Soccer

CJ is on a soccer team this year! You may remember from my blog posts last year that CJ loves running and kicking a soccer ball around. I can't tell you how many hours we have played this with him! We were excited to have him try it out - this is the first year he could sign up with one of our local soccer leagues.

Initially Joel signed up to be an assistant coach, but there were 3 assistant coaches (and no head coach) so when the league called him and asked if he could be the head coach, he said yes. He said he has really enjoyed it so far!

The league we are a part of has grown quite a bit in the past few years - this year there are 230 preschoolers in the soccer program. WOW!

CJ's soccer team name is the Wolves, made up of 4 & 5 year old boys & girls. The spring league goes for 10 weeks and unfortunately they have already missed one practice and three games due to rainy weather (games aren't rescheduled). Thankfully they have had the chance to play two games - it is an absolute blast to watch! Here are some photos & video I took at their first game. To sum it up, as long as the kids don't touch the ball with their hands, pretty much anything goes (you'll know what I'm talking about when you watch the video!).

Warming up with the team before the game -

The team has 7 boys and 1 girl - 4 played last year and 4 are new this year. The guy in the green shirt on the left is Tim, an assistant coach. His son Griffey & CJ have become good buddies.

CJ with the ball during the game - he helped to score 2 goals his first game!

Each game is about 40 minutes long (two twenty-minute halves) - each team has 4 players on the field for five minutes at a time, to give players a chance to rest.

It is so interesting watching the kids play - you can tell a lot about their personalities after seeing them play one game.

I LOVE this video - it is classic evidence that anything goes in these games! GO CJ!!

Giving hi-fives to Coach Daddy

Shaking hands at the end of the game - the kids actually shook hands instead of giving hi-fives. Adorable!

Another reason the games are so fun to watch is each team scores at least 10 goals each! During this game, some of the kids had trouble remembering which goal was theirs, but this improved greatly by the second game the next day.

Allie, Grandpa Dean & Grandma Kathy came for the game too!

CJ and his coach!

We are looking forward to more soccer games!