The Saturday 7

1. Wowza. What an insane week. First things first: soccer camp. This is the first time our church has ever hosted a soccer camp, so we were nervous that our months of planning wouldn't be enough. I wouldn't say it went off without a hitch, but all things considered it went very smoothly. And we've gotten a lot of positive feedback, so hopefully that's a good sign! 

The weather forecast was disheartening all week. Every day called for rain - and I'm pretty sure it did rain every day . . . right up until soccer camp started. One evening, we were driving to church in the pouring rain, my windshield wipers going as fast as they could, and I started to pray aloud over the sound of rain slamming my van's roof. Minutes later, we drove out of the rain, and the sun was shining by the time we got to church! In all honesty, we couldn't have asked for better weather. It was cloudy and breezy most of the week which meant no one was sweltering or getting heat stroke! 

The other big kink in our plans was the soccer ball snafu! We special ordered 165 soccer balls with our Soccer Camp logo, and our sponsor's logo six weeks ago. Unfortunately, they came from overseas somewhere and got stuck in customs . . . last I heard they're still stuck in customs. It's hard to host a soccer camp without soccer balls!! But, again, God provided through our generous church family. We were able to get some from the kids' school because we have a special connection (more on that later), some from our area AYSO because the director goes to our church, and some from a local college. It wasn't exactly enough for each kid to have one, but there were very few times that every single kid needed his or her own ball, so it all worked out! I guess we'll just have to have the same theme again next year if those balls ever do come . . .

It ended up being a family affair for us. I've been helping plan for months, and helped with registration during the week, Justin served as a coach for 1st-2nd grade boys, my nephew Tayton coached a second group of 1st-2nd grade boys, Niki coached Lena's group, my dad was a photographer, and Lena participated. Lucy helped in the nursery since she is not interested in soccer, and Levi got to hang out with the other volunteers' kids for a mini version of soccer camp.

Look at that hottie showing the kids how it's done. Apparently he put one kid to sleep . . .

Lena has only ever played soccer in gym class, but she loved it!

Levi's in the gray shirt all the way on the right.

2. I obviously did not participate in the soccer part of soccer camp, but after day one, I felt like I had played 3 games straight (if I knew what that felt like). I was SO incredibly sore. The first day was a bit of chaos as we figured everything out, so I was running all over the place. We had 8 fields, so I did more speed-walking than I've done . . . ever? By the time I got home that night, my feet, ankles, legs, hips, and back were killing me and I seriously wondered how I was going to make it through the rest of the week. I wasn't the only one:

The rest of the week wasn't as intense physically for me, and I actually had some down time! I sat inside the air conditioned church and watched all these other adults (most of whom had come straight from their day jobs) run around with the kids and thought, "I'm so glad I'm not doing that!" Lol. I also thought, "How are they not dying?" Apparently I'm more out of shape than I realized. 🤦

3. Ok, moving on . . . kind of . . . I was obviously stressed most of the week, juggling soccer camp and kids and school and normal housework. To help alleviate some of the stress I've been working ahead a bit in my school work. My English 102 class is basically "how to write a paper." We have lots of mini papers leading up to the final one with topics like "what is your research question" and "explain your research proposal." I picked a topic when the class started two weeks ago, and have been plugging away at finding research and incorporating it into my work. I got positive feedback on my research question, so continued on to the research proposal. It didn't get graded right away, but I pressed on anyway. The next step is creating an annotated bibliography, and it's a serious undertaking. I have spent hours researching this topic, organizing my sources, pulling quotes, etc. So imagine my surprise and frustration when I finally got my grade from the research proposal I submitted a week ago:

In retrospect, I realize that I'm farther along in the research process than the professor expects me to be at this point. And I shouldn't have included so much of the research I've uncovered in my proposal. I really should've been tough and emailed him back saying, "The only reason I have an established opinion and don't have much to research is because of the weeks I've spent learning about this topic!!" I was seriously so livid. And of course it was terrible timing - smack dab in the middle of soccer camp week. I stayed up til midnight researching a new topic enough to crank out another research proposal that night. Fortunately, my glorious sister-in-law offered to take my kids on Thursday, so I spent a solid 6 hours sitting on the couch finding new resources for the annotated bibliography that was due Friday. 🤦🤦 It doesn't help that I chose a very controversial topic, on which I have a very conservative opinion (that my hours of researched backed up, thank you very much!!) so part of me thinks this professor in Spokane, Washington just didn't want me to write about it. 🤔😣

4. The nice thing about soccer camp is that we only did it Monday through Thursday. So yesterday, we slept in and relaxed most of the day. Then we headed over to our friends' house for Fun with the Fords. They live on a creek that calls to the kids even if it was freezing. 

Is there anything more glorious than mud??

Pure joy!

Roasting marshmallows

The fire was too hot for her face while she roasted her marshmallow. 😁

Buddies!

5. And today was Town and Country Days! The parade was cancelled last year due to Covid, so we were happy it was back this year! It also happened to be the nicest weather we've ever had for a parade. Usually it's 90 degrees or thunderstorming, but today it was low 70s and breezy! Levi was very nervous about the loud noises, so we went inside the church during the fire trucks, but then he happily sat through the rest! 

Parade Crew

Waiting out the firetrucks from inside. (Thanks, SBC!)

Nash loved the parade!

Afterward there was a free kids' carnival where we found this photo booth.

Martha and George?

The kids desperately wanted glitter tattoos, but there was only one girl working the station and each tattoo takes forever. We stood in line for 40 minutes. Finally there was just one mom and kid in front of us. The kid got his and I started to say, "Ok, Levi - sit down" when the Mom plopped right into the chair to get one. Finally she got up and I started pushing Levi forward again, when another one of her kids suddenly appeared and slid into the chair for his tattoo!! I was internally raging. Fortunately, some nice ladies came by with free ice cream to sustain us during the long wait. 

I hope that isn't some weird pagan symbol. Levi just thought it looked like a cool blade.

There wasn't much of a line for face painting, so Levi had to get a ninja turtle. 

6. And finally, onto the exciting news!! A few weeks ago, Justin got hired as the Varsity Soccer Coach at the kids' school. And this week, I got hired as a part-time librarian/classroom aide!!! I had my interview Monday morning and wasn't terribly nervous until I walked into the room with 5 people staring at me. Lol. I didn't expect that many. But I know most of them pretty well, and I'm pretty confident in my abilities to aide in the classroom/deal with kids and pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a librarian! I stumbled over my words a bit, and of course thought of much better answers to the questions as I was driving home, but I must not have been too terrible because they hired me!! And the hours are perfect. I'll be doing one day a week (Mondays): half day in the library, half day as a kindergarten aide. I didn't want more than one day a week because I'll still have Levi home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I need my kid-free Wednesdays and Fridays to do school work. And I'm excited to work in the kindergarten classroom, since I've worked with that teacher before and love her. I'll have to do recess duty as well, which isn't my favorite, but it's just once a week. I'll buy some snowpants and some good boots and survive the long winter. I still don't know which classes I'll have for library or what that all entails, but I'm excited anyway!!! I'm getting my foot in the door and dancing on in!! It's been 18 years since Justin and I graduated from that school, and here we are again - this time as Mr. and Mrs. VanderKodde. 😆😄

7. A couple more pictures:

At the park

Levi had a dentist appointment last week and I was shocked with the hygienist said, "Wow - those front teeth are wiggly!" He's never said anything about his teeth being loose, and the girls didn't lose their first teeth until they were 7!! (He's 5.) One day this week, he was laying on the couch and randomly piped up, "My tooth fell out!" It literally fell into his mouth and he spit it out into his hand. Haha.  

#wokeuplikethis

#crazyhairdontcare