Precious Moments

Tonight I spent a beautiful evening with E.  When we heard the US Women's soccer team was coming into town, and they were playing Sweden!, we knew this was the perfect birthday present for her. She had to wait almost a month to actually redeem her gift, but, I think she'd say it was well worth the wait!

She had a couple of reffing jobs this afternoon, so as soon as those were over we headed out to the stadium.  I was hoping to be able to stop at a restaurant and have dinner with her before the game. Between our late start, traffic and freeway closures, we decided to get right to the stadium and eat the "delicious" food they were serving there. (gag)

It was a beautiful evening as we set out

We made it!

Before the game

 We grabbed our food, a hot dog for each of us, a Sprite for E and water for me, and headed to our seats.  I don't really like hot dogs and I have to say that about half way through this one, I wish I had just stuck to water! LOL  Blech!  

E. "enjoying" her hot dog (she doesn't really like hot dogs either ;) )

US Women's Soccer team warming up

Swedish team warming up

Me and my girl

Official opening

Kick off!

The game was so much fun to watch. E. particularly enjoyed watching #4, which is her number and plays the same position as E.  :)  Wow! She was amazing. They all were amazing. Even though Sweden ended up with the first goal of the evening, the US team seemed more in control of the game. They had so many goal attempts and just couldn't quite make it in. It was agonizing as they went to the goal over and over and it would bounce off the post, or just glance to the side, or the Swedish team would squeak in there and knock it out at the last second. 

Half time score board

They came back in the second half with a few substitutions and finally scored in the last few minutes of the game!

Tied game!

The ref added 3 minutes to the playing time, and both teams fought to the very end.  At some point during the second half the crowd started chanting for Alex Morgan.  They weren't disappointed! She was subbed in and, wow! Was she fun to watch. Very talented young lady.

Waving to the fans

There were over 18,000 people in attendance (record crowd) so we decided to hang out a little before leaving.  We watched the players cool down, the post game interview and the coolest part, watching the players come over to the fans who were standing along the railings. One girl had a poster asking Alex for her headband, and she got it!  She was so excited!  Love to see the athletes interacting with their fans.

Last photo before leaving

This evening was so special. Not only because I got to see an amazing soccer game but because I got to see it with one of my most favorite people in the whole world, my sweet 14 yo, first born gal.

Love you E! Thank you for a wonderful evening!

Happy Day

 

My sweet oldest daughter had much rejoicing today. First, she got the call from the coach extending an invitation to play club soccer next season. A dream she's had for many years and we finally decided to take the plunge and let her try.

That made her very, very happy but what made her even more happy and brought the biggest smile to her face, she finished reading Ivanhoe today!  And there was much rejoicing in the land. heeheehee  She didn't find Ivanhoe much to her liking. ;)

Since she was so happy to be done,  I've included her last narration (written) for Ivanhoe:

Ivanhoe

Chapters 42-44

Rebecca was getting scared because no one would fight for her in the arena except the Templar, and he was not a good fighter. The fair lady had nearly given up hope.

Suddenly, bursting heroically into the arena, came none other than IVANHOE HIMSELF!!! You could almost HEAR the trumpet fanfare!

“Hurry,” quavered the Templar, quickly taking off his armor and dumping it on Ivanhoe. “I’m not fighting anymore––you are!”

“YOU COWARD!” everyone screamed.

Then Ivanhoe, after strapping the armor on, rode courageously out into the arena.

Ah, yes, he fought bravely for his lady Rebecca’s honor. He finally struck down his sparring partner, the malevolent Malvoisin!

Malvoisin surrendered. He staggered out of the arena and his face turned white. Then he fell over dead, NEVER TO RISE AGAIN.

Rebecca thanked Ivanhoe, and then rode away to her homeland...

And Ivanhoe married Rowena, and they lived happily ever after. They had always loved each other from an early age!

Ivanhoe was greatly honored by Richard Cœur De Leon, and was brave for the rest of his days, which he used quite usefully, just as we had expected him to.

And that is that. The end.

            Rated: H

            Heroic

Well done, E. You stuck through it even when you didn't want to. One day you'll look back and be glad you've read all these amazing stories. For now, just keep on keeping on.  :)

Piano Recital

This past weekend my girls had their piano recital.  Their teacher did something a little different this year. He had almost all of the kids play a duet along with their own solo piece. It was a fun twist to the performance. Sometimes the kids played with their mom and others played with their teacher, Mr. Anderson.  My girls had the opportunity to play with each other. They played duets and a trio!  We had been on vacation the week before with no chance to practice. So going into this day, they were a little nervous.  I was so proud of them. They did a great job! :)

E. warming up

 A. Warming up

My four girls! 

I still don't have a video camera. It's something I dream of owning, one day! LOL I use my Powershot camera's video function for all my video taping needs, and it shows. ;) For some reason this particular day the camera was being finicky and on several of the songs didn't start recording until the song was well underway. No clue why, but there you have it. So without any further ado, here are my three older girls playing their pieces (or parts of them playing their pieces. snicker, snicker)

R.'s solo



E and R's Duet



EAR's Trio



A.'s solo



E. and A.'s duet



E.'s solo

Girls getting their certificates

Summer Time

Summer time means hot, hot, hot temperatures and swim team!

A.  went under right as I snapped the picture. She's the bottom middle blur. ;)

S is working the kickboard in the top middle

S. and A. are swimming on a rec swim team this summer.  Last year, A. and R. were on a different team and had so much fun exercising and staying cool, we decided to keep on going this summer as well.  We switched teams for a couple of reasons, cost and location. :)  All of these meets will be held at pools close to our home, as opposed to last year where we traveled a good distance for meets, usually at rush hour, and the cost is a fraction of what we paid last year. 

We missed their first week being on vacation, but they have made up for the lost week and are doing fine. Their first meet is Saturday!  Can't wait to watch them swim.

Swimming is such a great sport. It's a fantastic physical workout as well as a mental one. Yes, you compete against other swimmers in meets. But what you really are competing against is yourself, or more precisely, time. Your place in meets can vary, depending on the heat you are in, but what doesn't vary is your ability to beat your time each and every race. 

I love that this is a sport my 11 year old can compete in and not only do well but can feel good about how she is improving through the season. She's not my most athletic daughter. She's very quiet and too reserved for most sports. It's not that she couldn't play the sport well. It was more her timid nature kept her from being given the chance to show that she could play the sport! She's played soccer in various rec leagues for 5 or so years. The longer we continued, the more she was ignored because she is not aggressive and the more she felt like she couldn't perform. As a result, she didn't play as well at the end of the season of soccer last year as she did in the beginning.  As the girls were moving up in age brackets, we decided it was time to retire her soccer cleats.  Which is where swimming comes in.  Swimming gives her the ability to just be and swim.  As a result, she is beaming as she swims lap after lap after lap.

Be looking for updates throughout the summer of my swimmers!

Nature Study

One of my friends organized a field trip recently to the Hassayampa Preserve. We had never been there before and were looking forward to visiting this beautiful area of Arizona.

The building has a neat little museum, where the kids are encouraged to touch and explore.

All my kids managed to get in this shot!

S, R and J are in the front

E and K are in the middle

and A has her back to the camera looking towards the shelves.

All the kids were exploring before heading out on our hike.

We broke into two groups, my family and our good friends made up one group, everyone else made up the second group! My kids were excited to be with their friends for the morning as we headed out of the museum with our guide.

Our guide talking to the kids about what we were going to do

This area is just beautiful. You would never know you were in a desert! It's a riparian preserve w/ springs feeding the lake and river. Our hike took us towards the lake where we walked around looking at the nature and doing a sensory exercise.

I told Mark when we got home that I felt like I was in Ohio with all the vegetation and water around us. Ohio without the mosquitoes! It was a beautiful day all the way around. The weather was perfect, the bugs weren't pestering us and the time spent with friends was priceless.

E. took over the camera pretty early on and took over 200 pictures while we were there! I won't share all of them with you, just some of our favorites.  There are a lot in here, hope you enjoy them!

She had the camera setting on Aquarium, because she likes the way it looks. It gives everything a yellowish glow. 

Our guide told us that in the 1960's people would come and water ski on this lake! There was also a trailer park located on it's banks at one time.  Sometime in the 70's the land was donated to the Nature Conservancy and they let it go back to it's natural state. It's hard to imagine water skiing in this place now!

stopping for their sensory exercise - this one was on sight

E, A, and R drawing what they see

J. adding to his nature book what he sees

Mistletoe!

water level. Last year, the banks were flooding. This year, the water level is down.

Kids and guide looking out on Palm Lake

Not a bad picture for a point and shoot camera!

My little bug. She was loving this hike, walking up at the front with the guide. 

I had to run and get her a few times so she didn't walk right on into the water.

Ants working together to move this large object

Lots of palm trees around "Palm Lake" :)

More, very old, palm trees

picnic area

Yep, still the desert just outside of this oasis. 

Such a juxtaposition, lush, green vegetation and dry, rocky cactus on the hill just on the other side of the river. 

After walking around the lake, we walked down to the river to look for tadpoles and other naturey things.

a small branch of the river. 

you might be able to make out the tadpoles (click to make picture bigger)

 

Nature on nature! All the red spots are some type of bug

Is this stick bug looking thing the mother, or is it getting ready to have a feast!

being "sworn in" as junior deputies. 

 Nice shot of everyone squinting into the sun, don't you think!  

After our hike, quite a few of us drove in to Wickenburg for lunch at a neighborhood park. The kids ate and played and got to know each other better while the moms talked. It was a perfect ending to a beautiful morning.

We're going to try to go monthly to see the changes that take place throughout the year. The kids are really looking forward to going back again.