Soccer Camp

The old saying - "Time flies when you're having fun" - is definitely true. The past two weeks of soccer camp for Savannah, Xander, and myself just flew by. Every day, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 - 2:30 we endured the horrific heat to improve our soccer skills and have some fun!
Daily warm ups for the kids before the drills began. Savannah and Xander were lucky - due to the heat the younger kids were outside for the first part of the morning but then spent the rest of the day inside. I, on the other hand, remained outside throughout the day doing drills or playing in the scrimmages with the teenagers. Despite the heat, I still loved every second!


On the day we focused on heading, Coach Bill decided that we would try and set a record of the most consecutive headers made by the North Bay Soccer Camp campers. Here are the kids all lined up, ready to head! If we had accomplished it, it would have been 36.

Thank goodness mine weren't the first to miss but both Savannah and Xander did struggle a bit. Eventually they were both on target.

A little soccer tennis!

Too funny - after Savannah's scrimmage team would make a goal, they would gather in a circle, raise their hands up together...

and then fall to the ground.

My kids (and all the other campers) absolutely love the coaches. They insist that I am their favorite but I know that my competition is pretty stiff. Savannah and Coach Potter. Right after I took this picture I insisted she give back his sunglasses; I had no interest in replacing $250 glasses if she ruined them!

Coach Paul is another favorite - he is so great with the kids and quite an amazing soccer player!

And then there's Coach Bill, the director of the camp. He is just so fabulous and does a tremendous job making this camp the most fun it can be for these kids. One morning he brought out his trumpet to play Happy Birthday to some of the campers; other mornings he played it to get them excited for the day. He is such a great guy!

Savannah with her buds!

Each week the kids participate in Jersey Day. The second week Savannah ended up being one of the finalists...

and won the whole thing! She won this fabulous jacket though she keeps insisting that it's not too big and totally acceptable to wear in 90 degree weather.

On Friday we had some 3 v 3 games; the campers not partcipating were there to cheer on their favorite team.

Xander even took a turn on the trumpet.

And Coach Bill got the wave going.

With two of my favorite campers. The one on the right with the USA jersey knew how much I like David Villa from Spain so he brought me his Villa jersey to wear for the big Campers/Coaches game.


I'm definitely in need of some rest and time to allow my body to heal. My list of injuries for the week include multiple bruises on knees, shins, and arms, a black toenail, and a sore jaw from when some kid headed my chin rather than the ball. But these past two weeks have been some of my favorite weeks of the year. I love spending time with my kids as well as the other amazing campers. So many of them were repeats from last year so our friendships and relationships even grew stronger this summer. I'm already looking forward to next year!

The Hill Cumorah Pageant

Last weekend we met my parents and Heidi's family up in Palmyra for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Needless to say, we had a blast!
We met up Friday afternoon and the first thing we did was celebrate Grandpa's birthday. He opened some gifts and enjoyed all the pictures the kids had made for him.

After a 6 hour drive the kids were ready to release some energy so we let them run wild outside the hotel. They played tag and a short game of hide-and-go-seek as well as Simon Says with Grandma. Aunt Heidi even put on a juggling act as part of the entertainment.


After dinner at Red Robin where the girls and boys each had their own tables and we got the waiters to sing Happy Birthday to Grandpa which thoroughly embarrassed every adult male at their table, we headed over to the Sacred Grove. I love going there in the evening because most of the people have left and we pretty much get the place to ourselves.


The Grove was so peaceful and beautiful so it was somewhat hard to face the crowd of people at pageant...but it's also exciting to see such a beautiful production. We headed into the pageant with smiles on our faces, tuning out the antis yelling at us with their blow horns.

Definitely a favorite - meeting up with the cast members.


I'm glad we came prepared with sweatshirts and blankets because it got cold!!!

And boy, did our feet get dirty!

Couldn't resist including this one.

Saturday we checked out the Hill Cumorah in the daytime...


the boys were convinced they found the spot where the plates were buried. They were somewhat bummed to find out that the plates were no longer there.

The beautiful Palmyra temple.

Visiting the home of the Smith family.

What a wonderful trip!

Happy 4th!

After a morning of softball followed by an afternoon of painting our deck we were definitely ready to head to our friends' home for some food and fireworks.

The Last Day

We spent the last day my family was here at the beach. It's technically not the ocean but there's sand and water and that's all the kids care about.

My mom has always been a water/beach person so she was great about getting out in the water with the kids

as well as building sand castles. I remember her doing this with us when we were kids.


For some reason whenever the Clarks are with us at this beach we find dead fish. The kids all carried this one around like it was a cherished pet - so gross! I finally made the comment to my dad that it was a little like they were carrying around a dead rat; Doug quickly made sure the fish went in a bucket of water and they could carry it around in that.

The sand monsters!


All the kids had to get buried by Grandpa.


I'm so sad they left but it was sure fun while they were here.