September Soccer

Soccer season is almost half over and the girls are having a great time.  Emily loves running around and hanging out with her friends (there are two girls from her class at school on her team) and she is doing a great job on the field.  We are so happy with how hard she runs and how she is using both of her feet all of the time and not shying away from the ball.  Last year, she spent a lot of time running alongside the play but this year, she gets right in the mix.  She is making huge strides!!!

I love that she's always smiling! 

Yes, she's way over the line.  But it's still a good throw in, because no one's paying attention. 

Grammy and Grampy's dog Nestor took in last Saturday's game. 

Elizabeth is having a much different experience.  At the last minute this year, we decided to put her on the U10 travel team.  Neither Lee nor I has ever been in favor of the girls playing travel soccer, but we slowly came to realization that she needed to start playing with more dedicated kids sooner rather than later.  Her coach is amazing - patient, kind, enthusiastic, passionate - every parent loves him and the kids love him too.  Regardless of his efforts, however, unless Elizabeth starts making some dramatic improvements in the next year or so, the reality is that she probably won't even be able to make the travel team a few years from now.  These girls are good.  And fast.  And experienced.  It is really fun to watch them on the field, but they are playing on a whole different level than Elizabeth. The good news is that she is still having fun (she has a couple of good friends on the team and rides to practice with them most nights) and she is learning a lot; also, her lack of playing time doesn't seem to bother her that much. When she played in the recreational league, she hated being taken out of the game but for some reason, only playing 15-20 minutes of each 60 minute game isn't ruining the game for her, which is great.  And Lee and I are so impressed with how much improvement she has made in the last month.

 Grammy took these three awesome photos (above and two below) this weekend.