Soccer!

Today was Ella's First ever soccer practice. I don't know who was more excited, her, Eli or me, but boy were we happy for soccer to start.

Soccer practice started at 530pm so of course we were there at 430pm. Now, wait a minute. You know I like to be more than on time to things, and we were so excited...so we had a picnic dinner at the park and played around until practice started.

See how excited she is?



I am not the coach. I would be, but I am due to deliver our third child in three weeks. So I am the assistant coach.

I started the kids (four girls and four boys) dribbling to the fence across the field and back. then, after discussing such rules as "no hands ever, just use your feet" and, well that was the only rule today, we circled up for a passing game involving learning everyone's name.

After a water break I reluctantly let the head coach take over.

Here they are practicing their passing:


I loath red ants. And sadly every park in Tucson is infested with them. Here is Eli scratching his newest bites:



Learning how to score is important. Here is Ella shooting against the coach:



The practice ended with a team meeting. The coach went over the rules: have fun and be a good sport. Then we voted on a team name. The kids suggested names like "airplane", "helicopter", "soccer team", and "dinosaur". Eli (not actually on the team) suggested "pirates". We "voted" and then the moms chose pirates because they thought it would be easy to make a team banner for the pirates.
Ella was beyond exhausted when the hour long practice ended. She said she had fun and is excited to keep playing.

Eli had fun (omitting the ant bites) and I'm pretty sure he thinks he's on the team too.

Go Pirates!!!