Navy Storm

One of the other parents of Amity's soccer team took some pretty sweet photos, so I'm just gonna post them here. We watch/play a lot of soccer around here, we'll see if we can get some of Zara soon, too.

The IMPOSSIBLE Corn Maze

Apparently, and we're not sure how this came to be, Chani (who is from the midwest) has never been to a corn maze. To be fair I don't think I was much for corn mazes before we had kids and lived in Virginia, but I still think it seems like a very midwestern thing to do. In any case, we'd previously attempted (and completed) the "hard" maze at this farm, but we did it by flashlight (at night) which was super fun. Always up for a challenge, we wanted to try the "impossible" maze ( i think they maybe call it the mystery maze, but we prefer the appellation "impossible." What makes it a mystery is a lack of a map, however we figured out that with a big enough party (5 of us) and a keen strategy (someone marks our spot while everyone else fans out at any decision point to check all possible paths and find the correct one) we made it through in under 2 hours. It was supremely fun, depsite a little hot, and we are very likley to do it again!

Walkout

Amity's participating in the "Girls Can Club" with the UVA Women's Soccer team. Terrible name, but awesome program where she gets tickets to all of the home games and the opportunity to walk out with the players before most weekend afternoon games. She also was paried with a mentor player who she got to hang out with after a game and also have lunch with. I negelected to get a proper picture of her with Kira, so instead here's a screen grab from her first walk out. Standing behind her in red is Laurel Ivory (Amity's goalkeeping idol), and we expect to see Laurel as well as some of the others in the NWSL in the very near future. Pretty great that Amity will have "known them when."

First Day of School: 6th and 11th

And we're back! Z's off to their junior year of high school, making this the penultimate back to school post for them of the K-12 era. I suppose I could ask them to send us a pic once they're off to college, but we won't dwell on such things right now. Meanwhile Amity's getting her first opportunity to actually middle school it up, i.e. she'll get to change classes and have different people in each of her classes... something that she missed out on entirely since she was cohorted for the previous school year.

Let Your Troubles Roll By

 

Our first "back in person" concert was, of course, Carbon Leaf. I mean I'm pretty sure we've caught upwards of 50 CL shows in the 19 years we've been fans so it's probably not shocking. I think the only year we didn't go to at least one Leaf show was 2014, but I'm not exactly sure why - maybe no C'ville shows, no near-ish by outdoor shows and parents of a preschooler and elementary schooler? Who remembers.

Anyway, show was great, love Leaf with Z, I miss live music SO SO SO much and yay Toonces at concerts again.

Shot #2

So, 3 weeks later, we're back at "Big Shots" again for Pfizer dose #2. And in 2 weeks we'll be at 75% coverage for the household, and that's not half bad. Actually, it's about three-quarter's good!

Williamsburg Cup

While Zoo and I were chilling in C'ville at the (indoors and raining) Sunburn Tournament, Amity and Wes braved the rain in Williamsburg, VA for her first ever tournament. This one was mostly travel teams, however after a season of near total domination of our local challenge league (advanced rec?), she and her fellow teammates on Royal Courage were ready for some real competition. They went 1-1-1, which is not too shabby all things considered.....

Sunburn 2021

No sunburns at this year's tournament because it was in the 50s and raining all weekend, and on top of that we played at the Field House which is more or less indoors.

Z's team (who I sub-coached) took silver, posting a 2-1 record in the preliminary round and then losing a somewhat crushing game 3-0 in the final. It was still scoreless at the half, and they were down one of their better players, so we can all dream it would have turned out differently. In the end, however, the players seemed to have a fair bit of fun, and they played some pretty good soccer. Out of 11 players, 6 are "seniors" (several actually gradated the year before but as it's a U19 team they had one more year to play) so this was their last hurrah in the youth league. It was a pretty good note to go out on, and all things considered the fact they were able to play a normal-ish (7v7 instead of 11v11) season was a real silver lining to the thunderstorms of the previous 14 months.

Not throwing away my shot!

Zara's brought our household covid vaccination up to 5/8ths! Again with the million thanks to SCIENCE and SCIENTISTS and the FDA/CDC etc for the EUA on 12-15 year olds. Now can we please just include 11 year olds?

Kline's Dairy Bar

What's sweeter than a 3-2 victory over archrivals Sky Blue? A full team trip to Kline's Dairy Bar, of course, which is pretty much one of the only reasons to be in Waynesboro.

(photos courtesy of Lindsay Friesen who will always be known as Coach Mrs. Dr. Jane's mom in our house)