Go Bayshore Barracudas!

Kenzie's travel soccer team took second place in their first ever tournament, the SAC Columbus Day Tournament! And they did it by scoring only two goals in three games, with a record of 2 and 1 in bracket play to win their bracket. Kenzie had some spectacular saves in Goal, shutting out two of their opponents, to ensure the team's advancement to the final game against a very good WAGS team. TAnd, two of our newest players scored the winning goals in both games! The future of this team looks very bright. Congratulations, ladies!

BBSL All Star

Kenzie played in her BBSL All Star game this morning, at First Mariner arena (where the Baltimore Blast plays). The All Stars from her team were teamed up with All Stars from the Baltimore Storm. I don't know who they played against, but Kenzie's team lost by one point (not one goal, because the rules allowed for a three-point goal from a certain distance). Kenz said she played defense the first half, and Goalie the second half. She seemed to have fun. At least she was smiling when she got home. Now we have to turn around and go to her futsal game. I'll get to watch this one.

One Busy Saturday

Alex turned sixteen on Saturday. That should have been a big enough event to fill the whole day; but not in this family...

Because of a busy morning, Alex spent the night at Mommom's house so she could take him to his school first thing, for a Flea Market sponsored by his Mission Club. They are raising money for their trip to a Native American reservation where they will do mission stuff (I don't know the details yet). He raised the most money of anyone in his club, just selling old books and videos for dirt cheap. He sold a ton of stuff, which really helped clear out some space around here. I guess he got home around 1 o'clock.

I spent the morning shopping for food for the afternoon party for Alex. We weren't supposed to need food because we planned the family gathering right between lunch and dinner. Unfortunately, the 11 o'clock recital (see below) got pushed to 1 o'clock, pushing the the party to later in the afternoon. Vicki spent the morning 'motivating' the kids to clean up the house. She 'motivates' by turning very red, and shaking the walls with her vocal chords (if you get my meaning). I like to 'motivate' with a big stick. Her method leaves fewer marks.

I then took Connor and Kenzie to their Chamber Music Festival. We were told it was being held at the same place as always, over in College Park. We got there, and it wasn't. We had to backtrack to a new location, arrived a bit late, but still got play. I was not happy, but it all worked out, as things usually do. Below are Kenz and Connor's pieces. Although this is Connor's third time doing this, it was Kenzie's very first time playing with an accompanying orchestra. I am so proud of her. I wish I could upload HD videos because my new camera has me spoiled for quality, but those files are just too huge. So, here's the fuzzy versions:





On the way home from that, I dropped Kenzie off with her soccer coach so she could go play futsal, and headed home. I think Alex had a good birthday. The whole family, grandparents, in-laws, and us pulled together and bought him his own laptop. We had to do something special for his sixteenth, and it wasn't going to be a car.


We wound up around an hours-long game of Risk, which Connor had bought for three dollars on Friday, at the first half of the Mission Club flea market.

Sunday started the same way, with a 9 am futsal game for Connor, home to church, and afternoon of Risk (where I had my way with global domination). I don't think anyone missed football this weekend.

Certified

Connor and McKenzie took a soccer referee class this week. They want to be able to referee soccer games outside our local, recreational league. Tonight, they took their tests. They both passed, but Kenzie is too young to actually become a certified, travel soccer ref. Connor's old enough, though. Here's his new referee patch. And, since she passed the test, Kenzie will be able to referee in rec games, even though she's under the minimum age of 12.

Another Soccer Trophy

Connor's team took second place in their U13 division of the BBSL. They got their trophies last night at the Baltimore Blast game. Here's Connor with his trophy. We also found out this morning that he took second place in the church "Keep Christ in Christmas" poster contest. If he'd spent more than a half hour on it, the night before it was due to be turned in, he might've gotten first. He got third last last year, so this is a step up. Next year is the last year he'll be young enough to enter, so he better aim for first. He'll get his cash reward tomorrow morning.

An Amazing Game

The temperature was 44 degrees at game time. The wind was blowing about 20 mph. It rained just before the game started, and just enough the make the field gooey. I was very happy not to be a coach of Connor's team last night. I could sit in the car until the last minute, then sit comfortably (well, more comfortable than the kids in their shorts, anyway) under my blanket, on the sideline.

Connor's team scored the first goal, early in the game. But, late in the game, with about five minutes left to play, they were down 4-2. I was thinking, dangit, they're going to lose their first game of the season, and it's the first one I got to see. Then they scored a goal (now, it's 4-3). Then they scored another to tie it up. Well, I think, at least it'll end in a tie. I was wrong. They proceeded to score three more goals in the last two minutes of the game. Final score, 7-4.  That was an amazing finish. The other team only had the ball on our side of the field once or twice the entire second half. Their defence got so tired out, they couldn't hold'em off, and collapsed, in those last five minutes.

Now, because of this rain-extended season, we still have four more games to go, one of them another night game next week. I hope it warms up for that one, but then again, if the boys like the cold (as they seemed to last night), let it be cold.

Freeze Ball

It was colder than I'd care to remember last night, when Taylor's soccer team played game 3 of their tournament. They lost game 1, so the next loss would eliminate them. This time of year, when the weather turns frigid, many parents begin thinking a second loss would not be so bad. At least then we could enjoy watching our kids play soccer on PS3 instead of frozen turf. Well, for good or ill, Taylor's team, which only won, I think, two games the whole regular season, decided to start winning in game 2 of the double elimination tournament. After last night's victory in game 3, we get to play at 8 am on Saturday. What are the odds of a balmy day dawning on Saturday, Nov. 1? Brr. Anyway, congrats to Tay and his team, and at this point, I hope they keep winning. I've already suffered two insufferably cold games. What's a couple more? Especially if you bring home a trophy.

Here's some pictures of Tay on another, slightly warmer, Saturday at 8 am. He's #5.

Connor Turns Twelve (Yesterday)

We didn't have much time, this weekend, to celebrate Connor's twelfth birthday, but he got his biggest gift when his soccer team won their first game of the Spring season. He played Goalie in the first half and had some great saves. One is pictured below, when he had to slide-tackle the ball away from his open net. In the second half, as center halfback, he played a key role in keeping the ball on the opponents side of the field. We did, finally, have cake and ice cream, tonight, around 7 PM, a day late but he didn't care. His grandmother stopped by with some gifts. I already bought, and gave him, his gifts a couple weeks ago. We stopped at a sporting goods store and he got re-supplied with his choices of soccer cleats and baseball cleats. I usually buy cheap soccer cleats that can be used in all sports (and Connor usually gets hand-me-downs, poor fellow), but since he didn't want anything else for his birthday, he got to pick a really nice pair of cleats for each sport. Happy Birthday, Connor!

That's Connor on the ground.

Making a Goal Kick.

Finally, Connor gets his cake.

And a few bucks.

Good Things Do Happen

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Connor just loves his soccer, and is very good at it. And you know that things have not worked out favorably for him when it comes to finding a team to play on. It appears things may be working out, at least for the Spring season. A friend of mine coaches a travel, U11 team (Connor is too old for this team and must play on a U12 team). She has wanted, for the longest time, to figure out how to get Connor to play on her team, but the option of changing her team's designation to U12 has been impossible for various reasons. Until now. A very unlikely series of events has occurred that has changed the situation, making it possible to change the team to U12, allowing her to add Connor to the roster. He'll be the only U12 kid on the team, and they'll be playing teams a year older than the rest of the kids, but the coach felt it was worth it, just to get Connor to play for her. I don't know who's happier, the coach, or Connor.

After all the frustration Conor has endured regarding his desire to play competitive soccer, it's nice to see something good happen for a change.

First Day of School...ok, I'm serious this time.

God gave us a fantastic first day of school today. We did have that one dress rehearsal day last week, but that was kind of shaky and it was still August, so I didn't really count it. Today, Alex left bright and early, at 7 am to catch the county bus to his school. The rest of us headed to the classroom to start our school day at 8 am.

I didn't really stress getting every little thing done, but it all got done regardless. Kenzie and Connor went their own ways to work out their schedules on their own. Kenzie had a few issues, like not spending sufficient time on some subjects and not reading instructions carefully enough, but I addressed that with her, and we'll see what happens tomorrow. I still haven't checked her work for the day, which will tell me if she devoted enough time and effort to the job. Connor took longer to do all his work, and he's always been pretty conscientious about his work (we won't discuss the cheating episode of last year; I think he's felt enough guilt over that to last a while; especially after confessing it all Father Jennings, our pastor) but, again, I haven't checked today's work yet. Both Connor and Kenzie have been eager to start school this year, for some reason, so i don't expect too many problems, at least for a little while.

Tay and ty are usually my most daunting projects. They are SO different, not only from each other, but from all the other students I've taught. I have begun by splitting them up this year. I am going to try teaching them Religion, History, and Science together, because they take turns doing a lot of out-loud reading and I want them to get good at reading and following while somebody else (not me) is reading. Then they split up for Math and Language Arts, which is where they differ so much. They either do different things in the same room, or I send one away while I teach the other; depends on the moods we all experience at any given time. Tay clams up, Ty turns on the waterworks. Today, I dealt with both scenarios much better than I have in the past. This is evidence that my prayers for calm, patience, wisdom, etc. may be reaching God's ears. Taylor even practiced piano after he finished his classwork.

Bekah also started some preschool stuff, even though she doesn't even turn 3 until October. Kenzie took that job from me. She had more fun helping Bekah cut and paste and learn some letters and numbers than Bekah did, I think. (It also keeps Kenzie busy until I get time to help with her stuff)

Alex's high school soccer team had their first official game today. They lost, 3-2, but Alex wound up being a starter at Halfback, which I am very proud of. He has worked very hard at the practices, and it seems to have paid off. I credit today's loss with his team's bus sitting in traffic for three hours because of a school bus accident (not his bus) en route to the game, which started over an hour late. Because the team had to leave school a couple hours early, he missed a couple classes for which he had to get today's work last week. Well, he worked very hard over the weekend to get all his work done, without complaint. I have to say that I am very proud of him. I'm going to have to stop grumbling so much about all the upheavals this new school thing has caused us. Alex is dealing with it all very well so far (much better than I).

Well, tomorrow is the Next Day Of School. We'll have to see how it goes.

Champion!

Tyler's all-star team had their championship game tonight. They won! Here's Tyler with his trophy. Think he's happy? Too bad the major league Orioles can't do as good as this one.

Tomorrow starts another round of softball tournament play in Salisbury. Tay and Ty's regular coach-pitch team will finish up their season back home. Connor's team is still in the end of season tournament, but they now have one loss. One more and they're out, and done for the season. Connor is pitching tomorrow. I know he'll do well, especially since I won't be there. He always does well, but seems to do exceptionally well when I miss his game. We're also waiting for results from his soccer tryouts for the travel league. He's played travel soccer for several years, but took the past year off, for various reasons, and wants to get back into it. He's an extremely good goalie and defender so I don't doubt he'll get the job. If (when) he does, he'll have to choose between baseball and soccer next Spring, since travel soccer is year-round and will conflict with baseball in a major way.

Soccer Reprise

Just when you think you are all done for the season, soccer is over, time to relax, the day arrives for the dreaded SOCCER PARTY. With four teams, soccer parties can drag on for a long time, trying to squeeze them all in, between everything else that's going on this time of year. Usually, all parties are over by now, but we've had so much rain this year, the season was way into November, thus delaying thoughts of end-of-season celebrations until December. We've decided to cram three events into one weekend. It just happens to be this one, the return of WINTER at hand. brrr. I can't complain, though; it's been incredibly nice, way longer than it should have been this year. Today, we have Connor's and McKenzie's teams combined into one party. Alex's is tomorrow. I'm not doing one for the twins' team; time just got away from us.

We have our parties at the soccer field because the main event for all of our soccer parties is the kids vs. parents game. The kids love to dream about beating their parents in a game of soccer. Once the game is done, we'll give out trophies and have some pizza.

Since I didn't get to my rant on Black Friday, I'll take some time now for my trophy rant. I am a believer that a trophy, or any kind of reward, should be earned, not paid for. Everyone who pays for registration, gets a trophy. I think a complete uniform is enough, but our soccer league hands out trophies like candy. Everybody who gets a uniform, gets a trophy. It's a racket, on the same order as those photographers who charge a fortune to photograph the kids in their soccer uniforms when everyone already has a camera of their own (if you don't, you get a disposable one for ten bucks at the Dollar store; add a few bucks for developing film, and you've still spent tens of dollars less than those 'professional' pic) . Then, at the end of the year, when we have tournaments, the winners get, yes, another trophy (or a medallion). I think all those trophies floating around, de-value the awards for those who excel at what they do.

I used to display all of those things on one big bookshelf like the one on the left. Now, they are in the box on the right. And with five kids in sports, that was a lot of filled shelves. Even things like 'game balls' are meaningless, because everyone gets a game ball, regardless of whether or not they actually deserve one. I've been told by some parents that I do a really good job "manufacturing" a reason to hand out game balls (in baseball). I always have a reason for handing one out to every kid throughout the season, regardless of how far-fetched the justification. As you can see on the bookshelf above, I whittled the kids' trophies down to one shelf. Every one of these trophies was EARNED. They had to work for them. Without the effort, where's the value? These trophies will always have real meaning to the kids. Some kids don't have any on this shelf, yet. They have something to aspire to. As an aside, one of those trophies is for chess. This is my personal favorite because Connor won it in a chess tournament when he was 6 years old. He didn't win it because I let him beat me in chess. He studies the game. He practices all the time (well, not much lately), and, to my shame, he now beats me on a regular basis. He hasn't been in any tournaments for a couple years, but that's going to change in the Spring.

If I don't stop now, this'll get really long. Rant over.

Other news. After the soccer parties, I'll go over and pick up our professional pictures that were taken two weeks ago. I know, what about that rant about 'professional' pictures? Um, well, I have a few excuses. Number one is that it's a fundraiser for the volunteer fire company on Kent Island. They get a cut. Second, it's the onlydecent picture of Vicki and/or me you'll see all year long. Third, it's our annual school picture thing. Fourth, the grandparents expect to get these pictures for Christmas. Finally, I'm saving a couple of months in my annual family calendar for these pictures.

After that, it's off to see Santa. Most of the kids claim they no longer believe in Santa. I have a chart on our white board. It lists the 'Believers', 'non-Believers', and 'wafflers'. The B's and n-B's were evenly split a few weeks ago (with one waffler), but I've noticed a gradual shift as Christmas approaches. As of this morning, all wafflers, and all but one n-B are firmly in the Believer column. Kenzie is the only holdout; everyone else is at least pretending to believe in order to assure stuffed stockings on Christmas morning. Kenzie doesn't care if she just gets a rock. The only reason I want to go see Santa is that he'll be at the 4H Park where they also have model trains running. I love model trains. Not the little, whimpy N or HO scale, but the monster G-scale trains like this one that I had set up a few Christmases ago. We have a large collection these trains but we don't get them out because the kids tend to think they are toys. I had one running around, and over, our pond outside a few years ago, but the kids wouldn't leave it alone and most of the track got all bent up. The bridge is still there, though.

Connor's Turn

Last night, three of the teams I coach had their first end-of-season soccer tournament games. Obviously I couldn't coach all three so I took Kenzie's team, since she 's the youngest. I coach with someone else, so she took Alex's team. One of the parents took care of Connor's team. Kenzie's team got beat really bad. One more loss, and they're out of the tournament. Alex's team got beat, too. Same deal. Wouldn't you know it, but the one team (Connor's) that had no coach won the game!

Now here's today's gush. The game was tied at the end, and had to go to overtime. That means, shootout. Each team takes 5 penalty shots at the other team's goalie. The team with the most goals at the end of the shootout, wins. Connor got the winning goal. And the other coach's kid was the Goalie that stopped the other team from scoring the winning goal. Both of us coaches got to see the shootout, but neither of us had anything to with coaching the team up to that point. Needless to say, everyone was very excited, and of course, I had no camera with me. So, I tried to take a celebration photo of Connor this morning at 7 am, but it wasn't quite the same as it would have been last night.

Archery

The rain finally ended sometime late yesterday. It did cause us to have a fairly restful weekend, which I'll never complain about. Actually, I'm hoping to use Kearsyn as an excuse to get out of all the activities for next weekend. Next Saturday is supposed to be what yesterday was scheduled to be, except no softball tournament (that's been moved to Oct 21-22). We just took the soccer schedule and moved it all to next Saturday, including the chaotic picture schedule. If you ever want to see a true racket (in the scandalous sense of the word), have your kids join a sports league. Then sit back and watch the money being spent on those picture packages. People who will bi**h and complain about registration fees will willingly shell out big bucks for pictures of their kids in uniform; pictured on fake trading cards, fake cereal boxes, fake magazine covers, etc. It's like they care more about this image of their kid playing the sport, than their kid actually getting any benefit from playing the sport. I admit I have gotten sucked into this in the past (although I've never spent more than $25 per kid for sports pictures), but then it dawned on me how silly this all was. I have boxes full of these old pictures. The ones I actually keep out are the ones I've taken myself. Nobody is ever going to care what any of my kids looked like in their soccer uniform, pictured on a fake trading card. I'm not buying pictures this year. I've resolved to only pay for pictures when we have our family portrait done in the Fall. Our volunteer fire department hosts a professional photographer to take portrait photos as a fund raiser. It's actually incredibly cheap compared to those studios (plus: no sitting fee, which would bankrupt a family our size), and some of the money goes to our volunteers.

I'm glad the sun returned today. Our Knights of Columbus council holds several activities for kids of our parish and today was week #2 for archery. We had a soccer shootout a few weeks ago. The winner of that, in each age group, gets an award and a chance to compete on a regional level. Archery is something we do for just our parish, and the kids get to shoot arrows at targets for three consecutive weeks (as the weather allows). The guy that runs it (he's pictured with everyone except Connor) is a real archery lover. He supplies all the bows, arrows, and targets for us to do this. And for the kids that get the best scores, he converts old trophies that he's won over the years into awards for the kids. He just changes the plaque to read the kids' names. Connor actually won a trophy the first time we did this a couple of years ago. Here's pictures of all the kids taking their best shots today.

Alex if off at a paintball birthday party. That's something new from when I was a kid! Although we have paintball guns, we don't use them much, so Alex was very excited to get a chance to go shoot his. I've been promising the kids we'd go to the paintball park all Summer, be we just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe we'll go now that school is in session, and we can have the park to ourselves.

Finally, no baby news. I assume Vicki has updated her blog. I haven't checked today because of football, which I'm missing right now, so I'm going to end this and get back in front of the TV. I only have a couple hours before I'm supposed to go play indoor soccer with some friends of mine.

Goooooaaaaaal!!! and Chicken Update

I finally got to watch Alex ref a game for more than a few minutes today. Here he is, doing his job. Somebody just scored a goal. All the kids had games today, with no scheduling conflicts. This is good because I get to watch (and coach) them all, but it also makes for a very long morning. I was at the field from 8 am til about 2 pm. I'm beat, but now I have to go buy Bekah a birthday present. We're going to try to squeeze in a small birthday celebration between chicks and baby and soccer and softball, and, oh yeah, the Ravens game (that's our football team around here).

The baby chicks are now out of their rocker and ready for hatching. We have 17 eggs that are potential chickens. We tossed 4 or 5 that were obviously not going to hatch. I'm curious to see if the two white eggs hatch into white chickens. Monday we should start seeing some hatching action. We might as well forget school for a while. It just seems to be getting in the way of all the other neat things going on right now.