It’s Soccer Season

The craziness of sports kicks in this week.  Both Jake and Abby have soccer camp, although luckily neither of them have an all day session.  Jake is trying out for the Pope John Paul II soccer team (either JV or Freshman team), Abby begins her fall travel season with the Cheetahs.

Jake is having the roughest time of it right now.  It’s only the second day of tryouts and he’s already sore and limping around.  They are practicing for 3-1/2 hours per day, which consists of a lot of running and conditioning work.  It doesn’t help that the first three days of camp start at 7 am sharp, which means Jake has a 6 am wakeup.  To say he’s not a morning person would be a bit of an understatement. 

The coach is intent on gauging whether or not the boys are in shape.  It’s a real quick way to get rid of the players who aren’t quite cutting it.  Jake did some preseason training (which is really just another word for running) but tonight he admitted if he could do it all over again, he would have logged a lot more miles this summer in preparation.  At least he knows what in store for him next summer, so it’s already been a good learning experience for him. Regardless he seems to be handling it pretty well and I’m hoping he can make the cut.  It would be a great start to his freshmen year at PJP to be on a sports team.

Abby soccer season kicks into full gear this week.  She has three hour training sessions each afternoon and then the girls take part in the Battle of Hilltop, which is the West Mont Tournament and the worst one we’ll play in all season simply due to the amount of time they will spend on the fields.  They’ll start first thing Saturday morning and play straight through until Sunday evening.  It really is a draining event.

Abby also is playing CYO soccer for Sacred Heart.  Practices for that started earlier this month, but Abby won’t be reporting to training until Monday.  I figured she would get enough soccer in this week and weekend and there was no need adding some extra practice time to her schedule.

It’s still another 10 days until Brett begins his soccer season, but his is not nearly as intense as the other two.

 

Back again, ugh?

Talk about neglecting my duties as a blogger, I’m noticing I haven’t posted anything since July 8^th.  I guess it’s not too bad, that’s only 77 days without an update and I’m sure there isn’t too much that’s happened since then.

I really want to update this thing with regularity but I for one reason or another I just seem to get sidetracked.  I will promise to try and get back to a more regular interval of posting for those of you who have been nagging me to update.

Since my last post, we’ve watched our summer vacation pass by and the kids are back to school.  We were lucky to have Erin, Lucas, Noor, and Isa back for an extended stay over the summer, and I know we were all bummed to see them head home to Tunisia.

Brett started 1^st grade, Abby 6^th, and Jake is the big cheese at Sacred Heart this year in 8^th grade.  I’m being told this is a big event for Catholic School, so I guess we have to throw a graduation party this spring.

All three kids have started up their fall sports; Brett is playing soccer on a team that I’m head coach, Abby is playing travel soccer (asst. coach) and CYO Volleyball, and Jake is playing CYO soccer.  Needless to say, we’re spending the bulk of our free time chasing them all around.

We’ve celebrated my Mom’s 60^th birthday back on July 19^th while we were down at the beach, and then she threw herself a 60^th party at Shearer Elegance the first weekend in August.

She seems to have come through her double mastectomy with flying colors and she just completed her final surgery in early September.  It’s really amazing how quickly she’s come through the process; she’s an amazing lady.  She was away at a wedding in Costa Rica in late August and managed to squeeze in some zip chording while she was there.

Last but not least, Jean began her student teaching at West Vincent Elementary.  It’s an exciting time for her, and it’s great to see her head out the door each day excited to get to her day.  I know she’s going to be great, and I think the students will be lucky to have her.

Soccer, Jewlery, Pizza, and Johnny Dangerously

Saturday was a busy day in the house, and we were all going in different directions.  It took some planning and a little bit of help from others to make it all happen, but we got it done.

It started with Brett’s soccer game at 8:30.  The Haffey’s stuck around until 10 the night before, so the little man was impossible to get out of bed for his game.  He was barely comatose as I tried to get his uniform onto him while he lay in his bed at 8:15.  He ate a yogurt bar in the car as his breakfast and struggled his way through the game.  He took one shot to the face early in the game which brought tears, followed by a shot below the belt a little later on.  Breakfast at McDonald’s following the game seemed to finally lift his spirits.

Jean missed Brett’s game because she had a spinning class to teach, and she went straight from the class to meet her friend Danielle Murphy for breakfast.

From there, we went to Abby’s CYO game at 12:00.  As soon as the game ended, Jean ran Abby over to Gran and Pop’s house and it was the last I saw of Jean until 9:30 that night.  Aunt Kate, Hannah, and Haley had come home for the weekend for Natalie’s birthday party, so they ended up taking Abby with them.  The first part of the party was at a jewelry shop in Exton, before heading back to Tom and Carole’s for pizza.

I took Jake and Brett to Jake’s game in Norristown, and from there we drove up to Tom and Carole’s house to celebrate Natalie’s birthday with the rest of the family.  After some pizza, ice cream, and cake it was after 7:30 and time to head home, but Jake and Abby managed to beg Tom and Carole for a sleepover with Nate and Natalie.  Leaving those two behind, Brett and I headed home and I enjoyed a riveting 20+ minute discussion on Anakin, Obi Wan, General Grevious, Yoda, and various other clones.

Jean had a busy day on her own.  After dropping Abby off at her mom’s, she went back to Sacred Heart to work the snack bar for a couple of hours with Dana Rosenblum.  Once they wrapped that up, Jean went home to clean up and then was right out the door to meet her Rosemont friends Mo and Lynne for dinner.

Once Jean got home, we ended up watching Johnny Dangerously together.  I forgot how much I enjoyed that movie (I’m guessing I hadn’t seen it in at least 15 years).  I wasn’t sure if Jean would enjoy it because she’s not a big fan of stupid humor, but it was a nice way to end the evening.  I love the guy that keeps butchering all of the English cursewords: “Sominabatch!  Farging icehalls!”

Soccer, Jake Scores, A Shot to the Head, & Another Cheetah Party

As always, the weekend revolved around soccer. I was able to move Brett’s game for the weekend to Thursday night to help lighten our weekend load, but Abby still had three of them and Jake had two.

Saturday started early, with Brett’s team picture at 8:30 am. From there it was back to the house for a nice little breakfast before heading off to our first game of the day, which was Abby’s CYO team. They won 3-1, and then we headed over to Jake’s CYO game, who also won 5-0. Grandmom Phil was able to catch both games, and the kids both played really well for her.

Saturday night, Jean went to a 40th birthday party for Tony Marino. Tony is married to Jean’s friend Pam, who is one of her running buddies. I ended up staying home with the kids while Jean went with her other running buddy Jennifer, who is recently separated/divorced and didn’t want to go to a couples event without a date.

Sunday we started off with Jake serving 9:30 mass. From there, Jean took Jake to his game while I took Abby to her Cheetah game. Abby’s team won 3-2, but the bummer was that I missed Jake’s game because Jake scored his first goal of the season. It was apparently a beauty, with his shot going high into the top corner of the net. Jean said she cheered so loudly that she became a little embarrassed about being “one of those parents.”

The other event from the game was that Jake took quite a shot to the head during the game. He was down for a few minutes, and many of the parents on the sideline were speculating he might have a concussion, but he ended up returning to the game and playing well. He didn’t have any side effects the rest of the day, so we’ll just chalk it up to him having a hard head. If you’ve ever tried to get him to do something against his will, this wouldn’t come as a surprise to you.

I took Abby right from her West Mont game over to her CYO game at Visitation, which they won easily 8-1. We then headed back to the house to meet up with Jean before heading over to a Cheetah party for the Eagles-Steelers game. Jake was luckily excluded from the event because his buddy Timmy invited him over for the game, so that saved us a big headache.

Abby’s coach had a Chili Cookoff/Tailgate party for the game, with the entire Cheetah squad invited. We (meaning Jean) don’t really have a chili recipe, so Jean decided to make a peach pie for the party, and it was fantastic. It was a nice spread of food, with a ton of chili and hot wings everywhere, although the kids came home a wee bit hungry because there wasn’t much food on offer that wasn’t hot/spicy. My insides are arguing with me a bit this morning, but it was a fun way to take in the Eagles-Steelers game. (Sorry Dorsey, but the Steelers were beaten pretty handily. The score made it seem a little closer than it really was.)

Brotherly/Sisterly Love

Jake and Abby are both playing CYO soccer this year for their school/parish, Sacred Heart.  The teams are split up by age, Jake plays Varsity (which is 7^th & 8^th Grade) and Abby plays Junior Varsity (which is 5^th & 6^th Grade).  They both practice on the same field twice a week, with the Varsity on one end and the JV on the other.

I am an assistant coach on Abby’s team.  Practice has been going on since early August, but tonight was the first time the two teams scrimmaged each other.

Abby plays sweeper for the JV, which is the last line of defense.  Jake was playing center striker for the varsity, which is the first line of offense.  As a parent watching from the sidelines, this was a bit of a nightmare.

Both kids had a point to prove, and neither of them backed down.  There was a ton of physical contact between the two, which usually ended up with Abby being thrown down to the ground.  (I’m guessing all of this may sound very familiar to Erin?)

Abby held her own; every time she went down to the ground, she got right back up each time.  At one point she was on the ground in tears, but she refused to come out and give her brother the satisfaction.

Both kids played great, and luckily things all worked out.  The scrimmage ended 1-1, with Jake scoring the goal for the varsity.  Luckily, I had moved Abby to another position before that happened, so it at least made the car ride home bearable.