Columbus Day Tournament

Last weekend, Lyla’s team played in their first fall tournament.  It was the WAGS Columbus Day tournament, and it was local, so that was good for us.  The team played a great first game, and Lyla took her turn playing a half in goal for the second half of the game.  There was a bit of action back there, and she did great!  

  

In between games, the team found a shady spot to have a picnic lunch.  It’s such a nice group of girls this year on the team.  :)

By the time the second game rolled around, it was sunny and HOT!  The team won their second game, so we had a place in the semifinal for our group the next morning.

Sunday brought the rain, and the initial forecast made it seem like Sunday was going to be a wash out, but thankfully since we haven’t had rain in a long time, the fields held up well, and it didn’t end up raining that badly in the morning, so they won their semifinal game, then got ready for the final.

 

The team has made it to the finals in a tournament before, but they haven’t won in the past, so they were really wanting to win this match.  They went up 2-1 at halftime, but the other team tied it up in the second half, and in this tournament they went straight to penalty kicks (no additional overtime minutes) after the end of regulation.

It took a few rounds, but the girls were victorious in PKs and were so happy!!  This was right after the winning PK was taken.

They played hard, worked together, and the champs (finally!) were all smiles at the end.  

Each girl gets a week at home with the team trophy.  The first week went to Ella, whose PK decided the final, but we were very proud of Lyla for being selected to take home the trophy the second week.  At her game today, her coach asked her to play a position she almost never plays (left back), but she was awesome!  She had a great little story to tell about it because the evening prior, I decided on a whim to take Nina and Lyla to the family Zumba night at the gym I teach at.  As part of our professional development, they’re asking instructors to do a series of things, one of which is take part in a class that is completely outside your comfort zone.  For me, that’s Zumba.  I never have taken a dance class, and I definitely don’t know any Latin dance moves, so Zumba is about as outside my comfort zone as I could get.  Mark was coaching a game, and we were going to meet him afterwards for dinner, but Lyla really didn’t want to go to the Zumba event.  She isn’t really into dancing and thought she’d feel uncomfortable.  I told her that I was going to feel just as uncomfortable as she was, but we had a good talk about getting out of our “comfort zone” and trying new things.  It only took two songs, and Lyla was in the front row of the Zumba class having a blast.  I was really proud of her.  She ended up having a great time and wants to go back again.  Anyway, she told me after the game today that she equated the experience at Zumba to her coach’s request to play her in an unfamiliar position and told herself to just get out of her comfort zone and see what happened playing defender.  She ended up doing great and was chosen by her coach to take the trophy home that week because of her hard work and good play in an unfamiliar position.  So…for me, the big picture is the life lesson she’ll think about as she sees that trophy this week, and it’s a life lesson that’s good for me too - there can be great things just on the other side of your comfort zone!  

Nina has been a great supporter and spectator, but unfortunately the fur sister hasn’t been allowed at many of the games as of yet, but she gets plenty of TLC when we get home.

  

Catching Up to Fall

We’ve gotten into the swing of our back to school routine pretty well by now.  The girls are enjoying school and their teachers, and while it’s busy during the weekdays, we’ve gotten into a rhythm of getting homework done and to practices in the evenings.  

Lyla has adopted a little tradition of riding her scooter up to the middle school bus stop every afternoon.  She greets Nina at the bus stop and rides her backpack home for her.  Since the first day of school, she’s gone up every afternoon.  Since that is “her thing” Cayenne and I wait for them on the front porch.

On this occassion, I had taken the pictures of Lyla hanging out on the porch waiting for the time to ride up and get Nina, then Nina came home and joined her hanging out on the porch.  I do love these sweet sister moments.  They love each other and get along well for the most part, but there are definitely days of sister irritation as well.  

 

 

One afternoon while waiting for Nina, my other porch companion was this pretty little mantis.  She didn’t seem to mind getting her picture taken either.  :)

  

On the weekends, we continue to have soccer games for Lyla (and Mark has games he coaches).  Lyla has been enjoying herself and her team this season, and so far we’ve had some sunny and warm game days.

  

  

Nina is adjusting well to middle school.  She has had to adjust to 90 minute blocks of classes, A and B days, going electronic for much of the classroom assignments, and budgeting time for homework.  Since a parent coming to lunch in middle school isn’t as welcome as it was in the elementary school, we’ve started a little tradition of going for a little breakfast treat/mocha or hot chocolate at the coffee shop in our neighborhood two Friday mornings a month.  She also earned herself $10 from a boy in her PE class who bet her that she couldn’t beat him in the physical fitness challenges.  She did, but she was shocked that he actually paid up!  :)   

  

Cayenne still manages to put one paw in front of the other every day.  I’m not sure how she manages with such a rough life.  She does miss having the girls home during the day I think, but she’s back to her routine of going in to wake them up in the morning, and walk Lyla to and from her bus stop, and wait for Nina to come home home on the front porch.  She is a sweet pup!

  

Soccer Starts

Since our Labor Day tournament was canceled, this past weekend was the first games for Lyla’s team.  She’s playing travel soccer again for Loudoun Soccer ’08 Black team.  It’s the same team she played with last year, but about 50% of the team is different than last season.  It seems to be a great mix of girls so far.  We really enjoyed last year’s team, but this group of girls seems awesome as well.  We had a beautiful weekend for soccer.  The girls played one game on Saturday and one game on Sunday.  They won both and Lyla did a great job!  We’re looking forward to more of a fun season ahead!

  

   

  

Labor Day Hike

We were supposed to be at a soccer tournament for Lyla’s team over Labor Day, but lots of rain on Saturday caused the tournament to get canceled.  Sunday, however, was a beautiful day!!   Since we had an unexpected free day, we decided to take the girls and Cayenne up to Ravens Rock for a hike.  Mark and I had hiked it this past January for our anniversary, but it’s a challenging hike, and we weren’t sure the girls would be able to do it.  They did a really good job though and they made it to the top, and more impressively, made it back to the car with tired legs!

 

  

We saw two interesting creatures on the hike.  At the summit of Ravens Rock we saw a blue tailed skink...

…and on our way down the mountain we saw a big black snake crossing the path and into the woods...

It was a great hike and a gorgeous day to do it.  We finished things off by heading to Dirt Farm brewery for a flatbread pizza for the kids and a tasty beverage for Mark and I.  The view from ouside the winery were amazing.  My picture here certainly didn’t do it justice, but it was a great way to round out the afternoon.

Back to School

This has been Back to School week for Nina and Lyla.  School was officially slated to start on Thursday, 8/24, but for Nina it seemed like it started on Monday of that week.  She is starting middle school this year and is attending a brand new school in Loudoun County that is big, green-friendly, open and airy, and has made an amazing effort connecting to the students and community over the summer.  We’ve been very impressed so far.  Monday was an open house for all students to get acquainted with the building, meet some staff, and see what their new school will look like.  We had Nina’s good friend, Grace, with us for the day, so it was fun for the girls to experience it together.

  

Monday was also the day of the big solar eclipse that so much attention had been given to. After getting home from the open house, we made pinhole viewers in hopes of seeing the eclipe that way.  

The pinhole viewers weren’t successful, however our neighbor who saw us out there, walked over with eclipse glasses, and then we could finally see what all the excitement was about!

  

The next day was locker set-up and Nina did a great job decorating hers.  Locker set-up was followed by a little outdoor party for the kids.  On Wednesday, Nina had a students only orientation and Lyla and I went to Legacy to meet her teacher and see her classroom.  Lyla was very excited about the teacher she got, and she has quite a few friends in her class, so Wednesday was a happy day for her.  Nina enjoyed the students only orientation and felt comfortable about making her way around the middle school without getting lost.  :)

  

Thursday morning arrived, and while both girls were sad to see the summer come to a close, they were upbeat about the year ahead.  Here is our 4th grader...

   

…and here is our 6th grader.  Both girls came back with great reports after the first two days of school, so we’re hopeful that this will be a wonderful year for them both.  Summer always goes by so quickly, and I’m always sad to see it end, but I’m glad Nina and Lyla are happy so far in their school life this year, and we certainly hope that continues.