Our Final Soccer Game

The season wrapped up today with a loss to Hesston. I don't know what they do to kids here in Hesston, but they always put together good, aggressive teams! We played a pretty good game. We only had 8 today, so there were no subs. By the end of the game, everyone was really tired. One thing we noticed about the other team is that they never changed positions. With older kids I agree with that philosophy. We change kids up each quarter and give everyone a chance to play each position. This sometimes puts us at a disadvantage, but I'm not sure that really matters. So long as they have fun and maybe learn something along the way, we're happy!

Here are some pics from the game. Brady loves to play goalie and really is one of our best. Kaela is a good runner. She has learned to get out ahead of the ball and get open for a pass.

Enjoy!

Go Big Black!

Last Friday night, Kaela (and about 30 other little Wildcats) cheered at the high school football game. They had a day camp earlier in the week to learn the half-time dance and some cheers. This years theme was "Stuck On You".

Of course, they all looked really cute out there cheering and then dancing. Kaela was thrilled because her dance partner was her good friend Ellen. Hope you enjoy some pics from the BIG night.

Fireman's Games

Newton Fire/EMS hosted the fireman's games on Sunday. Duane's shift had a team in as well as another Newton shift and several of the area volunteer departments.

They had a firetruck pull in which the team had to pull one of the firetrucks a certain distance for the best time. Then there was the hose roll race, which is a sort of relay where they unroll some sections of hose, couple them together, turn on the water and hit a target with the stream. (Two of the teams didn't get their hose coupled completely, so when the water came on some of the spectators got quite a soaking!) Finally, there is the barrel. It is a sort of tug of war. Two teams face off and must shoot a keg, suspended from a cable, with water and push it to the other teams side. They play it in a bracket format until one teams wins the event.

It is hard to describe the barrel event, especially if you have never seen it done. Hopefully this picture will help make it more clear.

Newton C shift (Duane's team!) managed to bring home first prize this year! B shift took second. It was fun to watch and now they've got bragging rights until next year.

The victors enjoy their prize.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Memaw got the grandkids tickets to the Barnum and Bailey circus at the Sprint Center. I remember her taking us several times when we were kids and I guess she wanted the tradition to continue. I'm very glad she did! The kids had such a good time. We went early enough to go down on the floor ahead of time to mingle around as some of the performers came out to entertain. Kaela and Brady just cracked up at these two silly clown jugglers. They are still talking about them! Brady doesn't call it the circus, he refers to it as "The Greatest Show on Earth". Makes me laugh!

Here are some pics from our adventure.

Not Kaela's best pic ever, but the best one I had with all four of the kids in it!

Soccer, at last!

After two rainouts, we FINALLY had a game. You could definitely tell it was our first game! We didn't play as well as we had hoped...in fact I think the other team managed to score 7 or 8 goals and I know we didn't score any...but they had fun and got a game under their belts.

Here are a few pics from that first game. My mom took these pictures. I must admit that being the coach really makes me watch the game. I usually see most of their activities through a camera lens!

I am happy to report that after a bye week and a couple of good practices where we really focused on positions, we kicked tail in our second game! We worked as a team and had a great time - and we won! I wish I could share some pics from that game, but Duane was on duty and I forgot my camera anyway. Brady kicked his first goal! He was so jazzed!

I'm sure I mentioned before that this is a teaching league/age. The ref we had this past weekend was great. He was really into helping the kids learn and get it done right. It's also fun that both kids are on the same team and we all get to go down this road together.