A Weekend of Losses

Somehow this Monday morning feels like a weekend of losses. Lost games, the world was almost lost. Loss goes hand in hand with grief so I am feeling grieved over the silly hype about the world ending. What brings the most sadness is how events and people such as this make us Christians look like super fools. If we profess to believe the Bible is God's unchangeable, infallible word, we must believe all of it. We must read it and know it. We don't get to pick and choose. Especially the beautiful little scripture that plainly states we will not know the day or the hour that Jesus will return. So, if we don't know when it will happen what is it that gets a grip on some smart guy and convinces him beyond doubt that he knows something no one else knows. Something that Jesus Himself stated no one will know?

Its like the person who ruins the surprise party by blabbing about it. This guy blabbed on a surprise party that he didn't get the invite to. Most amazing to me was watching the followers. They really believed it. How does that happen? As a Christian, this makes me feel the loss. There is grief that comes as the world makes fun of us Christians for our belief in Jesus' Second Coming. And grief that we've been played for fools if we believed this guy.

As I watched this whole deal play out in the news I read an article about a family with three teenagers. Mom quit her job to become a full time missionary spreading the news about May 21. The woman was sold hook, line and sinker. She and her husband made full preparations for Saturday's big event, including not paying bills that were due after 5/21. The three teenagers were interviewed and I was again grieved by the damage that has been done. They think their parents are crazy. They are embarrassed by their parents and saddened that their mother can boldly proclaim how sad she is that the will leave earth on Saturday and know that her children will not go to heaven. My God. Now that its Monday morning how is the damage in this family repaired?

Wisdom, friends, is worth its weight in gold. Just ask Solomon. The man prayed for wisdom and received it. May we all continue to seek God through seeking wisdom. The Bible tells us that we can be led astray by false teachings. The only remedy for this is to know what is false and what is not. How do you do that? Learn the Word. If you don't know the Word, then every crazy thing sounds plausible.

Our weekend over here on the home front didn't include end of world preparations but we did suffer some losses. My Soccer Chick and her teammates slept through a game Saturday afternoon. Not sure what those girls did between Friday night and Saturday evening but they played as if they were sleepwalking. Needless to say The Hub was pitching a sideline fit. His voice paid the price. Not sure how his blood pressure managed to get him through those minutes. I was only happy that parents were restricted to the opposite side of the field. We lost 2-1 to a team that was less than great.

We went on to a Sunday evening basketball game for Oldest. I haven't blogged about his team too much this season. For a reason. We lost...again. This one, though, was a close one. Oldest hurt his ankle but still managed to be a rebounding machine. He's a funny one to watch. He doesn't deal too well with pressure. Complete opposite of his dad who is Mr. Cool. Oldest gets those rebounds and looks to pass that hot potato as fast as he can.

My third and final loss of the weekend would be my one-on-one basketball game with Bball Girl. She has sat this spring season out of sports but only by formality. She's gone to every soccer practice with her sister and practices harder than the girls on the team. No point in pointing out that she's not on the team. She is athletic by nature and driven to compete. Doesn't much matter what the sport is, she just wants in. Sunday morning during children's church I think I may have a shot at beating her. Not really, I was just out for some fun. Girlfriend beat me and made it look easy. Ducking and dipping, turning and spinning. I had to remind her it was not a real game and she didn't have to whip me quite so bad.

All in all, a lovely weekend with the family. We suffered some losses but the win was in the living. Not cliche, just real. We have an amazing family. Great kids, great parents. Family. Wouldn't trade this time for anything in the world. Soon my world is changing as my sweet Oldest heads off to college. Just a few short months away. Not ready to talk about that now. Sigh...

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.