Matt and Marlie

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Soccer Season!

If you've kept us with this blog you know that I LOVE soccer season. The Sharks and the Fairy Ponies are back!

Let's start with Matt...the Sharks are back with a few new faces. They play real soccer this year - 7 on 7 with a goalie. So not as many goals as last year and the games have all been competitive. We've tied 2 and won 2. Matt is doing great. He's scored I think 6 goals already and has had quite a few close shots. This first game was SO hot and he was exhausted by the 4th quarter. But he works so hard and gets so excited for his teammates when they score. I think that's my favorite part.

The boys are proudly wearing their pink wristbands this month!

The dynamic duo...they are still warming up but I'm waiting for these 2 to start tearing up the field.

Matt played goalie the first game and loved it. He did great. But he played yesterday and it didn't go so well. They scored 2 on him and he fell apart...partly because he said he had to go to the bathroom really bad so we barely made it after the quarter.

He scored right after this. Such a strong and powerful shot over the goalie's head. He had no chance to even try to react.

So now onto the Fairy Ponies...what to say...well we are not so good to be honest. It's not due to a lack of effort...we're just not as fast and aggressive as the other teams. But we are cute!

We got killed the first game. The girls were so frustrated. At one point Marlie screamed on the field, "I'm so frustrated!" and started crying. Who is this kid? She was not the only one. She started making the karate chop sound every time she kicked the ball. Then the girls started faking injuries. It was so pathetic that it was kind of funny. Marlie finally scored and was still crying after. Look how mad she is in these pics.

This one she's crying while throwing the ball in.

So we hoped the next game would be better. But we got killed again. Luckily though not so bad. A couple of fun things to note though...Marlie is rocking it. She is the primary goal scorer for her team. I think she scored 2 goals this game. The girls fought hard and didn't get so mad and I was so proud of them. Mrs. Edson was also proud of them too. Get this...of the 11 girls on the team, 6 are in the same class! We are so lucky to have Ms. Edson as our teacher. It was so sweet of her to come to the game and it really helped the girls. Marlie would look and make sure she was watching before she kicked the ball off. Thank you Ms. Edson for coming to the game!

Game 3 I think we actually won! Marlie had 5 goals! Can you believe that? I am so proud of her. She is fast and aggressive and a great ball handler. Sydney passed a perfect ball to Marlie and she kicked it right in. This is their victory walk back. Marlie leaps down the field after her goals, it's awesome! What even amazes me more is that with the soccer year, Marlie is one of the youngest on the field. Matt is lucky that he falls in the year that he is the oldest on his team. So some of these girls are almost a year older than Marlie and a lot of them are much bigger but she's keeping up with them!

Mostly though Marlie just loves being out there with Dad and seeing all her friends. I keep singing "this girl is on fire" to Marlie and man is she. I think she may have learned a thing or two from watching Matt the last few years!

Friday, September 6, 2013

Sunny San Diego - Take II

Just before school started we took our summer vacation and went back to San Diego. No cousins in the area this time but the Hatters joined us and we had a great time!

You know how we roll...hop off the plane, unpack our stuff and get going! We went straight to the Padres game. Matt was so excited. At some point we all almost fell asleep and then caught our second wind in the 5th inning! The weather was amazing and we actually had to put on our jackets! Matt got an autograph from the Mets coach and also ended up with a free t-shirt too!

The next day we got up slowly and went to Coronado. We had lunch, bummed around in the shops and then spent most of the day on the beach. Marlie and Hayden found these BFF necklaces in one of the shops and wanted them right away. This is just too cute...

I guess I was too busy talking because I didn't get any pictures of Cale's awesome sand castle or the boys playing football! I also didn't get pictures of Marlie and Hayden on the boogie boards which was super cute too!

The next day it was off to LEGOLAND. It was a great park for the little kids. Marlie and Livi rode their first roller coasters and they both did great! There were Legos everywhere! At the end of the day the kid's got to pick out Legos from the gift shop. Matt put his together right when we came back to Houston and I was so impressed that he did it all by himself!

Day 3, the Maziur's headed for Sea World and the Hatter's went to the SD Zoo. The last time we went to Sea World Marlie talked about Shamu for weeks! Matt and Dad headed straight for the roller coaster and Marlie headed straight for the stingrays! As you know from my last post from Great Exuma, Marlie loves stingrays. Again we stayed with these creatures for a long time, fed them, petted them, loved them, etc.

We spent a lot of time watching the dolphins too. After this we went to all the shows but it got very hot and we all sort of petered out at about 3:00pm. Marlie slept through the last show which she would have loved. It was a lot of dancing and singing to the Madagascar movie songs. Oh well!

Then we met the Hatters for dinner at Hodad's. Hodad's is a surfer hole-in-the-wall at Ocean Beach and they are known for their bacon burgers. The burgers were awesome! Neat, funky little place with great food!

Day 4 we went to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. It was super hot here too but we managed to find some shade along the way. The first stop was to see the Gorillas! Doug could have stayed here for hours. There was a baby which Marlie just loved.

M&M also enjoyed the Lorikeet's. They fed them and even let them climb on them!

We did a "behind-the-scenes" tour and the kids asked tons of great questions along the way. It was really interesting and we realized what an amazing place this really is. But maybe the highlight of the day was watching the cheetah run! He ran way too fast to take a picture. The adults and kids loved it!

Day 5 was our final day and we needed a relaxing day on the beach. We played on Mission Beach, where our condo was, for hours. The kids made sand castles, played baseball, flew a kite and played in the water. I was so mad that I did not have my camera to snap photos. After a little nap we got dressed and Nicole took some family pics for us on the beach. We managed to get a few cute ones on our camera too. The kids all looked very cute, sunburned and sort of tired, but mostly cute!