AAU North Carolina State Qualifier 2022

T gold medaled at AAU North Carolina State Qualifier 1/15/2022. What was more important for him though was beating an opponent that has been a challenge for him in the past. He didn’t care about the medal next to being able to win against this particular opponent from a really good fighting school. Such a fun and good day today for him. He loved being able to fight again after being out so long because of recovering from injuries and sickness.  So so proud of this kid for continuing to press through everything he’s been through since 2021 to now. 

Sharp Looking Boy

T is looking sharp for tomorrows tournament. He’s looking forward to being able to finally fight for the first time in almost a year because of his injuries. 

The Vid Update

Well, as you know we had the Vid over Christmas. We’ve still been recovering from it. T and I had worse symptoms then Scot did. We had a plan in place incase we were to ever get it and are so thankful we did. We had some, in the know people, who are friends of ours, give us specific instructions and we did exactly what they said and it worked. For the most part we are back to normal. The coughing isn’t all the time like it was. It’s just every now and then. The fatigue is still there but nothing like it was. The sniffles are much much better too. We are so glad to be feeling more like our normal selves. Cdc says 5 days. Hogwash!!!  It’s taken us 18 days to get where we are now. As always we are ever so incredibly thankful to God for always taking care of us and guiding our steps. His guidance put us in the right place at the right time to get all we needed to get through and past this crud. Can’t Praise Him enough for all He’s done for us!!!  

Update On Van

So we weighed all our options and Scot decided to order all the parts needed to fix the van from the two accidents and he’s going to fix it himself. A body shop would have charged us $3,000 to fix it.  Our insurance would’ve totaled the van given its age and value. Scot ordered all the parts for $700. When all the pieces get here he’s going to use touch up paint on the parts that need them then he will install everything. For the time being we are a one vehicle family until we can get the van back on the road. Trying to do life with one vehicle is not easy. You don’t realize how limiting it is until you are down to one. As busy as we generally are it makes scheduling tough. Praise the Lord we own our own company and can schedule clients around our personal schedule. It’s not something we like but given our circumstances it’s something that’s doable and something we have to do. Scot will have to work on the van every spare moment he has. He may even let me help him. He may actually need an extra set of hands for some of the work anyhow. Life is never boring that’s for certain. 

A Couple of days before Christmas/Vid Update

A couple of days before Christmas we were down in Waxhaw training with the team. Driving through Waxhaw a vehicle darted out from a street side parking space and hits our van doing this damage. 

The police officer who did the report on this put both me and the driver who hit me at fault which basically made the damage our own insurance companies problem. The worst of the damage was the front bumper. Replacing a front bumper and having it painted isn’t worth making a claim on so we chose not to make a claim. Well the other night Scot was going to get us some more vitamin c drops because we’ve all been overcoming having the Omi variant of the Vid. It was helping keep our throats coated. At any rate, Scot wasn’t 100 feet from the house heading to go get what we needed when a deer jumped a fence. He saw it in plenty of time to make a safe stop to let it go on past but when the deer hit the pavement it slipped and slid right into the front of the van smashing the front grill and bending the radiator. All Scot and I could do was 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️.  I mean seriously right now. Two accidents with the van. My mom passing the Vid to us.  It’s been enough already and about time for some good news. Here’s the pic of the busted front grill. 

So now our next order of business is to figure out the car situation because I have to have a vehicle to drive when we get well from the Vid so I can take T to training. I am a mom that is constantly going from one training to another. T is generally a very busy young man. The Vid has made us halt everything while we heal. We are so ready to be completely passed this but still have cold symptoms we are battling through so we continue to quarantine and stay safe while we finish up our healing. 

It has been a rough end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 so far and we are looking forward to things getting much better from here on out. We are so thankful to God for watching over us and taking care of us. No matter what comes or happens we are keeping our focus on God first. He is the central focus of our lives. We love Him so!!!  

Body Coach Training

T started doing body coach training on top of his sparring training on September 19, 2021. Look at the comparison pics from that time to today. Wow what a difference!!!

Teeth After Just 1 Month

All I can say is WOW!  I’ve never had braces but dang his teeth have moved a lot in a months time. 

To God Be The Glory!

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!  

Successful Homeschooling

This is a post from one of the founders of the Homeschool group I’m a part of:

As  a longtime homeschool mom, now retired, and former homeschool group leader, one of my passions is encouraging others in their homeschooling journey  and sharing a vision for family, parenting, and educating that is different from the "norm" in our society.    

Just like anyone, I made plenty of mistakes and had plenty of doubts along the way, but my five children are now all grown, all college grads, and all thriving. As I look back, I am grateful to God for providing vision, direction, and encouragement, so I could then share it with others. 

I considered myself an eclectic and (mostly) relaxed homeschooler. "Eclectic" means I used curriculums and materials from a variety of philosophies and styles -  Charlotte Mason, Classical, unit study, traditional.  And I used a relaxed approach in how I applied them in our homeschool.  

 

Relaxed homeschooling isn't a method, a curriculum, or a philosophy.  It is more of a mindset.  

It is the idea that you are a family first, not a school. 

You are a mother first, not a teacher. 

You educate your children in a home, not a classroom. 

Your husband is a father and your partner in parenting and raising your children, not a Principal. 

You have individual, affectionate, personal relationships with your children, not your students. 

God didn't create schools, he created families and communities as the perfect place for the training and nurture of children. He gave the job of raising and educating children squarely to the parents, not to the government or the church or any "experts". 

 

Having a relaxed homeschool mindset means you see educating your children as an extension of parenting them. 

You don't necessarily have to make lesson plans or  purchase teacher's manuals, although you could.  

It isn't necessary to test or grade your children, to teach every subject the public schools teach, or to try to be like a public school at all.  

You don't have to select one particular curriculum or have everything set up and in place on day one.  

You don't need to begin each day with taking attendance or divide your school day into fifty-minute segments.  

What you need to do is establish a lifestyle of learning in your home, and participate in it with your children.  You need to understand each of your children as individuals with unique abilities and interests, strengths and weaknesses, learning styles and personalities, and tailor your parenting and educational decisions around helping them grow and develop into the best person each of them can be. 

Relaxed homeschooling views homeschooling as a marathon and not a sprint. It balances academics with things like character development, spiritual growth, life skill training, physical health, nurturing relationships, and emotional development. 

It promotes the attitude that learning happens all the time, and for your whole life, not just during "school hours" or "school years". 

It looks for ways to spark real learning in daily activities as well as  special events, versus artificial learning which is not connected to life.

It invites exploration, imagination, and experimentation.

It rejects a rigid, stressful, cookie-cutter approach to educating children.

Does this sound like a lot of work and responsibility?  Yes, it is.  It is another aspect of parenting, which is also lot of work and a lot of responsibility. It can be frustrating, challenging, and exhausting at times, but also exciting, gratifying and immensely rewarding. It will drive you to your knees daily, which is where God wants you anyway.  It is a way for your family to get the best of you, and you get the best of them - not the leftovers at the end of the day.  You get to really know each other and build a bond based on shared experience.  I can't think of anything more important that I could do.

This is her family.