Catching Up

Last weekend was tournament weekend and we all had a great time. Kathryn's team didn't do so well (they lost all their games and didn't score one goal), but it was a good experience for her team. Most all the teams in the tournament were competetive teams meaning they practice almost everyday and just go around playing in tournaments. Kathryn's team is your basic recreational soccer team. And believe me, you can tell the difference. They were a little intimidated at first because all the other teams they played were so good. But by the third game, they were a little less shell shocked and just played the best they could. They even made the other team sweat a little bit! :) Kathryn's has a wonderful coach and she explained to them that she didn't put them in this tournament so they could get smeared by the opponents. She put them in so they could have some experience playing against better teams and raise their level of play and just to have some fun playing in a tournament. In spite of the outcome, they all had a super time and so did the parents. Last weekend was super hot, but playing by the beach was great. We had ocean breezes the whole time!

Kathryn in her uniform.

This picture is kind of hard to see but it's a shot of Kathryn standing next to a girl on the other team. This other girl is probably over six feet tall! And these are 10 year old girls! It was kind of hard to play defense against her!

Remember the story about my trees? Well, I had a visit from the supervisor of tree maintenance for my city. He looked around, checked the roots, checked the dirt, and said the trees were getting too much water! My trees are Holly Oaks and he said these trees don't need a lot of water. He suggested I change the schedule for my sprinkler system so that the trees don't get as much water. I can't believe that we are the only homeowners who are watering around the trees so much, but our trees are almost the only ones that look the way they do. The tree man said that over time, if the trees get too much water, they will start looking like ours. I find it a little odd that watering a tree too much will make it look like ours but I guess I'll start watering around the tree less. I'll have to adjust the sprinklers and make sure the water is not hitting the tree trunks and set the timer for a shorter amount of time. I'll have to find the right balance so that the grass doesn't suffer and turn all yellow, especially in the coming hot summer months.

I also had a visit from the plumber this week. We've had two leaks on the faucets outside of our house for the longest time, but we finally had to call when my kids tried to pull the backyard garden hose to the front yard, even though it wouldn't reach. I don't know why they didn't realize that we have a hose in the front. Well, they pulled and pulled until it popped out of the faucet, taking with it some ring part of the faucet! Kathryn came in the house saying something happened with the hose so when I went out to look, I saw the water gushing out of the faucet. It looked much worse than it actually was. But, the plumber needed to be called because now that the hose was no longer attached, I could see how much water was really leaking out. Enough to leave the ground in a puddle.

Luckily the plumber just had to put some new part. He did the same thing to our leak in the front yard and that was that. I was thinking since the leaks were there for a while that we would have some damage on some old pipes, but he said they didn't look too bad. So I think we made out pretty good.

Tomorrow we're off to the wild animal park for a day with the animals!