next Friday.
While Jackson wasn't dressing out for games, we still attended the home JV and varsity games. He usually wasn't the only one not dressing out as it seemed there were always 2-3 other boys out with some sort of injury. And he was able to get back for the final JV game which was thankfully at home. He only got in a few times on defense and a couple times on offense, but it was good to see him out there.
Soccer is probably the sport that takes up the most of our time in the fall with four kids and technically 5 teams. They all play in club soccer games where they practice once a week and have games Saturday morning. Then Ellie and Lincoln play on the travel teams that practice another 1 or 2 nights during the week and had double-header games in Moberly, Mexico or Columbia on the weekends. We didn't know it was going to be such a commitment as they changed they way it was run this year. It felt like we were always on the go. One or both of them had games for 6 weekends in a row and their final tournament just finished up this weekend and Lincoln and Ellie's teams both got third. Ellie wasn't there, but Lincoln went with Matt. Lincoln loved all of it, while Ellie was getting a little tired of it because she was also doing cross country. It is fun to watch them all play as they have learned so much about the game and are improving all the time. The twins are on the same team and have learned to use each other during the game. We finish up regular club soccer next weekend and then Lincoln will have ShowMe 3v3 soccer the second weekend in November and we'll be done with soccer until the fall.
We got our first experience with cross country this year. Ellie was so unsure going into it as the issues with her feet have caused other issues that make running a little more difficult. She isn't the fastest and sometimes that is frustrating to her, but she tries hard and keeps improving. Except for 2 races, she was always the fourth person to finish on her team. All of their meets were out of town and I was able to go to all of them except the one when we were in Hawaii. My mom came with me to a couple and Andrew was able to come to one of them. They went to Moberly twice, Hannibal, Lake Rathbun, Iowa, Quincy and Columbia, The first several meets were so hot, but then they got cold by the end. She finished 15th in the conference meet and I'm pretty sure she will be doing it again next year.
She had her last meet last Saturday and started basketball tryouts that next morning at 6am. They did tryouts Monday-Wednesday and got letters Wednesday after school stating whether they made it or not. While we originally thought they wouldn't have enough girls for a team, they had around 13 tryout and a few girls did end up getting cut, including one of Ellie's friends. When Ellie got in the car that afternoon, she didn't really talk about making the team, she was just sad that her friend didn't make it. Jackson doesn't have tryouts until the beginning of November, so I've been picking up all the kids after school for a few days, so we all went to DQ to celebrate Ellie making the team. But then she proceeded to hurt her left hand during soccer practice that same evening she made the basketball team. She was getting her ball out of the goal when another kid kicked his in and it hit her hand. One finger ended up getting swollen and discolored along with her not being able to move it. We did get an x-ray the next day and all was well. She will just have trouble using that hand for the first week or so of practice. She taped it up and went to practice the next day. The coach did tell her she could take it easy if she needed to.
And some other big news around our house was Lincoln decided he wanted to be baptized. He has mentioned it before, but we really wanted to make sure he understood what that decision meant. We had some great conversations about it and felt like he was understanding what he was doing. Those discussions lead to the twins asking more about it too. At one point, Miles showed up in my closet as I was putting away laundry at the end of a long few days and he had his bible and wanted me to show him where he could read about baptism. So we sat down on the floor right there and talked more about it. He was honest in that he didn't quite understand it all, but that is so true of all of us and where faith comes into the equation. The next day we met some our family at church and Andrew got to baptize Lincoln towards the end of the service. Very special moment. And then we had them all over to our house afterwards for brunch before they all started to head home.
The last weekend of October, Andrew and I took Ellie down to Fayetteville for an early 13th birthday trip. We plan to do one with each kid (Jackson said he didn't want to go anywhere when he turned 13, but I think he now wishes he would have done something) when they turn 13. Ellie has wanted to go ride on bike paths and they have a really nice one down there, so we were going to do that and some hiking. I got us a VRBO that was a guest house that was in Springdale, right in town, but down a long drive that made you feel like you were a little in the country. Lissy was in Kirksville doing photo shoots, so she was able to stay with the kids because my parents were out of town. And the kids had a 4 day weekend, so we decided to take advantage of that and hopefully nicer weather than what it would be closer to Ellie's birthday. We got down there around 6:30, so it was already getting dark. We dropped off our luggage and bikes at the house and then went to a nearby restaurant where Ellie was excited to get some flaming queso that they actually light on fire. She loved everything about her meal from the queso to the bread to her pizza and finally some vanilla ice cream with hot fudge. Then we just got comfy and hung out at the house. She joked that it freaked her out a little bit with the weird art work, the owner wandering out front in the dark, the easy-to-figure-out passcode for the garage and the attic door in ceiling of the hallway. Ellie and I slept in the next morning and Andrew went for a drive around campus. It started raining in the morning and did not stop until early afternoon. Plus, they had had a lot of rain before we got there. We made the most of the rain and did some shopping. Andrew drove us around and would drop us off at the front door. There was a Super Cuts next to the Old Navy, so Ellie decided to get about 5-6 inches cut off her hair. And while she was getting that done, I got to witness a guy shoplift some product from the store. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would pay for it after he had his mom pay for his haircut (he was at least 25 and he was very rude about telling her to pay), but nope, he walked out with it tucked up under his hat. His look actually intimidated me a little, so I didn't say anything straight to him, but said something to who appeared to be the manager when I was paying for Ellie. I did notice that they had video cameras up and his mom paid with a check, so hopefully they would be able to catch him. I'm sure it wasn't worth over $20, but he seemed like the kind of guy that probably did it often, so getting in some trouble would probably be good for him. But we went on and continued out shopping and even convinced Andrew to join us for a couple stores. Ellie and I both struggled trying to find anything cute for her as we thought most of the clothes seemed weird and ugly. We were able to find a few things and Ellie managed to get herself locked out of her dressing room and chose to crawl under the door instead of asking for help :-). And we ate lunch at Cane's because Ellie had been requesting it and there was one right near where we were shopping. Andrew then suggested maybe just heading back to Kirksville because even if it quit raining everything would still be so wet. Ellie didn't seem to mind, so we went back to the house, packed up and started back. Lissy had called the night before and Bennett was very sad, so I think that also made Andrew think we should head back. It was short and not what we wanted, but it was still nice to spend some time with Ellie and I think she enjoyed getting to call the shots and have some one-on-one time with us.
Since we came back a day early, Andrew decided he would use part of the Sunday to have the kids help him make a mountain bike "course" out at the ranch. He and Jackson had an area picked out that they thought would work well, so they took some rakes and brooms out there and spent a few hours roughing in 300 yards of singletrack. They took their bikes too and tried out some of it. I think Andrew and Lincoln both took a spill and Andrew ended up with a cut on his leg, but he was still pretty pumped. They all thought it was great and can't wait to show it to me. They would have worked longer, but Lissy was kind enough to take a quick family picture for me to use for our Christmas card in between her other shoots.
And we finished the weekend with grilling and s'mores. The kids also have Monday off, but Andrew has to go to work and Ellie has an early basketball practice.
So that about catches us up except for our Hawaii trip that I will do separately. But I do want to add in a few random pictures from the last couple of months.
The twins making their lunch for the next day before they head to bed...
We got quacked by my parents and these ducks ended up in our front yard one morning...
Andrew got a new bike for his birthday and is supposed to be selling his other road bike, but it is still sitting in our garage.
I took the 3 younger boys to get a hair cut at the new barber shop in town. I just thought this picture was cute.
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