The Land of Oz: Sports

With the start of the new school year, things also got busy with sports. This year Taylor was finally, FINALLY convinced to try cross country. He wound up really enjoying it and getting to know all of the supportive guys on the team. I think it really helped him to make some friendships in the new school early on that have really helped him feel good about his senior year being in a new school. He did great and pretty much continually improved his running times with the exception of a brief spell of shin splints that slowed him down for a bit. I think a part of him realizes now what he missed out on all those other years that we and others were trying to get him to do cross country. And looking at how much he improved from his first run to the last, makes me think he could have done some amazing things if he has started out his freshman year. Oh well. At least he did it this year and had a great time.

And all four of our younger kids played soccer this fall. Keeping up with five schedules was a huge challenge. But it's always fun and at least we had a fairly mild fall so we didn't have to sit out there freezing every Saturday morning like we have some years.

Kendall played on the U14 team which wound up combining most games with the U12 team. He usually played goalie for half the game and then played offense or sometimes defense for the rest of the game. He'll be able to play one last season in the spring, we think. And then he's thinking he might like to either help coach a team or else take the referee training and earn some money being a ref each week.

Lynnsey played this year on the U12 team so she played a lot with Kendall. I felt like she didn't get to play as much as I would have liked. When they combined the two teams it made it so they had to keep quite a few players on the sidelines. It seemed like they would put her out there on the field and just when she was finally getting into her groove and feeling more comfortable, they'd pull her out again. She is fun to watch out there and came SO close to scoring a few goals this year. Unfortunately, I never could get a picture of her. The ones I took of her wound up either blurry or with the camera delay, she had moved out of the frame or behind other players before the picture took.

Kalen was bumped down to the U8 team which Spencer just barely qualified for with his birthday being a day before the cut off. We were glad he got to stay with the smaller and younger team for a bit more training before having to move up to the U10 teams. Some days he really loved it and others he just wanted nothing to do with soccer. (Usually when the soccer field was wet which got his socks wet, which of course prevented him from walking properly, much less running after a ball...) He did score a couple of goals this year which totally made his game!

And finally, at long last, after years of trying to keep her off the field at her siblings games, Kaya was finally able to join her own team. She had a great time and it was really fun to watch her trying so hard out there.