Mr. Determined

There are moments in life when my children teach me something. I believe those moments are the blessings of having children.

Have you ever wanted something so badly? Something that meant patience, endurance, sacrifice, and a lot of hard work?

Conner has.

Conner wants to be running back SO BAD! He LOVES football. He is really great at football too. There are a lot of hard parts about football, but for Conner the hardest part is making weight in order to carry the ball.

There is a rule in place that a child has to be a certain weight to carry the ball. The reason for his is so that those big kids carrying the ball don't hurt anyone on the field. They measure this by a child's weight.

Conner barely made weight last football season and had a great time playing running back. He found great joy in the sport and really wanted to continue playing this year. However, this year Conner got a lot taller. Putting on height means putting on weight. At the beginning on July he was weighing 137 pounds. 137 pounds for him is a good thing. He is a lean, muscular, tall boy who is just growing and growing - there isn't much he can do about it. But the issue was he needed to get down to 135 and maintain that weight for 6 weeks. You would think would be easy, but with his growing, six weeks of maintaining was going to be difficult. The other obstacle is the fact that Conner is a very healthy eater all ready and extremely active. Conner took on the challenge this past year to cut sugars out of his diet. He started that challenge a year ago last August and he stuck with it ALL YEAR!!!! Conner felt like he was going to have to be creative to maintain his weight since he was all ready doing a lot of things that were healthy.

Some of the things Conner did over the past six weeks were eating well. He consumed low fat foods. He stayed away from fatty things. Even on vacation, when we stopped for treats at the gas station, he chose water as his treat over chips or jerky. When it was birthday time this last birthday, and he had achieved the year without sugar, he still turned down a brownie I brought for him and his football team. He exercised like crazy. He got up early mornings with Niel and ran sprints. He even rode his bike home from his long football agility workouts. Anything to burn a few extra calories. What teenager does this kind of stuff at his age???

The big day finally arrived for weigh-ins. All his hard work and dedication paid off. As he got on the scale, his entire football team was standing there cheering him on! It wasn't just obvious to us at home, but anyone who has been around him lately knows of his goals - EVERYONE wanted to see him succeed! As Conner was cleared to play running back there was a loud cheer from his teammates and the parents of his teammates. Everyone started chanting... "Conner. Conner." It was a very satisfying moment.

A very inspiring one for me. I was so proud of him! He definitely deserves his spot as the starting running back on the 7th grade Lonepeak A team.

As reward for his hard work we all went to Pizza Pie Buffett. Conner loaded up on the carbs and enjoyed the simple pleasures of life.

As he drank his first glass of soda pop in over a year he said,

"I just had one cup of soda. I think that will just about do it for me this year! I better get going on next year right now."