And since I'm in the mood...sort of...

I might as well keep posting.  You know this son of mine had a birthday.  Nine years old.  Yep, for the past two months the 3 oldest have been 11, 10, and 9!

Andre has such a good heart.  He is truly a kind boy.  He is also so messy.  But he's smart as a whip at school.  Here are a few (ugh...not editing...not even cropping again) pics from his birthday.

He is a mighty funny boy.  Sometimes very silly.  Sometimes very serious.  Like when it comes to soccer.

So...a note about things that matter.  I don't know why something seems so important to the Lord and other times...well...not that they aren't important but I just go about life, trying to do things that best I can and trust that the Lord will tell me if I'm doing it wrong.  Most of the time that's how it seems things are.  But then there is this thing with Andre and soccer.  He definitely has some talent in the sports arena and we have wanted to give him opportunities.  When we first came to Texas we had him playing on some recreation teams that were quite frankly a waste of time as far as developing any talent was concerned.  But they were fun.  Jason really wanted him to be able to be part of a real academy or select team where he could have excellent training and good opportunities.  I was surprised at how distraught Jason became when he could not find anything for Andre that didn't include games on Sundays.  He was truly depressed about it.  I didn't take it that seriously...but Jason just really seemed down.  We prayed.  I felt impressed to pray.  And then a seeming miracle happen.  We found an organization that told us they would play games on Saturdays.  The Coach was a very outspoken, ex-professional player, and ex-college coach from Sierra Leone (played in England) name Ade (pronounced Addie).  We immediately joined, despite having to drive fairly long distances for Andre to begin training.  It was at the end of a fall season.  For winter they played indoor and Andre enjoyed it very much.  Then spring came around and Ade told us that he was wrong and they were going to play on Sundays.  So, we bid him farewell.

For the next year Andre played football in the fall and spring...then Jason got a call out of the blue from Coach Ade telling him that he wanted Andre back, that he was switching to a new organization, and that he promised to honor our wishes to avoid Sundays if we would bring Andre to him.  So we did.  And its awesome.  It has been a sacrifice but we felt strongly we should do it.  Andre's trainings were about 25 minutes away.  I'd meet Jason there after work twice per week and then Jason would stay with him and bring him home.  Ade is the director of this organization in the area here (RUSH) and Andre's current head coach is a youngish guy named Aaron.  We like him a lot.  Very skilled.  Very good guy.  Totally happy to honor our desires to avoid Sundays and seems to respect us for it.  Another boy from our ward has joined the team as well.  So...anyway...I'm kind of rambling but here's where it gets interesting to me...the Coach sent an email asking if any of us parents could help out at all because he didn't have a manager like the other teams.  Something told me to say I'd help.  I don't know why because I don't have time.  But I offered and he immediately got me helping with organizational things and contacting parents.  But he said that he'd try to get lots of people to help out.  I wouldn't have to be the sole manager.  Then something else amazing happened.  RUSH got space and a training facility and put up lights at a field LITERALLY (or, as many friends like to say "LITRALLY") that is 4 minutes drive from our house.  I found that out and then I heard a voice say, "Okay, so I'm giving you back all this time.  I need you to give it back to the team and be their full time manager."  I was like, "What?  Why?  Are you really telling me that this is something important enough that you had to really tell me?"   A couple days later Ade called me up and asked me to be Aaron's full-time team manager.  So, I said yes.  I don't really know why I wrote all that except that for some reason this thing of Andre being a part of this soccer organization RUSH, him being coached by Aaron, and me being the manager are all really important things that we have to do right now.  I have had many missionary experiences with Coach Aaron, Coach Ade, and the parents already and perhaps this is why.  I don't know.  Sorry for the rambling.  You're probably not even reading anymore.  But here are some good soccer photos I took of Andre.

Here he is with a posed shot with Coach Aaron.  The funny thing is that I didn't even notice until later that Coach Ade is doing the same thing in the background to little Andrew, but his pointing and yelling is real.

 Andre busts a move between two defenders...

 ...and scores on a very sad keeper.

 That shot above is what we call a "nutmeg".  I don't know why, but you don't ever want to get "nutmegged" like Andre just did to that kid.

 By the way...I'm sure I've mentioned this way too many times, but I absolutely love the diversity we have in our area.  The two kids behind Andre on his team are Andrew who is Indian and Kamil who is Lebanese/Mexican.  We also have Nate who is Thai, JP who is Phillipino/Mexican, Jett who is Asian something, Xavier, Trey, and Yamil who are African American, and then Ben, the lonely blonde kid, and a few more white kids.  Its just really really cool for Andre to be proud of his heritage but not to have to feel different all the time.

 Isn't he so cute?

And now I'm hitting "publish" with out a single read thru to fix the many typos I'm sure I made.  Oh well.  That's how I roll these days.