She shoots, she scores!

Today was a great day for soccer!

Carmen showed drive & motivation I'd never seen before AND she scored her first goal! She took the ball away from other kids when playing defense many times and broke away and made it down the sidelines several times. I was so glad we were there and also that Gigi & Hidy finally got to see a good game. They've been coming to most of the games and it has been so disheartening to watch up until today.

The team actually spent half of the game on the opponents' side of the field, and some of the others besides Carmen seemed to know which way to go half of the time. This was by FAR their best performance. Our team scored twice, but they had many shots on goal for the first time ever.


Now there are still a couple of kids that are exasperating to watch, to be sure: one who scratches his head constantly and plays with his shadow in the grass, and another who is better in the goal than on the field, but he's still not as good in the goal as Carmen or one other girl on the team, and while he was in the goal, the other team scored several times. Both of these two spend most of their time on the field walking around, only half aware of where the ball is.

There's a new kid who was just assigned to the team, and he was an asset today. It's the first time they've had a full team all year. That should help a lot with the fatigue since they haven't been able to put subs in much.

Speaking of fatigue, the only nap Paloma got today was the 10-minute drive from home to the soccer fields plus about a half hour in the stroller once we got to Carmen's game! She woke up smiling, though, after a bunch of cheers waked her. It was a beautiful day and she enjoyed Gigi holding her.

To celebrate Carmen's game and goal, David took Carmen to see FC Dallas tonight. He offered to take all of us, but I spent the morning weeding out Carmen's outgrown & summer clothes and we spent the afternoon (after the game) cleaning out the garage (my car is in it for the first time in--IDK--a year or two?!?). So I couldn't imagine another event tonight. Instead, Gabriel, Paloma & I are taking it easy.
Here they are in the shirts they got at the game.