Popeye – The Aftermath

 

The drive home from Louisville on Thursday was more of the same; no radio, no electronics.  I did listen to podcasts on my Iphone; I did let the boys talk and interact with each other.

Made the plan when we arrived at 4230 de Gray very clear.  You are grounded to your room.  You can not come out except to eat and go to the bathroom.  And it will be that way until Sunday.

Not much to report on the next four days given that, well, nothing went on.  The boys at first tried the approach of sleeping through it….that can only work for so long.  I was surprised (and am still surprised to this moment) that it took so long after we got home to get the rooms into the ‘clean’ state….a testament to how much you can procrastinate if you really try.  Finally had to say Friday morning if the rooms weren’t clean (and we mean clean) by Friday at noon the grounding would go past Sunday night.

Sorrow:  Were the boys sorry?  Suzanne reports some seriously sorrowful apologies late at night; I’ve never had that kind of reaction from them; of course, I’ve been the ‘heavy’ all through this.  Boys released from ‘grounding’ at times on Saturday and Sunday to assist with pre-fraulein-cleanup.  Have never had boys so happy to be out and helping with cleaning!

Have things changed? – Some.  Not enough. Suzanne and I have been reluctant to go full-grounding with Lisa in town; both boys at different times for different thinks would have made it there last week.  Fully believe that in the next seven to ten days that at least one of the boys will be grounded for at least 48 hours.  Although Matthew did start out an explanation of some lunchtime shenanigans today with this statement “Dad, if I tell you something, will you trust me that it’s true?”

What hasn’t changed? – The electronics in the car.  When the boys are with me, which is often, there are no electronics.  No radio.  And I’ve made it clear that it will stay that way until I think we, as a family, are where we need to be. 

From the Sports Desk

 

Matthew:  A longer post on this weekend’s soccer tournament is coming.  Saturday and Sunday may be the single two worst games I’ve seen him play in 18 months….and we lost 7-0, 5-2.  Lost 4-3 on Sunday.  We never should have lost the last two games.  First game could have been 17-0, it was that bad.

Sunday’s play was much improved (that’s what the picture above is from).  Again, multiple paragraphs later.  Need distance.

Cpher:  Two lax games on Saturday, a 9-3 win and a 3-2 loss.  Suzanne reports that Cpher did well, held up his end of the defense, engaged and playing hard.  No penalties! Suzanne said the second game against Battle Creek was more physical than most games….that game plays right into Cpher’s strength and he did well.

Kevin:  Lisa, Kevin, and the german/american crowd went to Detroit for the Tigers game.  Final, in 11, Rangers 3, Tigers 2.

Fraulein – Fourth Impressions

 

It goes:  Thursday night may have been the best of the bunch so far; picked Lisa and friends up from the high school boys lacrosse game (Kevin has musical and then senior concertos). Take them all to Grand Traverse Pie Company for dinner then to the last half of the concert and call it a night. 

Lisa likes lacrosse.  Watched a quarter of Cpher’s game last Wednesday….did ask if Cpher won on Thursday (Kevin can’t be bothered to ask how fric and frac do most days…).  Went again to boys game on Saturday night.  We have heard from Kevin that one of the JV lax players is working hard to impress Lisa; sadly he’s also spreading rumors about his adventures with Lisa.

Anyway, stopped at the Pie Company…brightest smile from Lisa this trip; extremely happy to have pie!  Two slices for dinner.  Guess I should stop here and go into….

Top three inadvertently amusing moments: 

3)  first night, Lisa asks if she can ‘douche’ in the morning.  Am extremely grateful that Kevin was there at that moment and quickly said ‘shower’….

2)  Lisa’s had a cold/cough most of this trip; offered her Nyquil, which led to a search on the internet to find the german name and what it was.  She ended up saying she couldn’t take it because of a german word she explained was her birth control medicine….turns out the german word meant glaucoma (had to look, couldn’t believe Nyquil had that restriction!  and it doesn’t)

1)  At the Pie Company….ask the three girls if they want anything to drink, they all say ‘no’.  Say ok, we’ll at least get water….this restaurant has little 1/2 size cups near the drink fountain for water, so, I show them the cups, show them how to hit the ‘other’ button on the pop machine to get water.

Sit down, two of the girls don’t have water, have coke and mt. dew.  “Ok, you’re going to be embarrassed by this, but, I need to explain something.  Water is free, but you have to for pop/soda.”.  They were mortified…pretty funny (to me at least).

Senior Concertos:  The tradition here is that each senior in the orchestra gets to perform a concerto as their ‘swan song’….looking forward to Kevin doing this.  Kevin played in the orchestra behind about 1/2 of these seniors….and man, some of those seniors are phenomenal!  Germans came away very impressed….

Spring Break – Popeye

 

Thought long and hard about whether I even wanted to write this post and finally decided that I’ll always remember this Spring Break for these moments (and not the Caves and not the Beach) so I should do it.  Aftereffects from this events in this post still reverberate around the house to this day…..

"That's all I can stands cause I can't stands no more!" – Popeye

The start, literally, is about ten minutes outside of Niceville on  Friday.  Turn off the radio in the car and emphasize to the boys that hey, I want you to behave down here.  I want you to pick up after yourselves.  Grandma (dispatched to the North) won’t be here for the first few days so she won’t be there to ‘cover for you’….put your towels in the dryer, etc.

Of course, by Friday night we’re already coming off the tracks.  Friday night(!) I text Suzanne and say “I have officially informed boys that if they misbehave again like they have over the last 20 minutes I am driving straight home.  Utterly unbelievable”.   Suzanne asked what they had done for me to send that and all I have recorded is “Just normal goofiness but no stop(ping) after I asked multiple times.  A lot of disrespect, especially from Matthew……probably better now and hope it gets better for rest of vacation”.

I don’t recall what exactly happened her to have me mad at them (I do recall that they were separated and the electronics were off and the first ‘grounding’ of the vacation occurred).  I do recall that almost from day one it was constant reminders about picking up after themselves. 

Saturday was a good day; went to the beach, I think that tired them out and I don’t recall any real issues.

Sunday, back at the homestead, was more of the same.  Can’t go to the beach everyday, part of the reason we can even come to Grandma’s and Gramps’s for Spring Break is that I can accomplish some work during that time.  I know they were grounded again, there’s a text to Suzanne saying that the “boys are groveling in apology….”.   Hazy memory reminds me that we went to “Hunger Games” in the afternoon and then went to Alvin’s Island to get the rashguards……had to ask multiple times for boys to stop doing things, just not a great experience. 

Monday was beach day 2, mostly fine, I didn’t remember any real incidents here.  Grandma returns from the North and all is well.

Tuesday was more of the same…..we did go to the movies again but still recall spending more time asking for things to be picked up or asking for simple courtesies.  Lots of fighting in the pool (I remember having them sit out once, and then they hop back in and keep doing the same thing!….so out for good at that point).  Tuesday night is notable for Matthew getting caught helping himself to treats in the pantry and then lying about it.  More grounding, more discussion of lying……

Wednesday was the last day of the vacation.  Boys are almost always up before anyone else and today was no exception; they’ve been told what they could have for breakfast, they know Grandma and Gramps are out for an early appointment.  I wake up and answer some emails, come out of my room and there they are, as boys are prone to do, wrestling in the bed.  Tell them to stop, tell them to clean up, tell them I have to do some work and will be out on the deck doing that.  Last word might have been ‘behave’….we’ll be going to the beach soon.

Grandparents come home maybe ten minutes later and ask the boys innocently enough what they had for breakfast.  They lie, and to this moment I have no idea why they lied, they later stated they thought they would get in trouble for having pancakes on a stick as opposed to cereal, but, it’s a stupid lie and that’s it for me; I’ve had enough.  Go to the room (that is still a mess from wrestling, nothing has changed there).  Tell them to pack up their stuff; we’re going home.  And 30 minutes later we headed north with full sets of tears all around.

Overreaction?  - Sure, I’ll own up to that.  Suzanne suggested later that maybe turning around in Crestview would have made the point; to be honest, the thought never occurred to me.  Suzanne and I can certainly have to stand there and say that we don’t follow through on punishments/discipline as much as we could have, but, this time, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, the boys pushed too far and well, Popeye.

Perfect storm, confluence, whatever term for a combination of events you want to use, Wednesday morning was it.  Not twelve hours after having a pretty decent talk about lying the boys are at it again.  Constant reminders about what is appropriate and what is not, and three or four separate levels of escalating punishments.  But the drive home gave me a lot of time to rehash why I reacted like I did…Too spoiled?  Sure, I guess I have to take that….the boys are lucky that we have what they have and we choose to do what we do. 

Collateral Damage? – Certainly…..I can’t even begin to type enough words here to describe the pain and anguish the decision left behind in Niceville after we left.  No words really describe how sorry I am about that….but the events and that sadness have formed a resolve about how-things-need-to-be.  More on that in the next post.

Well, what was the problem? – you know, the misbehavior, the lying, the slothfulness…to me it all clarified into one phrase.  Lack of appreciation.  It’s not a good thing to be on vacation at Grandma’s; it’s expected.  Hey, you took us to the dollar store every other time before we left, two days before we’re going to leave we start asking not IF we can go but WHEN we can go.   

Drove all the way on Wednesday up to north of Louisville.  There were no electronics in the car, not even the radio for me to listen too.  Boys couldn’t talk to each other.  Boys couldn’t go and lie down in the back of the van.  Stopped for the night and the hotel room was completely Amish as well.  Only reading and sleeping. 

Next:  Popeye – The Days After

Quick Lax Update

 

Won 6-5.  Yeah for the first win of the season!

Lisa joined us at the game for the first quarter.  Cpher is one of the starting defensemen; first rush in by Waverly and Cpher steps up and engages….and cross-checks the guy and gets a minute in the ‘box’.  Did ask the ref, or the ref told him, what he did wrong (you can’t extend your hands with the stick to push…).  Another lesson learned. 

Played good defense the rest of the way, completely stopped the next kid that broke in on him and did a good job of fighting through several scrums for the ball.  ALMOST put the ball in the net, his net though, some Waverly kid made a crossing pass and he went to intercept it and dang near deflected it into our net!  Happily, that wasn’t the case.

From the Sports Desk

 

Cpher:  After about 6 or 7 practices, Cpher suited up and headed out for his first lacrosse game on Monday night.  As penance for the beautiful March, it’s cloudy, it’s cold, and the wind is hitting gusts of up near 40-50 mph.

didn’t want to take this photo, didn’t want his friends seeing this photo being taken, FORBID us to post it on facebook…..sigh.

Our only other lacrosse experience is with Kevin, so, there will be a lot of compare-and-contrast here but let’s remind everyone….year 1 for Kevin he might have been 4’-9’ and might have been 80 lbs.  Cpher is every inch of 5-5” (and might be 5-6”) and up near 140 now.  So, the approach is going to be, well, just a little different.   

Kevin played midfield and attack; Cpher will play defense and will be lucky or surprised to be playing some other position.  The part that Kevin hated the most was the hittting; I don’t think Cpher relishes the hitting, but, he doesn’t have the fear that Kevin had and is more than willing to participate.  From practice, it seems that Cpher is doing just fine with the basic throw-catch-cradle skills that everyone needs to learn and his size is a big help in the inevitable scrum for the ball.

The team is a 5/6 team, so, he’s on the young end of the age group BUT is the 2nd tallest out there.  We are a young team (40 kids, 30(?) are fifth graders) and that’s probably going to mean we take our lumps a little bit this year.  Because we have such a large team (if they would have known so many fifth graders would come out they would have had two teams) the team is divided into four pods, three pods play each game to try and manage things better.

Cpher is in the light blue Pod; and misses Game 1; we lost 8-3 to Dewitt.  Game 2 is tonight against Holt.  I think it’s tied 3-3 at the half and we lose 6-3.  Cpher played ok in the first half, played about 2-4 minutes in each of the first two quarters and participated; he watched a little too much but when challenged by someone with the ball came out and defended well.  I encouraged Cpher a lot before the game to be physical, use his strength to offset the other kid’s speed.  Not-so-much in the first half…..still trying to figure out the game, where to be, what to do, etc.

Played two seconds in the third quarter before being yanked off again; Mom not happy about this and it certainly seemed underserved (they scored on a set play, seemed like the coaches wanted to talk/blame the defense but not sure how much was Cpher and Sam’s fault).  Wish they would have put the boys back in after the ‘talk’, but, oh well.

Fourth quarter and he rotates back onto the field, Holt is pressuring, Cpher is playing good defense and I don’t know if I can adequately describe what happens next but the short version is that some Holt kid gets absolutely blasted by Cpher.  You see Cpher come into the pile, and you see the Holt kid come flying out.  The ref nearest to the play doesn’t call anything…the ref 30 yards away (and screened by all of the players!) pulls out his flag and sends Cpher off for a technical violation.  He’s banished to the ‘box’ for 30 seconds, and doesn’t come back on the field after that.

Two years of lacrosse for Kevin, he never, never was called for a foul or a penalty.  One game and Cpher’s on the board.  And quite frankly I’m happy about it; the hit wasn’t dirty (there were kids sent off for slashing or using the stick as a weapon) and as I’ve learned later is a judgment call by the ref…I think the dramatic movement of the Holt kid through the air away from the pile earned Cpher the penalty more than anything else.  Kevin called that “air-time”, the time between getting hit and hitting the ground….Cpher definitely gave that kid some “air-time”. 

Again, I shouldn’t smile or be happy about it, but, he gave us a little ‘thumbs-up’ sign from the bench afterwards…and his teammates were pretty supportive “Man, you smoked that kid!”….

Oh well, another game on Wednesday.  Hope the weather improves!

Matthew:  The less said here the better, played the first game of the spring season Sunday and tied 4-4.  Possibly the worst game I’ve ever seen Matthew play, just not moving, no hustle, not in the right position.  Remember I said he played 58 of 60 minutes in that championship game?  He spent more time on the bench in this game than anyone else……and we only had one sub! 

For all that, one of our goals was off of a nice free-kick he made to the goal.  Just chalk this up to one ugly game….it’s not like he didn’t play well in Ohio and hopefully this won’t carry over to the tournament coming up this weekend.

Spring Break – At the Beach

 

Made it to Niceville a little after lunch on Friday; boys made a bee-line of the pool and we just hung out around the homestead that day.  Saturday and Monday were planned beach days….

Gulf Island Natl Seashore:  It’s a drive, but, we like it.  It never never seems crowded, and Saturday was even doubly so, we waited for the downpour to stop and made it to the beach around noon.

Yellow flags – waves were pretty good and there was more than a decent undertow…if we got out too far from shore it definitely made you pay attention.  For today, boys are explicitly told they need to be further in than the norm.

As always, the first activity is battling the waves….at least I think that’s what he’s doing here.  Or, he’s doing his best Fonzie imitation…”Ayyyy!”

Scouting the incoming waves.  Note the beach behind us…nothing, nobody!  It’s a Saturday during Spring Break!!!

Must be a big one on the way!  Love these 1/2 Cpher sthots; I know there’s one like this from the the beach in Maui……

As usual…the waves win. 

They keep coming back for more…..

And the waves keep coming back for more too!

The best part about the beach was the weather; I mean, it poured, rained cats and dogs as as I’ve ever seen it down here.  But we left around 11 am and were on the beach at noon and it’s blue skies and in the high 70’s.  And I know if I look back at BNS blog archives I’ll see some comments about how cold the Gulf is in early April; not this year, the water temp is 75 and it is completely awesome.

We battle the waves, we have a ball we tossed around for a while, we brought our lacrosse sticks and practiced that for a  while.  A nice day at the beach, but, a long day, and even with a reapplication of sunscreen I had two rosy looking boys at the end of the day.

Navarre:  Monday’s stop…still a drive, but, we’ve found the best shells here so it’s a favorite as well.  Green flags on the beach as we pull up….and it is literally the calmest I’ve ever seen the water at any beach down here….There’s maybe one little 1-foot wave every minute or so, and it looks like you could swim out forever.

Walk up to the beach, set our chairs down, set up the umbrella, and you can see, not 100-yards from the shore, a pod of dolphins swimming along.  Very cool! 

The best picture I could get of the dolphins…and I tried. 

The best picture I could get of the boys with the dolphins behind them.  And I tried.  But look, no waves, nothing, zip, zilch.

You’ll note the rashguard shirts; a little too much sun over Saturday and Sunday……

We brought some of our snorkeling gear down; tried to snorkel once before down here but too much sand in the water….figured that if I’m ever going to see if it’s worthwhile snorkeling down here, today, with these waves, is the day.

So, Matthew and I head on out (Cpher came out a little bit, but headed back).  We had decided to swim out about even with the end of Navarre pier…..got out about that far and started to see a few jellyfish and decided to head back in.

So, the snorkeling?  Nothing but sandy bottom all the way out….no rocks (which means coral, which means fish).   So, not so good.  BUT, we’re heading back and Matthew and I wander into the largest school of fish I’ve ever seen; it was like a train, they kept coming  and coming and coming.  They were in front of us, they were below us, they were all around us and for a few moments there I started to think “if all these fish are here, what else is here”…..

What kind of fish?  I don’t know…they were white, and they were between 6  inches and about a long. Matthew and I surfaced to talk about it and we could see one of those afore-mentioned dolphins maybe 50 feet away surfacing.  Never saw one in the water with the mask on.  Not sure we’d see that kind of a ‘swarm’ of fish anywhere else, not sure I’d even attempt to go snorkeling like that again in the Gulf in bigger waves, but, pretty cool for this trip.

Fraulein – Second Impressions

 

(from left to right; Caro, Kevin, Lou(ise), Angie, Lisa)

Been a busy four days:  Let’s try and recap some of this

Homefront:  Lisa and dogs coexisting ok.  Lisa and family doing ok.  I guess, and only speaking for myself, we thought it would be more Lisa-doing-what-Kevin-was-doing-after-school.  Turn out it’s more of a figure out what the German friends are doing and that’s what goes on….very much play-it-by-ear and it’s a little chaotic (and with soccer and lacrosse and everything else going on it’s been interesting).

Last night was a good story; we knew, and I was ready for it, that some of Lisa’s friends wanted to see the rehearsal for the musical so when I came to get Kevin/Lisa after the musical I’d be taking four more fraulein’s home.  I pick them up, take one girl to their house who isn’t feeling well, but, then take the others out to another house that they’ve been invited to.

Get there (and it’s a mansion! yeesh!) and nobody is there.  This US girl is the only one who didn’t list her cell on the contact list; Kevin doesn’t have it.  Finally call her Dad; he’s on his way home from work, be there in ten minutes, knows nothing about it.  Gets home, we finally figure out that this US girl (who invited them?  I still don’t know the truth of it..) isn’t there and won’t be home until 9.

So, since the rest of our clan (Mom, Dad, Matthew) were going out to this restaurant to meet two other families for Matthew’s buddy’s birthday, the fraulein’s tagged along.  Glad Kevin got a chance to hang out with them; things seem to be going well.

Spring Break – Mammoth Cave

 

We’ve driven by the exits for Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, well, every time we’ve driven to Niceville.  Finally, FINALLY said ok, we need to stop and see the caves…

That poses a bit of a logistical problem….so, decided to leave home mid-morning and arrive at the hotels near the park on Wed night, do the caves Thursday, and then drive and stop again in Alabama. 

Boys playing in the woods while we wait for the tour to start.  You have to sign up for tours of the caves and we chose the longest one, 4 hours, 600+ steps.  Figure if I’m only (probably) going to come here once, we might as well see as much as we can!

I will have to go and rescue the photos off of Cpher’s camera for a post one of these days…..

Do you know what caves mean?  Shitty shitty photos.  Granted, I’m only using the Iphone camera but man, there’s two(!) that turned out well enough to post here.

So, what are the caves like?  The first half of the tour I’d have to tell you was boring…really just seemed like we were in a big tunnel (with a roof that looked like you see above).  A really nice path (beaten down by foot traffic, built by volunteers and other agencies over the years, and lights that are turned on as you go along spaced about every 100-200 feet maybe?  you can see in this picture off in the distance (that’s the direction we came) a general impression of the lighting.

That’s the park ranger/tour guide…thought he did a nice job.

About half way through there is a snack bar (they finally installed an elevator, and added some facilities here).  Best photo I could get of the boys even though there is more light here.  About 50-60 degrees inside…boys were a little cold at times but once you were walking you were fine.

The second half of the tour was more interesting geologically and the boys enjoyed that part the best.  Several parts where you were single file (really tall ceiling but the rocks were right up against you), less ‘tunnel’ cave and more open spaces and caverns.  The more ‘famous’ areas, Frozen Niagara, etc., are at the end of this tour and so we saw those areas.  Everyone kind of beat by the end of it and happy to be heading south.  Hit Montgomery about 8:30 pm and called it a night……more pizza, more swimming. 

Fraulein – First impressions

 

Christopher:  “She’s sooooo nice!”

Lisa (and it’s Lisa like you would say it, not the Ligh-za that Kevin has been selling as the proper pronunciation for months) arrived at 7 pm yesterday after a day of busses and planes (Radebeul-Berlin-Frankfurt-Chicago-Lansing).

Lisa’s English is very very good…there is some vocabulary that is missing at times, but, I can only hope Kevin knows German as well as Lisa knows English some day….

The big arrival drama was with the dogs; Lisa didn’t list a problem with dogs on her application, but, it turns out that she was bit by a neighbor’s dog at some point and she is more than a little afraid of them now.  Wiley and Holly (and any dog really) are and were super-excited to meet her, and after Wiley completely flopped over on his back Lisa gave him the attention he wanted and he took off…seems to be going ok, although the dogs were outside this morning when Lisa woke up and missed her going up to the shower, so, when she came down they dissolved into a fit of barking (because they forgot someone new was in the house).

Neighborhood kids have stopped by and said ‘hello’; Lisa seemed overwhelmed/surprised by our backyard and the wetland.  Said nice things about the house, we said wait until Tuesday when they do the potluck dinner at a few different houses (we know the addresses; some of those houses will easily have double the square footage of ours).

Lisa was understandably pretty tired and went to bed early on Monday night.  Tuesday is the first day of school so we’ll see what that brings, OHS is several times larger than the small school back home. 

Coming Attractions

 

Easier for me to list here as a reminder:

• Christopher’s Lax-iness
• Spring Break – Mammoth Caves
• Spring Break – At the Beach
• Spring Break – Popeye
• Kevin – Driving
• And a series of Fraulein posts…….

These posts will come, in a short time.  Not as short as this haircut, but, in a short time

Middletown Spring Blast – Day Two

 

Xavier – This trip was a Matthew/Dad affair….Suzanne had a work ‘deployment’; that was cancelled late in the week and she could have come at the last minute.  BUT, we had already made arrangements to bring another boy whose parents weren’t able to go…..

Iphone takes decent pictures but crappy motion pictures…..Xavier and Matthew jumping on the bed (since that’s what you are supposed to do at hotels)

Playing FIFA 12 on the Ipad…

Swimming in the hotel pool (Matthew on far side out of pool, Xavier in goggles on near side.  You should not the two girls in the foreground who decided to stay in the pool when twenty 9 and 10 yr olds invaded….such a bad decision….

Do you know what twenty boys in a small pool space sounds like?  Ear Plugs Highly Recommended..

Xavier was very well  behaved; one of the highlights for me was the Xavier sang the lyrics to Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” a lot…..and that got Matthew to listen to the song quite a bit since then.  Also Xavier shared our appreciation for Looney Tunes; that was what was on the DVD player the last hour or so of the drive home.

Game 3 – Another 8 am game; we obviously did not put enough money in the application to pay off the scheduler!

Early games mean early starts, we were rolling out of the hotel at 5:45 for breakfast to be at the field at 7:30…you can see, it’s still pretty dark

Game 3 was against a team from Middletown….we had won both of our games on Day 1, they had lost both (to the same teams).  We were winning 3-0 at the half and 6-0 was the final.  The score could really have been a lot more……

Matthew started behind this kid, has run up and muscled and played his was past him, and will in the next second pass the ball to a teammate (towards the camera, not away)

The winners jogging across the field at the end of the game.

Game 4 – So, we’re in the finals against this team from Pickerington (near Columbus)….they have some deal where they pay a royalty and are affiliated with the Barcelona soccer club, so, same colors, etc.

If you look at the brackets, it seems more than a little obvious that our team, and this Barca team, should have been up in the top division (2 of our 3 games each were above the goal-differential max) and some of the teams in the upper division should have been here (those teams were losing 9-1, 10-2).  But, this Barca team looks very very good…..

We’re down 3-1 at the half.  They are fast, they are very skilled and they are very well trained…it’s kind of like a basketball team that knows a set offense they can run in their sleep; that’s what this team does.  I’m not sure that means a lot for development…..I’m probably just whining.

This is early in the game; they are breaking out of their end after taking the ball from us, and Matthew is playing these two (plus the one nearest us).  There are still two defensemen behind Matthew, he’s playing center-back here, and stops this push up field…

Matthew taking possession and tearing up the side; again, being a good center back.  He tries to cut back to the middle a few steps later and the defense is able to stop that and push the ball out of bounds…

Matthew is running up, he’s about to step in and take this ball (you can see everyone, including our team, except Matthew, is trending/leaning towards our goal) and begin the counterattack.

I thought Matthew did his best work at this new center-back position in this game; he put in a lot of effort, drove the offense forward and got back on defense.  Played 28 out of 30 minutes in the first half, came out late when he was very obviously winded and hanging back more and more on defense.

Second half starts; Matthew is back at center-back and scores a goal!  A goal I like, because he never stopped coming forward, and that meant that he was where he needed to be to tip the ball in.  You can click on the picture below for the video…..

The goalie misplayed it?  Maybe.  We crossed the ball and he didn’t get it…and Matthew does…

But that was as close as it got…..they score again, and again, and Matthew moves back to defense with his normal defensive partner, and it’s 8-2 late before we score to end the game and it’s an 8-3 final. The end of this game looked a lot like the end of many fall games; defense on the field too long, and forwards standing around at midfield hoping to get a ball that never comes…..Matthew played 58 of 60 minutes, the other defense guy played the whole game.  Really don’t think that’s a good thing to get the most out of either of those kids, but, it does very clearly layout the problem our team has; too many forwards (kids who only want to score goals), not enough balance)

The final schedule/standings.  Despite the loss still a good way to get the year started….

And you get a trophy…not the biggest one, but, it’s a pretty big trophy nonetheless

Getting his trophy from Coach Alex….

Posing with the Barca team afterwards….

The team – straight-guy pose

The team – goofy guy pose.  Matthew always does well here….

Middletown Spring Blast - Day One

 

Headed to Dayton for the pre-spring season soccer tournament.  As I’m sure I’ve said about a thousand times; I’m glad we’re doing this…I think we entered last Fall unprepared and anything to make the team ‘ready’ is a step forward as far as I’m concerned. 

We’ll do this post in two parts…..

Game 1:  The soccer scheduling gods were not kind….an 8 am start.  Start off playing a team called Cincinnati United Warriors.  We have to play up an age group, U11, so that we play the 8v8 ‘style’/format of soccer that we play at home.  We’re in the lower division of the U11 groupings (because we’re younger. 

Turns out we probably should have been in the upper division.  We’re up 3-0 at the half, win 6-0.  Matthew didn’t look all that great in this game; lots of balls would come to him about chest-high and as opposed to his usual-run-through-the-ball persona he’d miss a lot of them or they would deflect off of him in an awkward direction. 

Matthew is the center-back here; we spent some time after the tournament watching the video and talking about where he should be in the ‘diamond’ of midfielders.  This picture is our first offensive push of the game, Matthew has stepped up and will control this ball and take the shot….

Another good example of Matthew stepping up as the center back to keep the ball in the zone…in fact, you can really see the offense in the ‘diamond’ shape as he’s about to blast this ball upfield.

You can see the ref here on the left with his hand in the air; he just called a hand ball on the Cinci team.  Most times it’s a slow process as your offense moves up field and then you kick it, more of a set piece.  Matthew, especially if the team is bunched upfield like these guys are/were, will quickly restart to take advantage….

Game 2:  Against GPSA Salvo, a team from Grosse Pointe in Michigan.  They are the second U11 team at that club, and I think I’ve said here we have beaten the top U11 team at our club and handily beat the second U11 team.  We’re winning 2-1 at the half and it’s a 4-1 final.  Matthew is much MUCH better here…..way more active and making multiple runs up field with the ball.

This might be the highlight of the tournament for me; it certainly is the moment we talked about quite a bit since then.  I think, as opposed to last fall, that we play and understand offsides now (last fall we played it; I’m not sure we understood it).  Here, Matthew and AJ are the defense, and they are lined up on the midfield line (you can’t be offsides on your end, so, GPSA wouldn’t be offsides on any pass to the left of the midfield line here. 

But, if you are on the other side of the midfield line, and there is not one defensemen and one goalie between you and the goal at the time of the pass, well, you are offsides and the official will raise the flag either immediately (that’s what they did in the first game) or when you touch the ball (that’s what they did here). This guy is clearly offsides, and will be flagged when he touches the ball. #22 then turns and yells back at the refs “I’m not offisides!”….earning him a yellow card and a seat on his bench with his coach.

Love, LOVE, when Matthew does this; he’s driving the ball forward and looking for someone to pass it to

Completely lucky on the weather; in the 50’s and a little cloudy in the morning, high 60’s with some patches of sunlight!

4th Grade Music

 

Matthew had his last elementary music program; I think it’s a damn shame that Christopher and Matthew didn’t have the same type of programs with Kevin and completely think the music teacher is using the budget cut situation to make her life easier (the other teachers at the other elementary schools don’t do it this way).

But anyway, five songs for Matthew to shine (the whole program, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders, was based on food…), and he was ready, he was singing the songs at home before hand.  So, it’s a bit surprising to see him on tape, he’s like a statue.  And his big moment, his Mango dance, he was completely embarrassed by afterwards! 

Oh well.  I guess I’m glad they go to perform.  Hope he chooses to try the musical like Kevin (don’t think Cpher is heading this way…)….

Matthew is top row, left-center, in a white shirt.  Click on the picture to see the video…..

Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder

Hot Cup of Cocoa

Pizza

Maple Syrup

Mango

A Night Out

 

It’s kind of amazing, but, in all this time we’ve been in Michigan, Suzanne and I have never really been down to Detroit.  We had planned just an evening down there, but, both of us, unbeknownst to each other, made arrangements to spend the entire night down there and come back Sunday morning (I’d have to admit that Suzanne’s planning was more complete than mine…as usual).

A random picture of downtown Detroit.  A very strange city…there are some really nice sections but there are a ton of buildings that are just abandoned, and there isn’t really a rhyme or reason to that

The Ren Center, home of GM.  We were in the lobby and it’s GM cars everywhere;  Pretty nice.

Hart Plaza….the abnormally warm March made this walk mostly nice, but, you can see we’re in the shade and it grew quite chilly as we walked from the people-mover stop at the Ren Center to the the stop near Joe Louis Arena….

The monument to the Underground Railroad; there’s a mirror/similar statue on the other side of the Detroit River over in Windsor…

Walking along the Detroit River….the Ambassador Bridge off in the distance.

We had dinner down in Greektown; went to the casino (won’t be doing that again; didn’t like the layout and well, didn’t do very well at all).  Stopped at the Astoria Bakery for some awesome late night treats. 

First night away from home, boys were still there when we returned (although they could have cleaned up after themselves….that got all of them in trouble when we arrived home).