At 15, life is already pulling her in three fairly good sized directions; friends, school, and sports. She manages to keep a cool head about it all, and with the help of mom and dad and of course her Heavenly Father, life doesn’t seem to have too tight of a grip on her. With her rose colored glasses on, she takes life one item at a time.
Her world as a Home School Student
She gets together with close friends, both girls and boys, often to go sledding, the movies, bowling, float the river during the summer, and lately just hang out at McDonald’s. She even still has sleepovers, girls only mind you! As a home school student, Tayler has taken charge on the social skills. Most all home school families, us included, seem to always ask the question, “how will our student connect with other kids?” Well I am proud to tell you Tayler has no issues socializing. Most of her friends are home school students as well, and they all have a great time together.
School in general, whether home schooled or on a campus, tends to pull all kids in difficult directions at times, and that all depends on their work load. Tayler, a 9th grader, (holy smokes, where does the time go?!?!?!) is tackling Algebra 1, French 1, Literature, Cultural Geography, Physical Science, Writing and Grammar, Bible and Civics, in addition to Gymnastics and Tae Kwondo in the evenings. Doing her studies at home helps keep life struggles at bay and having mom as a one on one instructor helps keep the stress level down, at least I hope so. I am thankful the curriculum we use comes with online instructor videos.
Tayler, the Gymnast
The sports aspect of life for her consists of Gymnastics and Tae Kwondo. Gymnastics, being her favorite right now, has been a great challenge for her. Learning new element skills and learning to take charge. This is her second year on a team, Silver Team, and she was voted captain this year so she has to keep morale up with the other Silver team girls, roughly 9 girls. When she landed her aerial for the first time, that just took my breath away. (an aerial is basically a cartwheel but without using your hands). She took first place in floor routine last year (2018) with a 9.75 score. She will be competing in four Meets this season, so stay tuned for photos and updates.
The Tae Kwondo Duo!
Tae Kwondo is a direction that truly began her sports career, if you will. She started back in September of 2014 as a white belt (every one starts out as a white belt) and now in February 2019 she is a purple belt, wait! actually a brown belt, she tested for it a few weeks ago and will receive the new belt soon. So in just 4-1/2 years, she has earned her 6th belt. WE ARE SO PROUD OF HER! She only has two belts to go, red and then black. Poor thing has a hard time keeping interested in the sport since all of her friends stopped going, so in an effort to keep her on track and get to that black belt finish line, I, mom, have agreed to join her in class for morale support (‘course I think I am the one needing the support, and not just the morale support). But it is a great bonding time she and I get to have. So again, stay tuned for updates on the black belt finish line. Me, I will probably be a white belt forever.
