2021 Neal News Letter

This year has been a challenging year. So many ups and downs but God has seen us through it all. First several months were normal with T training and doing his school (T is a straight A student) as usual. Then I had my fall that took a lot longer to recover from than I would have liked. A severely sprained ankle with a pulled achilles tendon and bruised leg all the way up to my knee. The Achilles’ tendon still hurts off and on if I’m on my feet for long periods of time and when the weather changes. If you saw my post about that then you saw the pictures. 

Then Pop had some medical issues that kept us in Kentucky more often but there’s no place we’d have rather been either. Family is so important to us and Pop and Nan are the Patriarchs of the family. We cherish them so much. 

Then T had two injuries that kept him out of the big tournaments for the summer which basically made his sparring for the year a bust. His first injury happened while training when he fractured his pinky toe. His second injury was more severe and took a lot longer to come back from and that was when he lost all the sodium in his body and went into a seizure. He was in ICU from Thursday evening when it happened until Saturday when he came to in his right mind. He was in a very combative state everytime the doctors or nurses tried to do anything with him. He doesn’t remember any of it. He was so disappointed to miss all the big tournaments after having trained so hard but things happen in life for a reason.  At the end of the day God’s in control and that’s all that matters. 

After all T had been through he ended this year by getting braces. It’s been quite an adjustment for him. His teeth have shifted so much in the short time he’s had them on. 

There have been more downs than ups this year but God has watched over us every step of the way. In a world gone crazy I’m so thankful that God is the central focus of our lives. Our relationship with Him is more important than anything in our lives. He is the reason we get to do this life together and I’m so incredibly thankful everyday that we have each other. 

Let me end this on a high note. T does so good with his schooling. He keeps an A average. We couldn’t be prouder of all he does between his schoolwork, his body coach training, and his sparring training. He’s a busy boy but he loves it. If he wasn’t keeping busy doing something he’d be bouncing off the walls…LOL!  Our company is doing good and Scot is busier than ever with work. I keep busy running the show as I call it. I keep T on task because he’s easily distracted. I keep the schedule running smoothly. I run T everywhere he has to be for training all week long. I feel like I’m on the road more than I’m home and I probably am. I wouldn’t trade this life with my guys for nothing in the world though. It may be a crazy 😜 busy life but we wouldn’t have it any other way. God directs our steps. He brought T to where he is now with the coaches he should be with and we keep plugging along in this TaeKwonDo journey with him. We are so thankful for God’s direction as we’ve been on this journey with T. His direction means everything. Any success T has had or will have in the future is all because of what God has done every step of the way. We give all the glory and honor to Him and Him alone!