Christian was phenomenal as Austin in the Other Room. The whole cast did an amazing job at their open rehearsal with Eastern View. It left me in tears, both in pride for my son for his hard work, empathy, and ability to recreate someone else, and for the story that the cast told and the emotions that they shared.
Quick summary:
"Austin is a brilliant teenage astronomer who happens to have autism. Lily is his popular classmate who happens to have an interest in astronomy. When a chance encounter after school leads to a growing connection between them, Austin's imagination, intelligence, and constant struggles to connect with the world are revealed in the form of four characters representing his inner life. By turns funny and heartbreaking, The Other Room is a compelling and sensitive glimpse into a unique and misunderstood mind."
We also had a really fun end of the season softball party at our house one Friday night! It really was a good time for the girls and for the parents too.
On Saturday, the Culpeper VHSL theater team competed at Districts! They had another amazing performance and won 1st place!
Not only were they district champions, but Christian was honored as Best Actor in the district. His friend, Grace, was also honored as Best Actress for her role as Lily! We were so pleased for both of them!
Mia was able to come to watch his performance and brought him flowers and candy! She is awesome!
Not the best picture, but Grant asked me where I was that afternoon and I sent back a picture telling him that I was hanging out with his friend, Alexa. Honestly, I really enjoy my calling in the stake YW presidency and had a lot of fun at this YW leadership training.
Our family had fun at the powder puff game. Christian was not a cheerleader, but he was there cheering on his friends who were as well as his friends on the Jr and Sr. teams. He made face cut-out posters too.
V moved to the new Short Pump location of Salon Voss. She is one of their level 2 stylists and has a station right up front. It is a beautiful new salon. She is pretty pumped! She will still be working at the Fredericksburg location a couple days a week because she doesn't want to lose all of the clients she loves. She is excited to meet and serve new clients in Richmond too. She knows that it will take some time to grow the new business, but is willing to do her part. She will be living with my mom in Richmond for the half of the week that she is there until she hits some of her big financial goals. They get along great, so I think it will be fun for both of them!
Christian competed with his team again at Regionals/Super Regionals and won again! He and Grace won best-acting awards again too! Also included are pictures of them playing games on stage and dancing to just dance while the judges tabulated scores. Also included is a picture of Christian with another amazing actor, who won second place for best actor. He was also excellent!
I enjoyed taking Grant and his friend, Aiden to a stake skate party and being a chaperone there!
G is ready to drive and sometimes hops in saying that he can. I don't doubt that, G-man. Not too much longer and you will be able to drive legally.
Katherine is smart and likes to pick up new hobbies- harmonica this time!
We still love having the missionaries over. I don't always think to take pictures, but this time we did because Elder Tolley was about to go home and Elder Naluai was heading to Belmont ward. Elder Harper is staying. In the top picture, they were "scooping mashed potatoes." I got to prepare Minute to Win it games to play with the YW in various wards, so for the wards we visited in November we played Thanksgiving theme games. I reused them a couple times when friends came over and also again on Thanksgiving. They were fun and may pop out again next year.
We enjoyed seeing 101 Dalmations at Yowell! Katherine was involved in the art club/ stage crew and enjoyed the many weeks of prep leading up to the performance as well as the performance. It was really cool that so many kids had the opportunity to participate. We appreciated the teachers and staff who worked on it and were impressed by the performance. I love that the big kids brought her flowers!
V went to a fun barn dance in Williamsburg hosted by a YSA there. It was super close to Bob and Susan's house and she loves dancing and socializing, so she decided to go and stayed the night with them afterward. There were a few disappointing aspects of her evening, but the best part of her night was seeing friends from Smithfield branch!
Danny, Katherine, Grant and I got to see Robert's football game. There was a scary moment when one of Robert's teammates was seriously injured. He was knocked unconscious, but is doing ok now. Other than that, we enjoyed spending time with Bobby, Kattia, and Megan. Afterward we went to dinner at a cool BBQ place in Buena Vista with them and Robert and his girlfriend and another friend.
I don't have enough pictures with these ladies, but I spend a lot of time with Julie and Gabriela working on YW things. I really love and admire them both and am thankful to rub shoulders with them on the regular. We had a fun trip to Williamsburg with Amber, our amazing camp director, to check out Camp Skimino, where we will be camping this summer! It looked great and we are excited!
Grant and Danny wrestle before or after Family Prayer a lot. It is not my preferred timing, but I am happy for them to be able to bond and enjoy the sport.
We have had fun stopping by Martins to visit Christian a couple times. I love my boys. They are rascals, but often are so funny! We are proud of Christian for fitting work into his busy HS schedule and for saving for college. From what we hear, he is a good employee.
I loved celebrating Abby's 40th birthday with a brunch at Founding Fathers and a shopping trip. More than the specifics, I was glad to have a fun girls day with these cute friends! They don't happen enough!
We had a nice and delicious Thanksgiving at Mom's with Scott and Chrissy and the girls. My mom always does so much to prepare and it is so cute (see the turkeys)!
We had a couple families and missionaries over for a Friendsgiving too. I love this picture that I happened to get in a game we played. The card challenge said to take a selfie with your team. It is the only picture that I got that night, but it is in real-time and is so happy and fun!
We got a tree at a different tree farm this year and one of the owners offered to take a pic for us! So nice!
Love these boys/men!
Grant pretending that our tree babysitter is beer bong funnel. We are going to have to watch out for this one.
We had a fun time at Gingerbread day! It was different this year because all of the high school teens brought a boyfriend or a girlfriend. We were glad to have Mia come with Christian. V brought some friends too. She spent the night before and went to a different YSA with her friend, Kendall. While there they saw a few more friends, Doc and Gavin, who asked them to hang out afterward. V explained the day's plans and told them that they would be more than welcome too. They came and I think everyone had fun even though it was wild and crazy!
I didn't take this picture. Obviously, it was Elder Harper's story, but I screenshotted it because Grant went to the park to play basketball with them and a friend who they were teaching. He really enjoyed that.
Also, Grant started off his wrestling season with a win via pin! He is one of the captains this year and that has been fun for him.
Unfortunately, if memory serves me, this is the match he lost. We recorded it and he and Danny talked about it afterward. Good opportunity for learning and growth. Wrestling is a difficult sport.
We love that Dawson came to cheer him on. It is awesome to have good friends!
It isn't a secret that I love Victoria's confidence, sense of adventure, and deliberate choices for her life. She has chosen to trust the Lord in several unconventional ways over the past couple years that were not parts of her initial plans for herself. It has sometimes been hard and lonely and she can't yet see all of the reasons behind God's directions, but follows faithfully.
One example is that she planned to serve a mission and wanted to go right after her birthday and prepared herself way ahead of time with all of the computer work, doctors appt, dentist appt. interview with bishop, etc. Back in March, she had an appt. for her interview with the stake president. That week she felt a lot of conflict and frankly disappointment that she no longer felt at peace about going. Of course, she felt that going on a mission is a good thing. She knew she was worthy and that she loves people easily. She knew that she would do a great job. She was excited to learn and grow in the gospel and as a person in general. She looked forward to being with her peers in the church. She looked forward to possibly going to another country or learning a new language. She shared her feelings with Danny and I multiple times and prayed to know for sure if this was right for her. Frustratedly, she didn't have a solid yes or no as she drove to her interview. She went to the interview with President Genho, who is our good friend, and spoke very candidly about her stoupor of thought regarding the decision. They decided that at the very least the time was not right and she shouldn't go and that she shouldn't feel badly about it. She came home having complete peace about this decision and Danny and I did too.
We have speculated about several reasons for this. Maybe she was needed just as much in her calling as a RS president and member of her YSA branch? Maybe she will be more valuable as a friend and example of Christ for her coworkers and clients than she could have been somewhere else? Maybe she will start a relationship here in VA? Maybe it will benefit her future family to be able to save so much money or to be able to buy a house at a young age? We really don't have all of the answers, of course, but over the past couple months we have really felt for certain that for now she is where she needs to be.
One reason relates to this picture. V had wanted to go on a mission right after her birthday. This would have been a huge problem because there was delay after delay with her state licensure and she wouldn't have been done with her schooling and would have had to restart when she got back. Silly things kept happening like they sent her paperwork for the wrong Victoria. Then, three weeks later they sent the paperwork for another wrong Victoria! (Crazy, right?) I don't even remember all of the details, but instead of being done in July or August, even though her apprenticeship hours were complete, she wasn't able to schedule and take her tests, online or the practical assessments, until later in the fall. Of course she passed them both on her first try and did an amazing job, she wasn't fully licensed until November! We are proud of her for passing the state board!
Also, V has been pretty private about this (she doesn't really like for people to ever feel sorry for her or feel overly worried about her), but I think it is really important to reflect back on and remember. V had a difficult medical trial during this time as well. Unfortunately, a tumor grew in the back of her neck. Of course, initially, the doctor did not know what it was, so she had several appointments, blood tests, and scans this month. This would not have been good for her to deal with and navigate on the mission. Of course, she could have handled it as she is an adult. In fact, she took care of her initial visits and tests on her own, but it was nice to be able to support her. As noted, she didn't really want to talk much about it, but she did ask Danny and the Elders, it happened to be Elder Parada and Elder Stong, to give her a blessing. We love them and were thankful for that. We were also glad to go to the cancer center appt. and surgery with her. (More about that part in my Dec. post.)
