Soccer Season-Done

Another soccer season has come and gone. Both Alex and Arianna had a great time and both did really well and scored lots of goals.

Alex's team had a really slow start. They came together as a team after about a half dozen games and then finally started to tie and win a couple of games. This team struggled for a while, but in the end totally redeemed themselves in the tournament. All the soccer teams play tournaments at the end of the season. The regular season's standings are wiped out and everyone starts fresh. Each game is sudden death, if you don't win, you don't go on. Alex's team....the one with some pretty bad regular season standings....WON the Championship tournament! These kids really wanted to win and it showed. The picture above is Alex taking a shot on goal...yes, it made it in. Next year Alex will move up to U16. I'm not sure if he will play High School soccer next year, he's already committed to football and hockey. I do hope that he sticks with the rec league next spring though.

Now Arianna.....Well, let's just say "she's good!" She was one of the oldest girls on her team and will definately move up to U12 in the fall. She scored every goal that her team made this season....I'm not kidding here. She has been watching her brothers play from the time she was an infant and it is unreal how good she has become. She was invited to join a National AYSO team and travel to Hawaii in '09 for the National Tournament. We're still thinking about it. She will be playing at a regional tournament in a couple of weeks here in Michigan with some girls that she played with over the winter. I am looking forward to seeing this team play, they were really good and were beating some of the local travel teams.

This years medals are already adorning the bedroom walls. Nice job.

Cool Things

Sometimes when you bike you get to see some pretty nasty things. Country roads are full of road kill that one must be adept at riding around and forcing one's self to, at all costs, not look at. Yes, there is always the bad, but then there is the good too. And when we get to see the cool stuff it just makes riding all worthwhile. Today I got to see the good and the bad, but mostly the good. I always ride in the country. Not too much traffic, some bumpy roads and mostly beautiful landscape. About twenty minutes into my ride I spotted a small yellow plane. It was flying close to the ground, about 100-200 feet, really close. My first thought was, this guy is either goofing off or crop dusting. Once I crested a small hill, I found myself right in front of a vineyard, I could see him come back around making a tight turn and then diving once again over the grapes. Crop Duster. I watched him swoop down and then quickly back up and around again over and over for about five minutes. I took a few photos with my phone and really wish I had had my camera with me. It was really fun to watch. Just one of those cool things.

Hey Rocky Raccoon

This is who came for dinner last night.

Blossomtime Race

First let me just say that yes, I am alive and well. Spring has been fine, but....I'm ready for summer :0)

I ran my first 5k of the season on Saturday. Our local YMCA puts on this race and does a really nice job. It runs the route of the Blossomtime parade which is a big deal here in our little town. The race takes place about an hour and a half before the parade. The route is an out and back through the Twin Citys of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. It includes running over the Blossomtime bridge....which I've discovered, people really do not like to run over the grating on this bridge. A lot of people scramble to get up on the sidewalk edge, which is narrow, so they don't have to look down at the water far below. There is a great hill that we ran down at the very beginning of the race....but wait, there is the same killer hill that we have to finish with on the way back. The official results aren't posted yet, but I think I ran a straight 30. That gives me about a 9:30 pace. Pretty normal for me. I didn't push. I didn't stop either and I especially didn't stop on that hill and was still able to sprint the last 100 yards to finish up. It looks like I was about a minute slower than last years race. I'll just have to make it up later this summer at the Venetian 5k.

We stayed after for the parade. The weather was perfect and we had a great time with lots of friends and kids!