In Our Family This Week...
* Medical wise: Both August and Ben got tested for Covid. Ben was having shortness of breath, painful breathing, fever and sweats... the test came back negative (yay!) so he went to the Urgent Care where he was diagnosed with Costochondritis (which is An inflammation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone). He was off of work for several days as he had to stay down and rest. August was super sick (he attributed part of it to a side effect from getting the Covid Vaccination shot) but then he lost his sense of smell and taste (yikes!)... surprisingly his test came back negative as well (which is a good thing! however, we wonder if he got a false negative. If he's still sick in a few more days he'll go back and get re-tested).
* The girls went to Julianna's birthday party (she was a friend they met at Volleyball)
* Dad, Nathan, Seth and August all went to a concert on Monday - the Dropkick Murphy's. It was Nathan's very first concert - and how fun for him to have it be with his brothers!
* Nathan had a second concert at the end of the week that he attended with Dad. It was the Gojira concert. Ben and Natalie were also planning on going but with Ben's Costochondritis diagnosis it ended up only being dad and Nay.
* Several months of planning came to an end with an AWESOME Rugby camp that dad and Jerry Moody put on for 5th - 8th grade girls in the Treasure Valley. It went better than either of them had dared hope for! They had 60 girls show up for the camp along with about 20 High School Rugby players and several coaches from some of the local high schools came to assist. Dad has worked MANY hours on advertising, planning, preparing and executing this camp - it was quite the thing and all of the feedback that he's heard has all been super positive! They are already planning on another one set for January!
* Dad continued his PTO with this entire week off! He and mom decided to do a quick little get-away up to McCall. We left on Tuesday morning and took our time driving the 3 hours to our destination. We pulled off along the river and checked out a potential campground (for future reference - Big Eddy's spot #4 was the best!) and we saw such beautiful sights and fall colors! After exploring a bit, we drove a little further on and stopped at a very unassuming cafe called the Clear Creek Station. Our trainer actually had recommended that we stop at this place for THE BEST burgers... we were up for checking it out and are glad that we did! It actually WAS some of the best burgers we'd ever eaten! After filling up there, we continued on an finally made it to McCall. We spent our Honeymoon there and actually booked a room at the same hotel (it has been updated since then and the rooms were really cute and cozy). We then went to Payette lake and walked along the beach and took in the fresh air! We then drove to the other side of the lake and found a nice spot to read our books and enjoy the fall foliage! Soon the sun was gone and it started to rain so we figured we'd go find us a nice place to eat dinner. This proved to be a much harder task than we anticipated since it turned out that 90% of the restaurants weren't opened on Tuesday or Wednesday (say what!?). With McCall being a tourist town and October being the "slow season" - most of the town just shuts down apparently! We finally found a little burrito place and ate then went to the grocery store to pick up a little treat for dessert. The next morning we attempted to hit their Farmer's Market (which I was actually pretty excited to see!) but there were only 2 booths open so it was quite the disappointment. We then drove over to Ponderosa State Park (which neither of us had ever been to) and explored around there for a bit and took in all of the beauty! Afterwards we ate at the Pancake House (which was pretty delicious!) and then headed home so dad could go to the high school Rugby games that evening and make final contact with some of the other coaches to confirm their help at the Camp for Saturday. Our trip was peaceful, beautiful, serene and went by way too fast!!
"It starts with the formula for a line. The intercept, for our purposes, is the beginning of our line. The intercept can have either a high or a low starting point. The slope of the line can then be positively or negatively inclined.
We all have different intercepts in life—we start in different places with different life endowments. Some are born with high intercepts, full of opportunity. Others face beginning circumstances that are challenging and seem unfair.2 We then progress along a slope of personal progress. Our future will be determined far less by our starting point and much more by our slope. Jesus Christ sees divine potential no matter where we start... No matter where we start, Christ considers what we do with what we are given.3 While the world focuses on our intercept, God focuses on our slope. In the Lord’s calculus, He will do everything He can to help us turn our slopes toward heaven.
This principle should give comfort to those who struggle, and pause to those who seem to have every advantage...For any struggling with difficult starting points, please recognize that the Savior knows our struggles. He took “upon him [our] infirmities, that his bowels might be filled with mercy, … that he might know … how to succor us according to our infirmities.”5"
I couldn't help but think of two of my sweet boys when hearing this - Ben and Nathan. They both have struggles that might put them at a intercept lower than someone without those struggles (Dyslexia, ADD, Depression, etc) but that doesn't determine who they are or who they become. God is more concerned with the SLOPE of our personal (life) lines and the Lord knows of those struggles and is ready to help us fulfill our divine potential!
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