Month: June 2018

Soccer, futbol, or whatever you want to call it continues to grow in popularity with American kids. Most Saturdays in the Fall and Spring you can find kids as young as 3 chasing the ball up and down the field trying to score a goal. My oldest is 25, so I’ve been a proud Soccer Mom for over 20 years!

But my first wasn’t meant to be a soccer star. She played because we made her, and it was a great way to make friends. My son was a natural athlete at all sports and ultimately focused on soccer through his senior year of high school. My next daughter was a pretty good player and stuck it out half way through high school.

And now daughter number 3 is a soccer beast! With nicknames like “the wall” and awards titled “most likely to take the ball away from you”, she is a star player and a hard worker! One of her coaches referred to her as the “quarterback” of the team. She loves soccer. This past spring she was on 3 different teams at one point: Middle School Team which was 11 on 11, Soccer Academy Team which was 9 on 9, and her new favorite is 3v3.

If you aren’t familiar with 3v3, it’s totally different than other types of soccer. It has its own rules. No goalies. The goal is really small. And the game is fast and intense. Two 12-minute periods of constant running and constant shooting. It is a blast to watch, too. Not a second of boredom.

However, none of this is free. Even playing for her middle school had some costs associated with it. In the last week I have spent over $1,000 for next year’s soccer experience. This weekend will cost $200-300 for a tournament. Don’t forget soccer camp this week which was $75. But the look on her face when she plays is priceless! She loves the game, the competition, the camaraderie, the physical exhaustion. It’s her “thing” and her way of life. Ultimately, it’s costing me a fortune and there are small sacrifices along the way. And it is worth every extra effort I have to make to cover the costs.

Note: my youngest daughter tried soccer for a few years. She liked it, but she didn’t like it enough for all the hard work. However, she has started doing cheer competitions and loves it! Talk about expensive….but that’s a whole other story!

My first post.   After days of contemplating the website name and learning to navigate the develop of my site, here we go!

Its summer and I finally have a day to work from home.   Stranger Things is playing in two different rooms, on different episodes.  Kids are still wearing their pajamas, and I’m begging them to eat more than snacks and frozen waffles.  And reminding them to drink more water.   Its a typical hot, humid, stay-inside-in-the a/c kind of summer.  Throw in the occasional afternoon/evening thunder storms and you have a perfect set-up for movie marathons and tons of hours on social media.  The life of a pre-teen in 2018!

I like to travel.   I travel a lot for work.  That isn’t always fun.  But those trips are required in order to pay for the travel for fun!   I’m not always the luckiest traveler.   Lost luggage happens.  Delayed flights.  Missed flights.  Flat tires.  Wrong turns.  Confusing GPS directions.  But there are so many lucky things along the way…beautiful sunsets, amazing sunrises, priceless views of nature and architecture….just to name a few.

So this is my first post.   And definitely not “the end.”