The Crafts

 Several sports wrapped up recently for the Craft girls. Kate has two friends running in the state cross country meet on Friday. Claudia finished volleyball a week ago and has already started middle school basketball. While Natalie and Maddie played their final soccer games of the fall season this past Saturday. Beyond sports (which is a pretty regular conversation topic in this house) here are some pics of other recent events... Leading up to homecoming this year, the Union Cross Country team raised almost $12,000 for University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital to benefit pediatric brain cancer research. Each year the cross country team runs the football from Dysart to the high school in La Porte for the start of the homecoming football game. Kate was selected to run the football around the track and into the hands of the evening's referee.  We visited Hanson's Halloween on a gorgeous fall day to find a few pumpkins and gourds. We even met up with Grandma Craft, Be...

Life gives each of us plenty of opportunities to look inward. Many of these situations lead us to make one of two choices; keep trying or give up. Kate spent years working on her basketball skill set. She played travel basketball, saw a personal trainer, worked out with her various basketball teams... Kate would eat, sleep, dream basketball. She has handmade drawings of her favorite NBA player on her bedroom wall. She carries a Houston Rockets backpack and named her cat after the Rockets. All of her time, energy, work, focus was aimed at starting her high school basketball career. Excitement doesn't begin to describe her feelings about playing high school ball. So a month after 8th grade when her health trauma began, her hopes and dreams ended.  We talk about miracles in our house. What is a miracle. We read about miracles in the Bible but maybe not all miracles are quite so noticeable as a leper being instantly cured. Maybe we are living a miracle right now. Kate was very close to...

These photos are completely random. I just didn't want to take the time to load new pics. I will get to that eventually. Kate is doing well right now after finishing spine radiation this summer and is enjoying being a manager/team member of the high school cross country team. Claudia wrapped up her first year of middle school volleyball where she played on the red team a.k.a. the "A" team. Natalie and Maddie have two more games of soccer to wrap up the fall season.  The leaves and walnuts are dropping like crazy. We have our annual church pork chop supper tonight. The girls' favorite part is the dessert, of course. We are volunteering to package and serve meals, and some are excited to help out - some more than others.  Basketball season is about to begin. And not unlike volunteering at the pork chop supper, some girls are more excited than others for that. I will let your mind wander here. At Kate's insistence (read serious begging) we caved and got a second cat....