Happy birthday AYSO

9-15-14

The sick fog has finally started to lift!

I ended up going home early on Friday and crawled into bed. It was around 7. I woke up around noon and was quite confused at the lack of human occupation at the house. The cats all certainly seemed amused and happy at my presence. I didn’t realize Ken had a class. The good news was I was able to just hang out since the boys wouldn’t be home for 3 hours. Yay rest!

Saturday was hot. Our game wasn’t until noon, and aside from some chores I wanted to accomplish, I felt no need to stay in the house when it was hotter in there than on the field. Ken had to go at 7, but the boys and I headed over around 9:30 or so. It was nice under the pop up and the breeze was pleasant.

Sadly the game didn’t go great. A good chunk of the team looked sluggish and confused during much of the game. They were walking when they should be running and no one seemed to be challenging the opposite team for the ball. I should correct that statement. Two players were doing this consistently. Dax and Isaiah were kicking ass on Saturday. They both were playing quite hard. Even Bobby was busting his ass as best he could. I don’t know if it was heat related for the few who didn’t seem as with it or if they were just having an off day.

The problem with this was how frustrated Lou gets. He yelled at the team, wanting them all to run. He did tell them while playing that they would all be running at practice. Now, yeah, this isn’t exactly the best form of coaching. It is still coaching. And really, I think Lou was pretty reserved for him. He has called a team meeting about his behavior.

What wasn’t cool was a parent (and I know her, and wasn’t super shocked by her behavior) on the other team yelling out to Lou after his running threat. She yelled out, “Why don’t you run, fatty!”

Sigh.

Look, Lou may be out of line using running as a punishment. He wasn’t using positive coaching, which is a staple of AYSO. That being said, this was just as bad. In reality, this outburst is grounds for removal from the game. That parent could have been told to leave. She wasn’t because it was all worked out, but still. I was shocked at how fast word spread about the incident. I am also glad that I was the one there to give a better account of what took place. I will tell you, my soccer role is never boring. LOL!

The afternoon was spent in the pool and then later we went to dinner at Red Lobster. There was a special of all you can eat shrimp that sounded nummy. It was quite nummy, but it isn’t a place we will most likely go again anytime soon. The wait was insane and it was more costly than we would normally do. It was still an adventure, so it was ok.

We stopped by Rite Aid on the way home and got to have some Thrifty’s Ice Cream, which is always a yay moment. We ended up bumping into a coach and family for one of our U8 teams. I am enjoying this whole being a face of our region thing.

Sunday was much more mellow. Stephanie came over in the morning and we hung out for a while, getting to chat about things I don’t feel I should put in the blog since it could be used against her in some way. One never knows.

The rest of the day was also pool time. I swam with the boys while Ken was reffing a game. It was actually a little chilly, which surprised me. It was refreshing, though. It is coming down to the last few weeks of pool time.

We got some plants for the front of the house. We have not planted them yet. I am hoping maybe this afternoon. We need to do it soon since it looks like somebody was messing with them at some point since they were all tipped over when I left this morning. I really hate the people from the trailer park down the way. They park in front of the house, and one of the days I was even boxed in! I would venture a guess they were not the people involved with my plant stuff, but I know we get a lot of foot traffic and many of them are not nice folks. I think it is getting more and more apparent that we will need to build a fence  along with the porch.

I will be walking up to meet the boys today from school. I need to go get volunteer forms. I am liking the boys walking home on their own since the independence is good for them. But I do kind of miss seeing them come out of the school.

I am rocking my AYSO board shirt today along with an AYSO hat in honor of AYSO’s 50^th birthday. I feel proud. I also am not a big fan of my board shirt, so AYSO must really be important to me.