First Day of Soccer

Well, that's it, I have two weeks' notice til it's time to buckle down and do "school". I put that in quotes because it's not "going to school", it's at our house, but fourth grade does seem to have a bit more meaty material in it, especially history! Hooray! I love history! I didn't learn half this stuff when I was a kid, just boring old textbook chapters. As my dad said, "Ah, I see you have other, selfish motives for homeschooling. You just want to learn this stuff, too!" Yup, Dad, you nailed it on the head. I didn't think that was my motive when I started, but by golly, it has turned into one of them.

Gabe has a new soccer coach today, after two years with Cindy. We loved Cindy, but a personality clash between herself and her son led her to send the team to other coaches. They split up the entire team, and I realize why. If a new coach took the team as is, the kids would take a month getting over, "But Cindy said...". So they are on totally new teams. Oh well. Gabe is awfully excited. Brandon gets to start tomorrow, for the first time ever. He is really, really excited, since he's been watching for two years. I could have put him in last year, but we had one car, and also his speech wasn't that great yet, so I figured his team wouldn't know what he was shouting. It's much better this year. Now if he'll just look up instead of down, like he does with the bicycle, he might get pretty good. He can run much faster than before, too. He grew about four inches this year, I think.

This year, it looks like we'll have soccer on Monday, Wed, Thurs, Sat and Sunday. I can see why people proudly display soccer mom stickers in their minivans. This is quite a sport. I never did it when I was little. DH did. I did distance running in track and cross country, swimming one year, 4-H horses from 4th-12th grade, and rowing in college for two years.

In other news, we are lovin' the Olympics on NBC.com. Gabe and Brandon are taking the opportunity to watch as many sports as they can to find out what they are. They watch entire soccer games online. We saw the men's 4x100 freestyle swim and even in slow motion it was impossible to tell whose hand touched the wall first. They did determine it was the US, but I sure felt sorry for the French. They were very sad. I know the feeling, when it's quite that close. Would you believe it's possible to tie in the 1500 meters? That was not a flattering picture, but I have a copy! :)

I wonder what sports the kids will eventually love? Sports saved my sanity in school, and both of us love them, so we're interested in how this will go with the complication of homeschooling, so the ease and convenience will not be there. We'll have to actively seek out sports and not overwhelm ourselves with too many at once.

Go, kids, go!!