Let The Games Begin

We had our first club soccer games of the Spring season today. Anthony still has a couple more weeks left of high school soccer also. Because he skipped a grade, his club soccer team is made up of eighth graders so the schedules overlap. Next year his high school soccer games and club soccer games won't have this overlap as they try to take that into account when they schedule games, or so I'm told.

In any case, it was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the mid to upper 60s. Alex stayed at home again, but the rest of us went to IHOP and then to Anthony's game. Then we picked up food at Chipotle and brought it home. We had about an hour before we had to go to warmups for Anthony's and Alex's 2:30PM club soccer games. After that we rushed home so we could bathe and get dressed for church, then we went out for dinner. I felt like I barely spent any time at all, but then that's pretty typical for a Saturday during soccer season.

This is one of a few peaceful moments between Natalie and Eric today. They were pretty good for the most part. Natalie brought some markers and coloring books that she shared with Eric. During the afternoon, they were both digging in and playing with dirt and rocks and were oblivious to the games going on. Unfortunately, they did fight over the one soccer ball that we brought, because they both had a hard time sharing, but in between the fighting, they took a little breather and that's when I snapped this picture.

Anthony's Junior Varsity B team lost 4-0 and his club soccer team lost 4-1. Alex's team tied their game 3-3. Since this was the first time I have seen a club soccer game since Anthony started also playing for his high school team, I noticed that there was a big difference in the way the teams played. Although his club soccer team has younger players, they played much better than the JVB team players. They were aggressive. They ran to the ball instead of waiting for it to come to them. They passed the ball to their teammates instead of just kicking it down the field just to get it down the field. Both teams have trouble scoring, though, which is frustrating.

Anthony has three or four high school soccer games left and then we have a vacation planned for Spring Break. I'm ready for high school soccer to be over because then I might actually get home on most days before 5PM.

Tomorrow, Patrick is driving Anthony to his club soccer game near Corpus Christi, TX, which is about 2 1/2 hours away (one way). I'm staying here with the other kids because the thought of trapping all of us in the car for five hours total is just not appealing!