He's a teenager! How in the world did that happen? I remember bringing this sweet little babe home from the hospital! And when I say "bringing" I mean.... I walked home from the hospital because we lived in Brooklyn and it was easier to walk then to take a cab! The hospital was right around the corner. Man, he was a sweet little boy. He still is. I have books full of incredible stories of your life so far. I can't even imagine all that lies ahead. Here is an excerpt from your journal:
Grant, you are quite the character! You have a lot of passion for life and throw yourself into whatever it is that you involved in at the moment 100 percent. You are ALL IN no matter what it is. This past year you loved scootering and you became so good at this! You spent EVERY SINGLE DAY scootering! But then in November, you broke your ankle and so you decided to take a break from scootering and went on to other pursuits. It was a tricky few months with a broken ankle but you were a trooper and did your best to have a positive attitude despite the forced respite from sports and activity. You are definitely the kind of kid who enjoys running around and being active. It was HARD to stop your after school activities! But you handled it all with grace. Once recovered, you made the wise choice to quit scootering and do other things instead. You played flag football and LOVED practicing, working on plays and dominating on the field. You had a goal to become quarterback and you were incredible! But your strength was really found as line backer- receiving throws and running your heart out. So fun to watch you play. You also enjoyed a full season of snowboarding! And let’s not forget soccer of course! This has always been your greatest joy and biggest passion. You love playing and put three days- sometimes four days a week into this pursuit. You work out extra with Coach Conner to become the best you can be. You are an incredible athlete! On top of organized sports, you also have enjoyed boating and wake surfing a lot this year, boogie boarding and surfing and skim boarding at the beach, rock climbing and visiting amusement parks. Amusement parks are SO FUN for you because you love roller coasters! This year you visited: Knottsberry Farm, Disneyland, CA Adventure, Sea World, Universal, Six Flags, Wild Waves, Wild Rivers, and Lagoon. Your happy place is for sure a theme park!
Grant you love junk food! You are quite into sugar, unfortunately! You LOVE LOVE LOVE Cold Stone’s chocolate ice cream with Oreos mixed in. You love making Oreo shakes at home. You are also pretty good at making brownies and oatmeal peanut butter balls. You love sour patch kids, ICE strawberry kiwi drinks, ritz peanut butter crackers, and Hawaiian haystacks for dinner. You also love steak and hamburgers. You are very into chocolate cake and donuts. Basically there isn’t a sweet you’ve met that you didn’t like. But I guess a kid that exercises as much as you do… deserves the calories!
Much to Dad and I’s dismay, you are enjoying video games (X box) more this year. It’s never really been a thing you cared much for, but this year, it’s perked your interest and you love playing on line with your friends when you have the chance. You have many many friends and you are a great friend. Friendships are very important to you and value all the kids at your school. You are in the middle of trying to decide which group of friends you’d like to spend your time with- the cool kids who can be mean and get in trouble, or the church kids who maybe aren’t quite as appealing at times. This is the crises that you face in the middle of 7th grade. I have every confidence that you’ll find your way to a reasonable and responsible action. But it is causing you a lot of worry in the meantime and I’m so glad I can be here for you. You don’t talk a lot about things, but you do open up when something is bothering me and you always give me the details we try to work it out together. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that special time we get to chat and figure things out together. For my birthday this year you wrote me a note that just about melted my heart. It was so kind and sincere and loving and it made me realize once again what a sensitive and kind young man you really are. You are grateful, hardworking, disciplined, kind, funny, cool, interesting, smart, responsible, up and Adam in the morning, social, athletic, spiritual, talented, well spoken, fun to be with and overall an incredible kid in every way. I love being your mom and feel so incredibly grateful for your spirit in our home. Of course you have your moments too— you tend to get a little heated over small things, you have a bit of a temper. You are not always kind to Anna and sometimes take out your hard days on me or on her, but you are so so self aware and always striving to be better and to fix things that aren’t right. That is your best quality. This year you took guitar lessons and you play all the time. You went to Deacon’s camp for the week and hiked all over Big Bear. You went to BYU soccer camp for the week and on a houseboat with all our old BYU friends! You traveled out of the country for the first time ever to Costa Rica! It was so wonderful.
Grant- you are one in a million and I love you so much. SO grateful to have you in my life and to be your mom. Thank you for all you teach me and for being so amazing.
