Soccer girl

This spring, Caroline decided to give soccer a try. She was put on the Sun Devils. The coaches are great and the other girls are, too. The bad thing? They practice on Sundays. Boo. I e-mailed the director to try to get her switched to another team, but he never responded. Double boo. They also practice on Wednesdays, so she made it to half the practices. The other lame thing about this season is that they scheduled two of her eight games over spring break, while we were in Florida. And she was sick for one other game.

So, while she missed out on a lot, she did so well in the games and practices she made it to!

Off she goes!

She was SO excited for her first practice.

She could hardly contain herself.

And it didn't disappoint. 

She loved it.

She is in a girls-only league.

And they keep score.

So, it's a little more serious.

And not so much, "Everybody plays!"

Her first couple of games,

she spent a lot of time here.

On the bench.

She didn't seem to mind.

(Maybe her parents did...)

She was happy when it was her turn to take the field!

Unfortunately, she wasn't very well prepared for game play.

Her coaches had told her to stay on that corner of the goal box.

And she is good at following directions!

She would kick the ball if it came right to her.

And it did a couple of times. :)

After some private coaching sessions with her Dad,

she got the hang of the game.

She almost always plays defender.

And she is GOOD.

She is aggressive and will go right after the ball.

And her team is GOOD, too.

They went 6-0-2 (ties) in the regular season.

Woo hoo!

She's in the age bracket where they have an
end-of-season tournament.
Exciting!
We had a bye the first round and
automatically got to play in the semi-finals.
We won that game and got ready for the championship.

We played Cotton Candy, a really good team.
(All the other teams had cute girly names like Purple Dragonflies...
how did we end up with the Sun Devils???)
Anyway, it was a very intense game.
Some of those soccer moms are WAYYYYY too passionate
about 7-year-old rec league games.
It makes me sad to hear the things they yell at their kids.

Caroline took a ball to the face in the second half and had
to sit out for a little while. I was afraid she wouldn't want
to come back in, but she bounced right back.

 The game was tied 3-3 as time was winding down.
But we managed to score before time expired.
And the Sun Devils won it all!

 Yippee!
What a fun end to Caroline's first season!

 Trophy time

One of her little besties even came to watch.
And a sweet mom made those posters
for all of the girls!

Celebrating with frozen yogurt.

Can it get any better than that? Undefeated and league champions in your first season? Here's the crazy thing...Caroline tell us she doesn't want to play soccer next season. What? Why? "I don't know. I just don't want to." Yet, when Andrew asked her what she liked about playing soccer, she told him, "Everything!" We don't get it. We're hoping she'll change her mind before fall sign-ups. :) In the meantime, she has set up a small shrine in her bedroom with her trophy, shin guards, and cute yellow soccer socks.