Halloween

We went all in with Taylor Swift costumes for Halloween.  Kaden didn't really know what he wanted to be but he decided he wanted to wear his same dinosaur costume to school again.  That's fine and all but I wanted a unique costume for our pictures.  Then it occurred to me that one of his flag football teams was the Chiefs and I was able to pull out his old jersey.  I had a hard time finding a decent mustache in time so we ended up with this goofy one but I thought it turned out pretty perfect for Travis Kelce as Taylor's boyfriend.

Sadie is dressed in the Lavendar Haze outfit.

Kylee is in the 22 outfit.

Simon came to say hi, which is perfect because TS loves cats.

And Kaden in his real costume.

We made it to the school for the costume parade.  Early and freezing!

Finally, the actual night of trick-or-treating, Jason, Kaden, and Porter.

 

Fall Soccer- Kaden and I

As much as I didn't want to, I ended up coaching Kaden's team again.  I told Alex that I wouldn't do it if I had a few of those same kids on my team again.  So they made sure that didn't happen.  I helped evaluate the boys at tryouts and I really just wanted Kaden on the claret team with Ian as the coach so I wouldn't have to worry anymore.  But he wasn't quite as good as some of the other boys.  I figured it would be good for him to take another year to continue to develop as a player and build confidence being one of the best on the cobalt team.  I purchased a team bench, keeper gloves, picked up corner flags from the club.  I was all in.  And I had some decent players on my team and I was excited.  But a couple players didn't want to play Fall, just Spring.  And another one dropped soccer altogether.  My team was getting smaller and the other cobalt team was getting bigger (the guy that agreed to coach had recruited a few neighbor kids to play) so we tried to move a couple players from his team over to my team.  Basically they refused.  One of them came to one practice and then insisted they go back to the guy's team.  The other one decided not to play in the Fall (her reasoning was they didn't end up moving to IF from Poky so it was too far, understandable).  But it was a little hard not to take it personally.  I knew my team was the better team.  I had helped put these teams together after all.  And I was working closely with Ian, who is a great coach.  So the only reason I could think that they didn't want to be on my team is that I'm a woman, and I told them straight up that I am a volunteer coach with little experience.  We asked one more kid to move to my team and the dad refused because of where we practice... So I just got really frustrated.  We started the season with only 7 players.  We play 7 on the field.  But I didn't mind taking substitute players to my games, especially since most of those players were decent.  I had one more added last minute but he was not super reliable (big family, lots of kids, I get it).  I continued to have subs come help until the last couple games we had one more kid added and he was a good player so that was fun.  

We had a couple games in Jackson on a weekend and I invited Paxton and Cooper to come play.  They are both 3rd graders and play football and basketball with Kaden, but they were born in 2015 so they are a year behind Kaden in soccer.  They had fun together though.

The coaches put together an adult team for the spooky sixes tournament that I was playing on.  And Kylee and Sadie were both playing so I didn't sign up my team.  But Ian's team played and he asked me if Kaden could play with him at the last minute.  I was going to be there all day anyway, so why not.  This is what the day looked like.

As crazy as it is, it was a lot of fun.  We had beautiful weather, which is lucky.  And though it was a long day, I had so much fun.  I got to watch my kids and I got to play.  I even got the hang of defense by the last game and we won (we lost the first two).  Kylee played with some of her club team.  They had two teams.  Kylee's team won the first game and they played again in the final and Kylee lost that one.  I can't remember but I think Averi had to switch teams?  Someone switched teams.  Anyway, Kaden didn't make it to the final and I sent him home with Ryan.  Kylee and I were there until late, as you can tell from the picture.  It was a fun way to end the Fall season.

Fall Soccer- Sadie

 Sadie and Kaden did this soccer camp early in August.  It was hot and a lot of work and they didn't really love it, lol.

Sadie's team played in the Wasatch tournament in August.  It was a fun tournament and a fun time spent with Sadie in Layton and Farmington.  We stayed at the same hotel as a few of her friends that was connected to the mall so they went swimming together and shopping.

During the actual tournament, Sadie was having some foot pain.  This was just the start.  We spent months trying to figure out what to do about it.  Let's just say it affected her game tremendously.  She was cut from the claret team earlier in the summer after tryouts, and that was emotional and tough.  But we were excited about having Tenley on her team and her dad as the coach.  There are a couple other girls that she's played with before and all in all I was hopeful that it would go well.  But then her feet started hurting.  And Sadie was not able to play like she used to.  I kept thinking how bad this would've been on the other team.  Daric is a doctor and also just a friend and he was very understanding and wanted her to take time off and get it figured out.  At first I thought it was just severs disease, but the pain seemed to be in a different spot.  I thought maybe it was the cleats she was wearing because I had pulled them up from storage and that's when the pain started but she said it wasn't.  Daric blamed it on dancing, with all the tip-toes, and that may have contributed.  I took her to the foot Dr and they did an x-ray and found an accessory navicular, which is an extra bone in the foot that can cause problems.  Especially when pulling on it on tip-toes, or kicking soccer balls on that bone.  And I think the cleats just rubbed in the wrong spot.  So we got new cleats, made an appointment with a physical therapist, etc, etc.  It was a constant problem but she tried to deal.  Until later when her knee started hurting... but I'll get to that another time.

Spooky Sixes was a fun mini tournament they did on a Saturday in October.  Kylee and Kaden and I also played so I'll post more.  But Sadie did well playing defense in that tournament!

Fall Soccer- Dylan

 Dylan really enjoys Hillcrest soccer.  He played JV this year.  He stopped going to Hillcrest and started online school instead, and he really wasn't in to doing anything social.  But he went to everything the soccer team did, including all the team dinners.  

He got quite sunburned at the redneck waterslide activity they did.  He attempted to spray himself with sunscreen but didn't do a great job.

Dylan decided he didn't want to play club soccer this year.  His team hasn't been great and every year they lose their best players to the top team.  This year they took the goalie, and besides that Dylan just prefers to spend his time working.  I wasn't happy about it but Dylan has to be invested in these things or it doesn't work out too well.

Fall Soccer- Kylee

This post has been hard to write.  Not only because Fall soccer spans 3+ months.  But because the end of Hillcrest Soccer for Kylee was rough.  Rough for her, rough for me.  It was SO FUN watching her play, especially this year.  She had a team that could play this year and they did well!  Kylee was a captain and she played her favorite position- center back, which means she didn't usually sub out.  And she did her handspring throw-ins, took most of the free kicks and PKs and was all around just a star.  

The season started in August.  They did some team pictures and got the senior pictures ready for their big posters.  We were really hoping the stadium at Hillcrest would be ready for at least the end of their season, but I did not have high hopes.  It didn't happen.  They played all their home games at the complex.

SENIORS 2024!  I love how intimidating Kylee looks.  

Varsity Captains!

Kylee with her freshmen friends.  She LOVES the freshmen.  They are so cute and so fun (and GREAT players!)

One of our favorite things about high school soccer is getting to see our club teammates on opposing teams.  It's less fun when they beat us!  But it's all good.  Madison and Thunder are both 5A so we aren't surprised that they beat us.

I took a lot of pictures that I posted at the time.  Seeing them with the descriptions that I wrote make more sense than when I just post all the pictures at random.

Such pretty skies!

Kylee taking a PK.  She made all but one (against Maya, her old teammate)

Every game their coach would choose a "Knight of the game" and give them this sword.  It took a long time for Kylee to get the sword! But she finally did.

Team dinner at our house is always fun.

Pictures of her handspring throw-ins crack me up.

Senior Night

Sals liked to interview the girls after the game for social media.  Kylee thought it was super awkward, but it was fun.

Last Game

We had a REALLY good shot at going to State.  For Districts we played Bonneville and won.  I believe that was the game Kylee got a yellow card, lol.  The ref called it delay of game when Kylee came up to take a free kick.  It was pretty ridiculous but I thought it was funny.  She's never been carded before!

Skyline played IF at the same time and the game ended in 0-0 even after OT so they went to PKs.  Our club teammate Claire plays Keeper for them and we were so happy for her and for them when they won.  Skyline was ranked #1 in the district.  And we knew we could beat IF.  We had tied them previously and should've won (that game was very poorly reffed).  If we beat IF, we would go to State.  If we lost, we had to play the winner of the Skyline-Bonneville game.  We were ready to win and head to State.  But we didn't.  IF played hard!  And Claire saved so many of our shots.  We were pretty devastated at that loss.  Kylee spent the weekend in a depression.  I told her to stop acting like it was lost.  We had a chance at beating Skyline.  They just all really thought they would beat IF.  For the record, IF went on to place 4th in State.  It wasn't a fluke.  They earned their spot and I was happy for them but so sad for us.

For a long time we held Skyline to 0-0.  I was thinking if we could hold them, we could beat them in PKs.  But in the second half, their center back dribbled up a little and took a shot from far back and made it.  After that we went downhill and they ended up getting another one.  We lost 2-0.  And that was it.  The last game.  Jeremy is their club coach and he was happy that his team made it to State but it was hard to see Avalon and Kylee fall apart.  Everyone was sad.  I'm sure Averi and Reese were crying too.  But Avalon decided not to play club so this was the end of her soccer career.  And Kylee just loved her Hillcrest team so much, it was hard to see it end.

This is what Kylee posted, after a few days when the pain wasn't so raw.

Out of all the senior stuff, this was the hardest.