The Gwilliam Fam: Tanner

After going back and forth a few times the past six months, Tanner decided to drop football and just do basketball this next year at school. I am thrilled. For one, the football coaches do an excellent job of taking over your entire life. Secondly, Tanner's real love is basketball.

They started Speed and Strength training at Permian a few weeks ago. I love that both Tanner and Parker have something that gets them out of bed early and working hard. It's nice to have a little bit of a schedule after living in this Covid-19 time. Parker goes to work afterwards, so he is really busy. Tanner usually does his chores and then does an additional workout at home. He plays lots of basketball and he has put the box Brian built to good use. (He is a lean, mean, muscle machine.)

Tanner has worked hard the past two years with Brian mowing lawns and he has been refereeing soccer since he was twelve. Both of those jobs are not available right now. He was willing to work but kind of shy about putting himself "out there" to find a job. He was also getting pretty frustrated at not having his usual income. And one thing I've learned in my parenting of teenage boys...you've got to keep them busy!

Luckily Grandpa hired him because his lawn guy wasn't coming around often enough. That gave Tanner the courage to make flyers for the neighborhood, and he was able to pick up a couple of more houses. He also goes with Brian to two additional houses every Saturday. He works for several hours each Saturday and hasn't complained at all. Bless Brian for being willing to load up equipment and help him out as needed as well.

He works hard and plays hard as well. He has been able to hang with his friends several times in the past few weeks. I love it when my children invite friends our way. Tate, Julian and Mason came over to swim last week.

The Birds were still at the pool, and Tanner loves holding their baby kitten, Gus. He showed him off to his friends like a proud Papa.

Mason, Julian, Tate

After swimming, they came back to our house and played some sting pong, air hockey and Xbox. It was a miracle that the air hockey table got turned on. I haven't heard that noise in weeks.

Here are a few other pictures of Tanner from the past couple of weeks.

Here he is hanging out with the girls watching clips of "The Office", I think. I love that he has his cute smile. If he knows he is being photographed, he just glares.