Author: Joyce

For Thursday’s game, Adrian’s coach asked him to be goalie. Adrian wanted to try, but was a little scared. He was never taught how to be goalie and was not sure how to stop the ball if it came toward him.

He was goalie for the whole second half.  Once he figured out to stay by the goal, he watched the ball and tried to follow it the best he could. The other team never scored a point during the second half! He was so thankful that his team played so well, the ball rarely came near him.

I am so proud of Adrian.  He was willing to try something scary to help his team. He plays hard and tries his best, but he has not ever played “real” soccer. Upward was fun, but they had a short field, did not have goals and some rules were modified.  Each week we see him improve in something as he practices and learns new skills with his new group.

The weather was perfect for soccer this weekend.  The sun was out, the sky was blue and the weather chilly but not cold.

Andrea played two away games this week.  Both games were tough, but in completely different ways.

The first team played well. They knew how to play soccer!  Our girls tried hard, but they did not have the skills the other team had.

Yesterday’s game was completely different. I could not see everything and Andrea filled us in on a few details. Here are the highlights:

• The other team played dirty. Andrea said they were talking mean through most of the game.
• The referee did not make a lot of calls and made some very poor ones.
• One of our team was red carded for something that could have been an accident. The ref was too far to see what happened but the other team’s parents started yelling “she elbowed her!” It felt as if the ref sided with what he heard, not saw.
• Our goalie caught the ball while on the ground.  Seconds later she was rammed into and her face was kicked. The girl was not penalized (should have been at least a yellow card).  The other team’s coach had to tell his team to stop their inappropriate comments about the hurt goalie.
• A girl who earned a yellow card was being obviously disrespectful to the referee.  He ignored her contempt and let her continue playing.
• Parents argued loudly. At least one parent started to loudly disagree with the ref’s decisions. The ref threatened to make parents watch from the cars.
• When the game ended, the other team made a show of grabbing their belonging and sitting down before walking off the field without the “post game handshake”.

We talked about the game on the way home.  There were so many variables we do not know of.  We are biased for our team.  But, it was a poorly run game. If the ref had been stricter at first, the game might not have gotten out of hand so quickly.  If parents showed maturity and restraint, they would not have started arguments.  As someone said as the other team left the field, they “would not be surprised to see our tires slashed”–it was that heated of a game.

We were proud that Andrea vocally told her team to calm down and play fair at least twice, but we watched as she changed her moves so she would not be carded for something. She tries never to play mean or rough, but she is not afraid to play defense. I do not know if she even realized that she was playing differently.

I do hope that we do not play this team again. I am glad that Andrea could see and learn why being a “good sport” is so important.  As her coach said in the pep talk after the game, the girls “can control their actions, but they can’t control referee’s choices, the other team or how parents react.” Each player’s choices are important and will affect the game.

Megan is loving soccer and has fun playing with her new friends. She was goalie for awhile on her last game and kept the ball from going in a few times.  She can honestly say that she made the very last goal in the last second of the game because they had been told that the game would be over after that play.

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This weekend, Audrey did two presentations at Wellfield Botanical Gardens for their 2017 Education Symposium.  She was the youngest one there but did excellent presentations.

Her first talk was over lunch (always a difficult time) on the basics on raising Monarchs.  She explained how she became interested and how to easily, and simply, raise them at home.

Then she spoke on helping to keep the Monarch population healthy.  She discussed some of the diseases and parasites that are common with Monarchs. Audrey shared ways to help the population to grow and encouraged the planting of butterfly gardens.

This is only the first of her scheduled programs for this year.  She is also scheduled to help at a school and a library for some programs.  One of the ladies present had heard her before and mentioned that she will recommend Audrey for another program.

After the presentations, Allan picked up the rest of the children and we enjoyed roaming the gardens.  It was a relaxing way to spend a few hours!

 

 

 

Today is Mark’s half birthday!  He is nine today.  Happy half birthday Mark.