Soccer!

Erin did 6 weeks of pee-wee soccer this fall and loved it! I think it was the cutest thing in the world to watch. The first four weeks they learned basic soccer skills (dribbling, kicking, throwing, running), and the last two weeks were games.

Day 1: Learning to dribble

Day 1: Lying on the ground because it's exactly what Mom wants me not to do (and besides, Duncan is doing it, so why can't I?). We had lots of times where she decided she was done for the day and would rather roll on the grass or play with the goal net than play soccer. I'd threaten, "ok, fine, we'll just leave and not play soccer today" to which she would respond, "ok Mom, let's go." Grrr..I wasn't planning on actually following through with it! I hate it when that happens. Most of the time, though, she had a great time.

Game Days:

Game days were the best. The kids were so funny because they'd all run after the ball but not take it from anyone. At one of the breaks, I told Erin "hey, if someone in a brown shirt has the ball, you can take it from them and run the other direction with it!" And then I thought: "whoa, this goes against everything I've been trying to teach her for the past 3 years!" Still, nobody stole the ball from anyone - it just turned out to be 9 cheerleaders running behind the kid with the ball until they either scored a goal or kicked it out of bounds.

Here they are having a pep talk before the big game. Erin is listening so intently, can't you tell?

When it was Erin's turn to do the kick off...

...she kicked the ball without any opposition from the other team.....

...and dribbled it down the field with both teams trailing behind (because they were all so nice and didn't want to take the ball away from her)...


... and somehow made it to the goal post rather than out of bounds, and scored a goal!!! GO ERIN!!!!

(and here is where you can see that all the kids, on both teams, were kind enough to stay far behind so that she could have her moment!):

Erin and her friend Jonah: