Spring Soccer

I forgot to post about Spring Soccer!  They both ended up playing this season, thanks to Boo's change of heart, "He can play on my team if he wants to..."  By the time I called Parks & Rec, there was only one slot left, and that was in the other section.  So, they are in the same age group, but play on different teams and practice on different days.  We had soccer from 5:15 - 6:15 M-Th, and then double games on Saturday.  It was a beastly schedule, and our family dinners suffered greatly, but the kids learned A LOT from their coaches, and really enjoyed their teams, so I'm glad we did it (but we'll try to never do it again)!

Yaks' team was the Thunder Pickles.  Enough of them were playing from the Fall season, and they had the same coach, they decided to stick with what they knew(?).  His two coaches Adrian (a guy) and Alex (a girl) really helped him work on his skills of dribbling, following through with his foot, headers, and not being afraid to get in there and play without fear!  Yaks' team only won one game, which was a really tough lesson for Yaks to learn:  We don't quit soccer, just because our team didn't win the game last week.  Adrian was particularly wonderful to give the kids pep talks, his famous phrase was, "That girl/boy in the (insert identifying feature, ie) green socks) other team was an animal!  You guys played great.  No SHAME.  I'm proud of you."  Yaks did get to play with a couple friends from school "P" and "E", so that made it really fun for him, plus the rest of the team were a really nice bunch of calm, nice girls, which was perfect.

Check out these t-shirts that Adrian had made for the team - So Great.

Boo's team (The Raiding Radishes) was mostly boys, with only two other girls, but she really enjoyed herself, and fit in really well!  Although her preferable position was the goalie, she quickly learned that in soccer, the goalie is typically the one who gets the glory or the guff for either blocking or letting a goal pass.  One game she missed one that cost them the game, and she was really bummed, and felt badly.  Her competitive nature and perfectionist personality doesn't make much room for mistakes in herself (or others), sadly. See?  All these great life lessons one learns when playing soccer.

 Fortunately, her teammates are awesome, and they didn't seem to care.  Many of Yaks' classmates were on HER team, so Yaks would typically make himself right at home on the sidelines, cheering on his classmates on his sisters' team, like some kind of Raiding Radish mascot!  Thank goodness the one game where Boo and Yaks' teams faced each other we were out of town!  (insert heavenly angels singing)

We had a really good time watching both of the kids this year!  Their all getting more skilled, and can really move and pass and score, so watching games is more than just a moving clump, but rather a great game of passing, blocking and even sometimes, scoring!