We dropped Ben off at soccer camp this morning.  The rest of continued on to virginia beach to get some sun and surf until it’s time to pick him up on Wednesday.

With that, here in bullet form is what we’ve been up to since Halloween.

• Ben finished football season with two games in November.  Highlights of the season:  starting at wide receiver in the last few games, ending the season with four catches for almost 100 yards and  1 touchdown.
• The regular soccer season for both kids ended in early November.
• We celebrated Zeny’s birthday.
• A weekend trip to Chicago where we saw Ted’s mom, caught up with some old college friends,  went to the very exciting Northwestern v. Iowa game, and where Ben met up with the director of the Integrated Science Program, the honors science program that Ted majored in.  Ben was able to find out a lot about the program, and chat with some professors and students about the academics and student life at NU.
  
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• Ben’s team won their post-season soccer tournament.

• Thanksgiving with Ted’s brother and his wife, but without Ted’s mom this year, who was recovering from surgery and unable to travel.
• A weekend trip to Philadelphia to visit the Franklin Institute, to make up for a field trip that Kate missed because we were on our way to Chicago the day her class went.  We also saw the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, and other notable Philadelphia sites.
  
• Basketball season started for both kids.
• Kate had her school chorus concert
• Christmas!

The game ended in a 0-0 tie.  Best of all, nobody got kicked out.  The last two times we’ve played FASA (1) their entire parent sideline and their coach got ejected and (2) one parent and one player got ejected.  This time they only received one yellow card!

Sam and Kelly came to the game to watch, and Sam was an especially good sport standing in the rain to watch.  Kelly had more common sense and watched from the car.  I don’t blame her one bit!

Both games ended in a 1-1 tie.  Ben’s was a conventional score, with each time scoring 1 goal each.  Kate’s however, featured the most bizarre own goal I’ve ever seen.   Usually an own goal results from a misplayed ball by the defense.  They shank it or it caroms off their head as they are trying to clear and ends up in their own net instead.  Not the own goal in Kate’s game.  The other team was attacking, and had the ball in our defensive third.  One of their girls got the ball but there was pressure so she turned away from it.  Or so I thought.  But after turning away from the pressure, she kept dribbling the ball, all the way down the other end.  She was off on a breakaway and then shot on her own goal!!  But the weird thing was their keeper didn’t try to yell at her to turn around, or even try to make a play on the ball.  She just sort of let it roll in.  Very bizarre!

On another note, I hate shooting at the field where Kate played.  There’s just something about the way the light is there that makes skin tones pasty and gives my camera and lenses fits when focusing.  I’ve hated it since Ben played there and it is always the same experience.

Next, we have pictures from Kate’s game on April 18, which was very exciting!  Down 0-3 in the waning minutes of the game, the Real came back with three quick goals to tie it up!  What made it even more fun for Kate was the fact that Kate had a couple of friends of the opposing team, since it’s the club where Kate played recreational soccer.  It was quite a finish!

Third, I’ve got pictures from Ben’s game later that day.  The game started at 6:30 under cloudy skies and finished under the lights, so there aren’t very many pictures.  I just couldn’t get enough light.  This game also ended in a tie, but unlike Kate’s excitement at the end of her game, Ben was grumpy.  They were up 1-0 throughout much of the game and controlling much of the tempo when they had a second goal called back on a dubious offside call, and then the other team scored to tie it up.  Cranky, cranky.

And finally, pictures from Ben’s game on April 25.  These were also taken under overcast conditions, but at 8 a.m. so I had more light.  Even though there was more light I still had to push the ISO.  I think I need to recalibrate my monitor since although these look fine on my computer, they are much darker on my work monitor.

I still have pictures from Kate’s game on April 25, and also pictures from Spring Break that I have to put up, but at least I’ve made a dent in my pile!

This next one is Ben winning a 50-50 ball:

And then this last one is when the other team’s keeper pushes Ben around to try to protect his box. Ben just ignores him.