Game On

Hey friends, Saturday and Sunday past yielded an interesting turn of events in the Copeland sports world. Saturday, Soccer Chick and her girls, with Coach The Hub in tow, headed out to what should have been an easy win. Our girls dominated the entire game. The. Entire. Game. I just can't write it in a way that will sufficiently satisfy the frustration behind this one. Our girls were on their game, passing, shifting, turning. I don't actually know what any of that means, in fact, I just wrote what sounded good. Truth is, though, the girls played great. This was a great soccer game to watch. Lots of action, fierce defense and incredible offense. Somehow our girls made over 7 attempts (I stopped counting at 7) and couldn't connect any of them to net. We were too wide, too high, blocked by the goalie's over-sized hands. Just couldn't make a goal. Yet, we spent three quarters of our playing time in their zone.

Somewhere after halftime I had a thought. How tragic would it be if this team made a goal by accident and won this game? When our girls are playing like this? That would be a robbery. Friends, we were robbed. At gunpoint. By blind people with water pistols. It was that bad. The opposing team tapped the ball and it went straight to our goalie's hands, bounced off her hands and rolled under her legs into the goal. Alright, not the definition by accident, but NOT worked for. You know what I mean. You've watched some sort of sports game where your team was working its butt off only to get handed a defeat to a team not half as good. That was our Saturday story. The girls lost 2-1.

In all fairness, our girls had a goal that the sideline ref called a goal. Raised her pretty little flag to signal it was a goal. The ball bounced off the girl's gloves and crossed the goal line. Yet, our head ref said no goal. After a brief conference, and apparent talking-to, the senior ref announced...no goal. Now, that was robbery. This absolutely should have been a tie-game. It should have been a landslide in our favor, but I digress. Nevertheless, for some odd reason Mr. Senior Ref called our goal a no goal. Unbelievable. I mean, everyone on the sidelines was cheering, you could see the disappointment on the parents' faces across the field. We all agreed it was a goal. Why couldn't they?

We moved on to a makeup game on Sunday...only to have the opposing team be a no-show. The girls were a bit disappointed but they quickly got over it by an impromptu parent/sibling vs. soccer girls game. We enjoyed a few minutes of this spectacle with shoes flying in the air, fancy footwork, coaches falling, headers gone wild and girls squealing everywhere. Much fun.

We ended our weekend sports with Oldest's basketball game. Our boys didn't win, but Oldest has really developed into a rebound king. He's actually gotten to be quite amazing. He's getting crazy rebounds all over the place. Picture my 6 foot, slimmed down 170lb 17 year old, nothing but muscles for days. Jumping, diving, connecting...He's doing great. Great fun to watch. We keep telling him to go up and take the shot. Too much pressure, he says. Gotta love the boy. No matter how big he gets, he's still a big old teddy bear. Shy, quiet and reserved.

Our soccer girls have two games left before the season-end tournament weekend. Bball Girl gets to attend a summer basketball camp that she's thrilled about. We'll have some quiet weeks while they enjoy their summer and we send Oldest off to college. Sigh. Then we'll be back in the swing of things for the fall.

Milestone Down...

Well, friends, we conquered a milestone this weekend. Oldest went to prom. It was our first prom as parents. And we did surprisingly well. It was certainly bittersweet. I, you will be happy to know, didn't shed a tear. Oldest was all smiles. In the midst of a difficult senior year, it was really nice to see him happy, mingling with friends, getting ready to enjoy a really important night. As a parent, it's a little bitter to know that your son is growing up...getting into God knows what after prom. I can remember what my after prom plans were. Could his be worse that mine? Well, sadly, his plans could be the same as mine were. Funny how as a parent that feels so much different than it did as a teenager experiencing it. For me, its a little bit of a lot of sad. They have to grow up and you have to let them. But you don't have to like it.

On another note, Soccer Chick had a rocking game on Saturday. Friends, you won't believe it. They won 9-0. Major boost for the team. They started out making attempt after attempt and they just could not hit net. They were too wide, too high, or simply way off. Funny thing is, they dominated this Reston team they played. The entire game was played in their territory. They may have possibly one, maybe two, goal attempts. The girls played exceptionally well. I don't know if The Hub's spirit is contagious or something but all of a sudden he has two die hard dads lined up coaching with him. Three dads, friends. Just sit a minute and try to imagine it. If you can make it to NOVA in the next four weeks you MUST watch one of these games. They are fun to watch. All three are very animated, very involved and very funny. It's turning out to be a great season. Where's the video you wonder? Well, I have found it very hard to live up to my soccer mom antics and hold a video camera. This week, Bball Girl volunteered to video for me. I was all set to get super-involved from the sidelines. Turns out the video camera hadn't been charged. I'm working on it, friends. I want you to be able to enjoy this season with us. I claim no responsibility for the quality of footage you may get with Bball Girl behind the lens...

Game On!

Finally! Our little soccer super stars finally had a game. Want to know who was more excited? Well, that's certainly debatable. Soccer Chick was doing her fist pumps for sure. But The Hub wasn't far behind. Plotting strategy, circles "x"s and scribbling "o"s on his whiteboard. Fired. Up.

Game 1: Make up game, played Friday night. Um. Not exactly pretty. First game of the season, end of the week, can you say "rusty". It's alright, friends. We're just getting warmed up. Fans/parents on the side did our best not to cringe or scream too loudly. We went toe-to-toe with our opponents following their first goal. We got stuck somewhere around goal 4 for us. While they went on to score two more. Play of the game: free kick for them and our poor girl, new at goalie and nervous beyond belief. She would have had to have been a 300 pound giant to catch that ball. Needless to say those opponents of ours jumped from 5-6 and we just couldn't catch them. The girls took home their first loss of the season.

But, The Hub devised a plan. Figuring out that his strategy of strength in the front left him defenseless at times caused him to shake things up a bit. Game 2: Saturday. The girls took the win! 1-0 with no less than 8 great goal attempts. Each of them slightly outside the net, two of them just above. Nonetheless, we dominated the field and our defense kicked some pa-too-ey. How did The Hub celebrate the win? Came home and plotted his "post-game walk through" for the girls at practice on Monday. Seriously. And plotted his game 3 strategy. Important stuff.

Play of the game: The Hub throwing himself face first into the grass, clipboard strewn about, after a slight miss of the net by one of our goal shots. Classic drama. He doesn't do much quietly.

"Youngest" moment to put a smile on your face: He buys one of those animals on a stick w/ a lever at the bottom that opens the jaw of the plastic animal. His happened to be a dolphin. At church yesterday, waiting for service to start he puts his long silly sticky slap toy in the mouth of the dolphin, extends the dolphin's head out in front of us and makes gagging noises. He opens the mouth of the dolphin and the string begins to fall out. It appears to drip out although this isn't a liquid. Youngest continues making these mock gagging noises until the dolphin drops the whole sticky toy thing out of it's mouth onto the floor. Total appearance of the dolphin gagging, choking and finally throwing up something gooey. Dis.Gus.Ting. Most hilarious moment ever. How did he think of that? Who knows. He's an original.

A Rainy Day Away From Playing...

We glanced at the weather for the rest of the week on into Saturday. And you know what, friends? The weather will be alright this week. Cloudy, but alright. Then comes Saturday and guess what? More rain. Unbelievable. We are three weeks into a soccer season that hasn't seen one game yet. These girls will be couch potatoes by the time they actually hit the field.

Just kidding. How could that be with The Hub / Coach Reggie on the scene? Last practice, he broke out his whistle for those ladies. His real, authentic, genuine whistle. (thank you brother-in-law!) We're all geared up, we just need a clear day and a dry field to play on.

A Youngest moment for you to simmer on this happy Tuesday...We're riding in the car yesterday playing the ever-so-silly game of "how do you spell that?" This wouldn't be what you guess. It's more of a slang/ebonics/ridiculous sounding game. One of us catches the other saying something that is impossible to be spelled and tries to spell it. For example, I told the Hub that one day he was going to buy a new car for me. Only it came out like this: "One day, you're gonna buy a new cah fuh-mee". Soccer Chick caught it and asked everyone how "fuh-mee" is spelled. We had a little bit of joy-time throwing out other words, such as "tiyed" for tired. Youngest pipes up "I got one! I got one!"

"How do you spell poop? P-O-O-P." Hooray, Youngest. You spelled it right. We laughed so hard. Which should we be more proud of? The fact that this is the first word he spelled correctly outside of his first name or that this was the word he chose? Hmm...

Cancelled...Again

Boy, oh boy. It seems this U12 girls soccer team will never get their moment to shine. Soccer Girl is chomping at the bit, as they say. Two Saturdays in a row games have been cancelled due to weather. Were you anywhere near the terrible storms on Saturday? I texted everyone I know in VA Beach and North Carolina area. All weather reports were predicing bad, and it seems it was indeed that. Thankfully, no one I know suffered any damage or injury. For our soccer team, we are eagerly awaiting the season opener. Anyone seen the weather for this upcoming Saturday??? Goodness.

Pre-Game

Friends, you know I am getting my vocal chops all loosened up. First soccer game of this spring season is THIS weekend. Super duper excited. Almost uncontainable since it includes the coaching debut for The Hub. Not new to coaching, but new to coaching CYA. Just in our first two weeks of practice I have had several chuckles as he banters with those lovable soccer moms. And friends, soccer dads. In fact, the dads can be worse that the moms. You wouldn't believe it, but it is so... First game Saturday. I've read up on the rules and will work hard not to earn my own Red Card. I'll work really, really hard. How embarrassing would that be? Coach's wife gets ejected from the field. The girls are looking good out there, especially considering their honorary member, Bball Girl. She goes to every practice and gives those girls quite the run for their money. Even though she's not on the team she plays like every practice is her job. I've got my video camera charged up, sneakers and sports chair ready to go! Hot cup of coffee, sunglasses and this girl is going to be side-line ready. 10:30am kickoff vs. Herndon. U12 girls here we go! Now, Oldest is also debuting his spring season opener this weekend. Have you met many 17 year olds? The precious angel doesn't even want his darling family to attend either of his basketball games this weekend. I wish as an adult we could retain that sense of knowing everything and needing no one. Something about reality washes that away from us. I can remember being that cool and then some.

In the Spring of Things

I think I have been reserving my blogging for warmer weather. Spring days are coming but we can't quite see them yet. Sigh. We have been anxiously awaiting the spring in the Copeland household. Spring brings new sports seasons, college decisions, Soccer Chick's birthday, prom for my senior boy, and plenty of sunshine. But, alas, the warmer days haven't yet arrived. So I decided to go ahead and give you a preview of our spring days to come. Soccer Chick has gleefully started her soccer season. Her father, that's right, "The Hub" has also "gleefully" started his position as head coach for her team this year. I must confess in this super secret location, the man does not know the game of soccer. I will say that he is the type of person who can adapt himself to just about any situation. That skill applies to sports and gaming as well. While my solution for him was to suggest he read a book. He prefers to just wing it. Like I said, that seems to work for him. First practice, I came for just a few tiny minutes and was pleasantly surprised. It was a little surreal to see this fella running the practice, but super nice for Soccer Chick and her girls. True story: the newly appointed assistant coach comes to The Hub immediately after practice. "I'm so excited about your younger daughter playing with us this year. She's incredibly fast, she's all over the ball. I can't wait to work with her personally." "Um. No. She's 8. She was just standing in as an extra since she was here." The look on this guy's face was priceless. Sheer disappointment. Not sure why he couldn't tell she was too young to play on a U11 team. She's only a foot and a half shorter than these girls. I foresee a lot of really good video footage coming out of these games. Watch for them posted on our youtube channel: www.youtube/4copelandkids.com Oldest will be starting his senior year of county basketball in about two weeks. I think he might have reached the point where he is too cool to have us come cheer him on. Ah well, he'll just have to suck up the embarrassment because he knows how we roll. Classic Youngest story for you: the other afternoon Soccer Chick comes home from school and is searching for her Ipod. She swears she left it in one spot in her room but it's not there. No one else has been home all day and we can't figure out where it went. I helped the child look but only with the understanding that I was going to preach at her about responsibility the whole time. "Did you pray," I demanded. "Yes mom! Five times now. I don't understand where it could have went." The girl was frustrated. Probably not more frustrated than I was, but she was definitely troubled by not being able to find it. She asked her sister if she'd seen it. That wouldn't have been a stretch. She promised she hadn't touched it. She asked Youngest and he quickly said no and launched into some more important spider man story. We decided to sleep on it and figured somewhere, by the grace of God, it would show up. The next morning, Youngest invites her into his room, lifts up his pillow and gives her the most adorable and frustrating look at the same time. He has her Ipod beneath his pillow. The exact place where he had stuck it when he saw it yesterday. Did he think to confess to that when we were frantically looking for it? No. Not so much. "Youngest! Why would you do that?" Soccer Chick exclaimed. "Because...I wanted to listen to your music while I was sleeping." Can someone say mischievous?