We had a couple of visitors this week….

Sam’s soccer team lost another not so close one… we stopped counting after 5 or 6 goals.  On a positive note, Sam is getting a lot of playing time since they are having a tough time getting everyone to show up.  The last 2 weeks he has played the whole game.  In last Saturday’s game, Sam played the entire game as a forward…. which meant Sam was running a lot more than usual.  The coach even commented after the game that Sam was getting better.

Alex made the Varsity and Junior Varsity basketball team this year!   He will be getting a lot more playing time on the JV team and will probably just be used as a sub on Varsity to give everyone a rest.  We had agreed that he could get a new pair of shoes – he had outgrown the old ones, if he made the team.  Well he picked out a very nice pair at Dick’s Sporting Goods and they were on sale this week.  Special Thanks to Uncle Les and Aunt Laurie (he used his Birthday gift card) and Nana and Gung Gung for chipping in the rest…. they were pretty expensive.  🙂   Everyone on the team loved them and thought they looked great and they should give his ankles some good protection too.

Yes they are Orange…..

  Not the American version of course, but Soccer.  Alex finished his season on Friday with a loss to one of the Raleigh area schools.  This was part of the single elimination post season tournament so they will not be moving on.  The team did a good job holding the opponents to a tie in the first half, but the second half was a little different – final score was 4-2.  Alex played very well again and had another beautiful crossing pass, but nobody could get to it in time.  Basketball tryouts were last week and we are still waiting to hear if and which team Alex makes this year (varsity or junior varsity).
  Sam’s soccer team suffered another loss today in a very wet match… it rained most of the game and at times was pretty hard.  Sam’s team although losing 4-0, played a much better game today and actually had the ball on the offensive side for part of the game as well and managed one shot on goal.   Sam had several good kicks to clear the ball out on the defensive side.  Sam also threw the ball into play on several occasions and took a pretty good shot to the chest when one of his kicks ricocheted  off the defender – both players were a little stunned at how fast it moved.

“Pumpkin light, Pumpkin bright, first pumpkin I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, Wish I had a prizewinner tonight”

We think we had a couple of prize winners!

It’s scary to think that this might actually happen in a real car in just a couple of years…. hopefully not an open-top jeep though.

So we don’t know who was parenting at this point in time, but Dad probably took the photo.  Sam and Alex in August of 2009, attempting to fly a kite with no clothes on.  🙂

Sam started his soccer season a couple of weeks ago with practice, but the team may need quite a few more practices to have any shot of winning a game this year.  The team lost 12-0 on Saturday…. at least we stopped counting at 12.  Sam played the entire second half and had a few good defense plays late towards the end of the game.  Of course, he had quite a bit of encouragement in the second half from his father on the sidelines.  By the end of the game, the coach was challenging his team to score just one goal, but after 3 different goalies it was obvious we couldn’t stop them.  Practice is every Sunday at 2pm and Alex will probably go out and try to help as well.

TCS wins a close one against the team from Kinston on Friday.  Alex had a few great plays, but no shots on goal this game.  The final score was 2-1 as the Kinston team scored late in the second half to make it interesting.  The team will have one more game on Monday (weather permitting) and if they win they will continue on in the post season tournament.  They will be playing the local team at home, so they should have a good chance of winning.

The TCS soccer team lost 3 and only won 1 game over the last week and a half.  Alex had a couple of really good games and a couple of just “so-so” games.  Their biggest loss was to the team in Wilson… lost 9-0 and we think Alex had just 2 of the 4 or 5 shots on goal in that game.  The last game was against Bethel (this was the one win over the stretch) and Alex had a couple more close calls on goal but just couldn’t quite make it into the net.  He did get an assist in the win against Bethel and another assist in won the of the losing efforts.  We are very proud of Alex this year as he continues to improve…  we still think he has a good shot of getting a goal by the end of the year!