Utah Summer Games

Here it is...an overload of pictures from the Utah Summer Games. Three days of soccer, sun, wind (Holy Wind Batman!) and stinky socks! Drake and Garrett played on a U11 team (even though they are only U10) and Zac played on a U13 (he's really U12.) Because they were all playing up a level they were competing against older teams, so they didn't win as much as they would have liked to. Drake and Garrett played 5 games and won 1, tied 1, and lost 3, but they played really well even in the ones they lost. Garrett played keeper for at least half of each game and nobody scored on him at all in the first three games! Overall, he only missed 5 goals in 5 games. Not too shabby, especially since all the teams were shooting a lot! Drake played some defense but mostly as a right wing forward which is his favorite position. He had a few really close shots! He is so good at passing. He gets the ball right where he wants it every time. Their team had only 4 practices together before the tournament, so they did really well considering they were playing competition teams that have been together for years and were all older than them. Zac's team had 4 games. They tied one and lost the other three. They did score some really great goals though. Zac plays Left Wing defense and is great at it. Not much gets past him! He actually shot a few goals which is unusual for a defender. One of them probably would have gone in but the wind picked it up and threw it over the net! During one of the games Zac intentionally fouled a kid who was about to score and then booked it out of there hoping the ref hadn't seen. He didn't give him a yellow card but the kid did get to shoot a penalty kick. It worked out okay though because our goalie blocked the penalty shot. Lexi spent a lot of time reading books and a teeny tiny bit of time watching her brothers play soccer!

We were glad to have Grandma Debbie join us for the weekend. She made it to all but two games and stayed with us in the hotel. She was a big help when I needed to get kids to different fields at the same time. On Thursday morning she knew nothing about soccer but by the end of the tournament she was yelling "pressure him!" just like a real soccer grandma! Grandpa Gerry also came over to watch the first 2 games. We got to see James and Brittany and their kids quite a bit too. They came to one of Zac's games and then Brittany and I took the kids to the Tiki Shack for snowcones. The next day we went to their house for a party to reveal the gender of their baby. It's A Boy! So now they will have two boys and two girls.

We also went to the Opening Ceremonies on Thursday night. The boys got to march in with all the other athletes in their summer games t-shirts. We really enjoyed the booths and activities before the opening ceremonies (free pizza, slushies, popcorn, rock wall climbing etc) but the actual ceremonies were kind of boring. In fact, the kids begged to go back to the hotel before the fireworks because they were exhausted! It was already 10:30 and they'd been up since 5:30 and already played 2 games a piece that day. They fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows!

Unfortunately, Tyson wasn't able to go with us to the games. He couldn't miss two days of work and his Aunt Deanna had passed away so he went to her funeral in Loa.

We had a great time and the boys are already talking about going back again next year!