Shiloh's Soccer Finale

The blog has been temporarily resurrected! I would like to say it's been permanently resurrected, but since I don't have a great track record so far, I would say that's probably not accurate. :)

So hello again! And hello to Daniel's aunt, who encouraged me to get busy on the blog again. :) Sorry it's been so long, guys! I was having such a good time this summer that I didn't get to the blog part of my to-do list (and, as I believe I might have mentioned before, Daniel hogs the computer at night :) ). Now that we're back to school and Daniel is in Germany on a work trip (where the primary goal is finding me a cuckoo clock) I have a little time in the evening to try to get caught up. I last posted as we were finishing the school year strong and looking forward to the end-of-the-year activities. One of those was the championship game for Shiloh's soccer team. The game was a heart-breaker. Shiloh's team worked hard and scored first, then got a little complacent and the other team scored. The score was 1-1 at the end of the game, then 1-1 at the end of overtime. The game went into penalty kicks, and they were STILL tied at the end of 5 penalty kicks. The parents were nervous wrecks, and the kids were exhausted! :) The coaches had to pick a player from the bench to make a sudden death penalty kick. The other team made their kick. Daniel chose Shiloh, the newbie, from the bench, knowing that she had already been chosen by her teammates for the All-Stars team and wanting to give her a chance. She missed the kick. :( She misunderstood Daniel's guidance and kicked it too softly to get it in. I was broken-hearted for her after she and her team had worked SO hard to make it happen. Daniel took it in stride, Shiloh took it in stride, and I was the one who had a hard time letting it go. :) (Competitive much?) Practice for the All-Stars game started the next week. On the calendar for the game day, Shiloh wrote "Beat Wade," her arch-nemesis on the other team. :) Daniel had little hope for his team after meeting with his new recruits (they combined the All-Stars picks from two teams to create one team). Over the next two weeks, they worked hard on communication and teamwork. Shiloh was ready! And MAN, DID SHE COME THROUGH. :) I'm so proud of that girl for her hard work and great attitude, all the while dealing with foot pain. Oma came up for the game, and it couldn't have been a better game for her to see. Shiloh scored one goal, then she scored another - the winning goal for the game. She wanted to prove that she deserved to be there after the championship game, and she definitely proved it. What a great end to the season for her first experience with soccer. Adah, Abigail, and Jackson's team finished strong as well, and Daniel is looking forward to coaching them again in the fall.

Okay, enough of the commentary. The picture below was taken on the day of the last game, and the video is from the championship game. I was taking the video and completely forgot I was holding the camera when Shiloh scored (which is why it hit the ground :) ). Yes, the screaming banshee in the video is I. I could say that it's an anomaly, but the kids will tell you that I yell like that for every goal and every basket (in Cora's case). It's a little embarrassing, but I come by it naturally. The kids got to see genetics in action as Oma yelled almost as loud as I did. :) It was also cute to see how much the siblings cheered for Shiloh - it's a great opportunity for them to encourage one another. We're all looking forward to this fall's soccer season when Nathaniel will join the ranks of the soccer players.