Life is Beautiful: a fun summer weekend

That is what this weekend was about - being together as a family, going to the cabin, swimming, biking, grilling, soccer games, church and a walk in the park. It was a great weekend and felt like middle of July because how hot it was. I've been bugging Ehren for a while to go back to Cass lake park because they have a great bike trail there, through the woods. It was a pretty hot day and we would be miserable on the sun but biking in the trees was great. Kason and Ani took turns on our tandem bike and neither of them wanted to get off. If we want to go on long bike rides like this next year, we will have to find another one of those.

On Saturday Kade's team played 2 soccer games against Bemidji teams and I was glad I was finally able to watch them play. We knew going into it that Bemidji teams are really good but it was still a rather humbling experience. You can tell that our small town TRF soccer is just for fun and kids are not drilled enough. The kids on the other teams were all very good, you could tell they've been playing soccer since little kids and just had the passes and technique down. Our poor boys were running back and forth so much they got wiped out after the first game, plus it was 90 degrees which made it hard too. But I think they fought hard and tried their hardest. Kade did really well too, but he had a hard time keeping up his fast running the whole time. I was sure glad I didn't have to run around for 2 hours like that in that heat. It's Ehren's first year coaching this age too so he's just learning about what to do with these kids, plus they're at such different levels of soccer. A couple boys are very beginners and are just learning the game and a couple could do really well if they had another person to pass to. :) But since this is such a small town, there aren't enough people willing to take it on, to help coaching or prepare the coaches for the coming season. It's pretty much "here is your team and here is the schedule for your games and go do it". And there's also not many boys interested in soccer which makes it hard to compete with the bigger towns. Girls in TRF have 2 huge teams at Kade's age while boys have like 6-8 players total so we had to recruit a couple younger players just so Ehren can have them switch a little during the soccer games. So it's all a learning experience and I hope they're enjoying it. From what I see the boys love it and most of them wouldn't mind having soccer practice every day so it's worth it and it is so rewarding to see these boys get better every time. It is actually fun playing with them. I played with them at one of the practices and my memories took me back about 25 years ago (wow :)) when I would play soccer with my brothers and their friends. This year Kade is finally getting better at it that I can play soccer with them and we're almost equal which is so much fun. I actually have a hard time just watching them practice or play because I want to go out there and play with them. :)

After the soccer games it was hot so we decided to go for a little swim in the lake. I don't ever remember swimming there this early in the summer. We didn't stay for too long though because it got a bit windy and the kids got cold but they had fun in the water. All 3 of them were pretty wiped out every night and slept so good.

Now we're home and the storms are coming thru, which is good because we've had very dry weather lately. I'm getting ready for next week because we have something going on every single night and then on Friday I'm going down to the Cities for a long weekend with the kiddos. I'm excited to go down there and see a couple friends I haven't seen for a while.