Month: July 2011

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Soccer Camp

Another soccer posting I’m afraid. But this time instead of sound wave band videos we have match of the day like soccer videos featuring Harry and Toby playing on the final day of their soccer camp in a World Cup tournament.

All week we have been regaled with stories about how amazing they both are at soccer and how the only reason their teams have won is because of them. On Monday Toby came home green because he’d played in the rain in trainers and spent most of the morning rolling around in the grass. Monday evening required a trip to Authority Sports to buy them both a pair of Messi boots. And for the rest of the week the soccer performance stories grew to Messi-like proportions! Harry was scoring 8 goals every day and Toby’s team would be losing 10-0 until Toby scored 18 goals and they won 18-10. As the stories from Toby got ever more far fetched we began to question his interpretation of events but we should have known better than to doubt him!

On Friday we watched Harry and Toby playing and we started to believe the match descriptions that we had heard. Toby was no longer the little boy who was scared on his one appearance at Rugrats. Oh no. He was transformed into a footballing demon! He charged around the pitch, tackling people, scoring goals for fun, falling over, getting up again, shouting pass and doing little hops and skips as he celebrated scoring goals.

He played in his world cup final (representing Argentina) against England. Clearly the footballing heroics we had heard about all week were true as it was Toby and “his friend” (he didn’t find out his friends name) versus four other “England” boys and it was a mightily impressive display from Argentina:

httpv://youtu.be/eeg3JQX3KhM

And if that isn’t enough, here’s some more:

httpv://youtu.be/ydOQQOkTmF0

I’ve no idea what the final score was but Toby assured us he’d scored 22 and I think I probably believe him! Toby’s coach told us that they had never seen such a good player at that age group and more importantly he was also the best behaved boy they’ve ever had at that age group! Some things really are hard to believe!

Harry had performed equally as impressively all week, playing in the teams a year above him and today his rich vein of form continued. Harry and his team were representing Spain in their World Cup and in their first game they played England. Spain won 7-0 and Harry bagged 4. England were clearly a sorry mess of a team at all age groups! Then they moved on to play Belgium. With just a couple of minutes left Spain were losing 2-0 but then the Stickman arrived and scored twice to earn a draw. In the final game of the World Cup Spain were playing Brazil and another marvelous performance saw Spain win 6-0 with Harry scoring 5 of them. Deadly Stickells showed no mercy:

httpv://youtu.be/OBi4YYTaIWo

However, despite these performances Spain were some how runners up in the World Cup, 1 goal behind Belgium. Never mind. It’s only a game and all that rubbish!

At the end they collected their certificates and went home all hot and sweaty!

httpv://youtu.be/hSuiLpSN9Do

The rest of the afternoon was spent with Toby gloating about how much he’d won at football and Harry not wanting to talk about it – until he was reminded that his two trophies were arriving on Sunday with Sally. That perked him up a bit!

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Whoooaahhh!

We all felt a bit weird after dinner. Not sure what it was but it sure had a funny effect…

Tracy turned into a chipmunk:

Harry into an alien:

Toby got a swirly nose:

And I turned into a frog:

And if that wasn’t enough, check this out:

The chipmunk is my favorite!

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Beach Parks

Saturday had been a beautiful summers day and we’d spent it doing typical summers day activities – going to Ikea, Bestbuy, Pier 1 Imports (twice) and QFC. Oh and we had a BBQ! Because it had been a truly awful day for the children Sunday was designated a no shopping day, aka, a beach park day.

With Sunday looking like being as good, if not better than Saturday we woke up, packed a picnic and set off on a day of sun, beaches and swimming. First of all we went to Lincoln Park which is just south of Alki Beach. It had good write ups however none of those reviews thought to mention that you had to walk down some giant cliff to get to the beach, so we decided to give up and find an alternative. The high point of our short trip to Lincoln Park was Harry falling down a small pot hole. Tracy was just talking about when Toby fell in the stream on pit run day when we looked up and saw Harry falling legs first into a hole and landing on his bum. It was very funny but it did make number 1 son a wee bit moody.

Next stop was Alki Beach. We stopped on the quiet side of the peninsula and settled down on the beach. After about 20 minutes it became clear Alki Beach was not the answer to our relaxing beach day. Toby had got blood coming out his knee. Allegedly. No-one could actually see it. As he went into the water to wash the blood away he fell over again. At this point we picked up the picnic basket and went back to the car!

Our whistle stop tour of every beach park in the area then headed off towards the ever reliable Waverley Beach Park. It was getting close to 11am (we’d set off early) and we hoped the park wouldn’t be too busy. We were in luck. We got a good spot down near the beach and settled down to eat because Harry was starving.

After lunch it was time to hit the lake. It was boiling hot (the weather not the lake) so I decided to have a little paddle. Despite the fact that the lake was freezing Harry and Toby decided to have a swim – both without tummy bands – which was rather impressive. Even though the water was freezing it was calling to me and in the end I could resist no longer! So, in a very ungainly, floopy way I splashed in and took my first swim in the Washington lakes. Usually you acclimatize and come out with the “it’s lovely when you’re in” line however it was still freezing so the swim didn’t last long.

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So by the end of a glorious sunny weekend three out of four of us have had a swim in the lake. Tracy’s turn next!

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Nutters Needle

Friday night means eating out! This week we were back round to Harry having the choice and he was in the mood for some Mexican. Surprise, surprise! So off we went to Kirkland for a visit to Mi Mexican – or something like that.

Harry tried something new and went for the burrito, Tracy had a burrito, I had the tortilla soup and a prawny something and Toby went for the very traditional Mexican dish of chicken nuggets and chips. When asked if he was sure he wanted that rather than the taco’s which he really likes he assured us that he did and that he hadn’t had chicken nuggets for ages! Poor child.

After we’d finished we strolled down to the waterfront where Toby managed to lose the ability of 1) listening to what his mum and dad told him (“don’t get wet, just paddle”) and 2) the ability to stop running when he entered into the lake. All of which meant we ended up with a very soggy Toby and no change of clothes!

In addition to Toby entertaining us by getting wet, the first few photo’s in the following set are of an exercise class that was taking place on paddle boards in the lake. Not only did they look quite ridiculous, they also provided a good source of amusement as one of them lost their balance and fell in. We’ve booked Sally onto a session for when she gets here – I’m sure she’ll love it!

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Two yobs on the beach and some silly exercises in the background:

httpv://youtu.be/TM77uyKR-OU

After drying Toby off and sitting him in the car in just a t-shirt, we then decided we would go to Pier 1 Imports and have a look round. Toby wasn’t happy as he didn’t have any pants on. Harry and I found this quite funny but unfortunately we didn’t know when to stop – despite being told on several occasions by Tracy! Eventually after deciding we should also go up the Space Needle while Toby had no pants on so everyone looking up could see his nuts, it all went too far and ended in tears, just as Tracy had warned us.

Anyway, despite the upset of it all at least the Space Needle now has, in honor of Toby (who is one of its biggest fans) a new name – Nutters Needle – which even Toby finds funny now.

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Dirty Mancs!

Wednesday night was soccer night and the dirty Mancs were in town! It was the second game of our three match bundle and after a grey few days we had an evening of sunshine for the game. The local news was advising getting to the ground early as it was likely to be a chaotic evening in Seattle, with 67,502 (another record crowd) going to the soccer and 30,000 or so going to the Key Arena to see a Katy Perry concert.

They were right, it was pretty bad traffic going across the bridge even though we had left at 4:30pm. Mysteriously though as we went through the tunnel on the Seattle side of the bridge the traffic completely disappeared and we were left with an empty freeway which was nice! We’re not sure where it all went it was most peculiar!

Once we got to the stadium, we mooched about for a bit, listened to the band, saw the Premier League trophy which was rather shiny and then went up to the top of the stadium for something to eat before the match.

If you didn’t enjoy the Sound Wave video in the previous Sounders post then you can probably skip these two videos. I however, rather like the band, hence two more videos!

httpv://youtu.be/e0sMCOQAzaE

httpv://youtu.be/IBVKHp-7D2Y

Then we had some pre-match build up followed by the national anthem and fireworks – they take their sporting events very seriously over here:

httpv://youtu.be/we9aWZ2J8Ko

httpv://youtu.be/SYj5TxXzE-8

And, despite the fact that the Sounders lost 7-0, a good time was had by all. Even though I’m sure Tracy would rather have been at the Katy Perry concert!

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The Suburbs

We thought we’d moved into a nice part of town, in a quiet little cul-de-sac. This week Tracy got the gossip.

As you stand at the entrance to our close we have a house on the corner that an ex-judge lives in. All good news and respectable there then apart from he is an ex-judge because he is addicted to coke and has been in and out of jail several times! They don’t come out their house much, in fact we’ve never seen them and I’m not sure they even exist. If they do however, I’m sure they are very respectable these days though – even if they don’t keep all of their front garden up to the required standard.

On the opposite corner is the VP of the home owners association and her husband. He came to say hello the day we moved in but we’ve seen no sign of him since. As it turns out this may be because he spends all day in his shed drinking. She told us off within the first week for not putting our bins away and she’s not best pleased about the fact that we leave our cars on the drive. She also called the police when our next door neighbors children were young and ran around in the front garden naked – fearing that they would attract the wrong sort of people. And if all that was not bad enough “she has a pair of binoculars you know”. Need I say more? I do? Oh well, in that case, apparently their children don’t like them.

Next door to them is the bat cave. Whenever these residents see a fellow neighbor their garage door magically opens and they disappear into it. They remain hidden until all human life form has gone before re-emerging.

Between the bat cave and us is a single mum who doesn’t like children. We have been asked if “we’ve been shouted at by her yet?”. We haven’t. Not yet anyway. Apparently she used to terrorize the children of the previous tenants. Woe betide her if she does!

Then we have our neighbors on the other side who seem reasonably normal apart from they seem determined to move the entire contents of their garage into our house. As if we hadn’t received enough useless “stuff” from them, we got home from soccer last night to find another box of other “stuff” on the doorstep. Never mind, it keeps our bins full.

Which just leaves us. Rather worryingly, it seems we are the most normal of all. Not sure what that says about us or our neighbors. So there we go. That’s our neighbors. Allegedly.

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Harry Van Gogh

Not only is Harry a soccer superstar and a basketball wizard, he has also demonstrated a softer side today. Put to one side that he is a sporting genius, he is also an accomplished artist as this self portrait he drew today demonstrates:

For those of you wondering, Harry is the one of the left.

Over the course of the coming weeks and months we are all going to do our own self portraits and see who’s is the best. When you come and visit us, you will be expected to add your own effort! I will be the judge and my decision is final!

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Shooting Hoops

Because Toby had some brand new basketball shorts – which he refers to as “the most famous basketball shorts in the world” – we decided to go play some basketball on the nearby court. Considering the difference in size between the boys and the hoop, it has to be said that they are very good. Toby with the dribbles and Harry with the shots. The following video was the first take – beginners luck or natural skill you decide:

httpv://youtu.be/G3cQVWNGT-g

They certainly don’t get their skills from their father as this short clip highlights, it captures the few moments after one of my attempts at shooting a hoop:

httpv://youtu.be/yDJ7TtEdzTE

I hope you noticed the most famous basketball shorts in the world on the second video?

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In The Clouds

It’s been another week of “just living” in America. Maybe I’m calming down a little and not feeling the need to go out every weekend! Anyway, it’s been a fun week doing a bunch of different things.

On Wednesday we went and had our induction at the gym. I went first and had my tour round the machines. It’s slightly worrying about how often they tell you that the gym never gets busy – what does everyone else know that we don’t!? After I finished, Tracy went for her tour and I took the two little piglets into the pool. Both of them did some very good swimming. Harry didn’t have his tummy band and swam very well, including plenty of under water swimming. Toby did have his tummy band but swam like a little fish anyway. After an hour in the pool and starting to encourage our healthy side we went to Burger King and had a flamed grilled whopper!! Not ideal but nice nonetheless!

Harry went to soccer training on Thursday night. There were a few more boys this week – four instead of two – so I think going to training in Issaquah next week is definitely the right thing to do. Anyway, training went well, his coach praised Harry, saying that he “had skills that he had never seen another boy do at this age”. Fortunately Harry didn’t hear this otherwise we wouldn’t have heard the end of it! Considering he has been a coach for 40 years, we either have 1) a truly gifted soccer player for a son, 2) his coach gets a little carried away, or 3) American kids just aren’t very good at soccer!

On the downside, a Bosnian boy called Ferris started this week, He’d never played soccer before so no threat from that perspective, however he did win all the sprints which didn’t go down well!

On Friday evening it was my turn to choose where we ate. And being totally unoriginal I selected Zeeks Pizza, although we went to Issaquah rather than Kirkland so I had some originality to my choice. Before we went out Toby had to get changed. He had chosen his own clothes and for some reason Tracy wasn’t prepared to go out with him looking the way he did! Can’t think why – any ideas?

Harry and Toby shared a pizza – chicken on one side and pepperoni on the other. I like that about Zeeks, you can choose a different topping on each side of the base. Tracy liked Issaquah Zeeks better than Kirkland as the wine selection was better.

On Saturday as the boys were still undecided about going on adventures – Harry wanted one, Toby didn’t – we compromised and took them on a shopping adventure! First we went to the Bellevue Foam shop and ordered two pieces of foam to fit on the single beds. They will be ready for collection on Tuesday and will be our mattresses. We lay on a sample on the shop floor and they were surprisingly solid considering the weight I placed on it!

After the foam shop we went to Pier 1 imports and were actually, very well behaved! I think the giant spoon and spatula may be purchased soon though to accompany the knife and fork we already have on the wall in the kitchen.

The shopping bonanza continued as we headed off along the I-90 up the mountains into the clouds to the North Bend premium outlet shopping center. After a couple of hours mooching around here and a couple of pairs of sneakers, some basketball shorts and a few other bits and pieces later, the clouds had lifted and we decided we ought to go home.

As it had been a very busy afternoon, Tracy thought she deserved a little drink when she got home:

The bottle was empty on the side before the night was through! Although I suppose I should admit that I helped a little!

Sunday morning. A well deserved lie-in. Or so we hoped. Instead it started with “Mum”, …, “Muuum”, …, “MUUUUUUUUMMMMMM”. It was Toby and he was feeling sick. Fortunately the bowl was close by as he had claimed to feeling ill the evening before although we thought this may have been an excuse for not going to sleep (it was about 10pm at night, having not gone to sleep until about 11pm the night before).

As it turns out, he was feeling poorly and spent most of the morning being sick. It was mostly phlegm but it’s still not pleasant. After a couple of power naps he finally managed to crawl his way downstairs and it wasn’t long before he was asking what was for lunch – which was toast, much to his disappointment!

My morning was spent getting beaten on the xbox by my 8 year old son. Great.

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Bits & Bobs

“Shall we go on an adventure?” … “No” … “Why not?” … “They’re boring” … “Oh, okay”.

After this brief exchange (with Toby) we embarked on a quiet weekend at home. It had been a reasonably quiet week altogether.

We took Harry to his first night of soccer training on Thursday evening. We got there early to make a good impression. We needn’t have bothered! Only one other child turned up – Isaac – and the coach called Ed. Ed didn’t inspire us with any great confidence and believe that he is the man to take Harry’s soccer skills to the next level! Apart from stating that he didn’t really want to do the training again this year (but they couldn’t find anyone else) and that he “couldn’t be relied upon” he looked, with all due respect, like a gentleman who should be sat down taking it easy with his grand kids. He didn’t have a heart attack as he put Harry and Isaac through their paces but I was worried throughout the session!

At the end of the training he informed us that Harry needed to work on his sprinting (because they play on a sand/soil/ash type surface which are very tiring), practice some more with his left foot (as two footed players are better than one) and improve his shooting accuracy a bit more. Despite this he rated Harry as up there with the best for his age group. Which is more than can be said for the feedback Isaac received. I’m not sure Isaac will be back next week.

Harry will be back next week, however Friday afternoon was spent talking to the coach at Issaquah soccer club and they are much more like what we’re looking for! The Director of Coaching is the son of Alan Ball, former England captain and World Cup winner. He used to run the Portsmouth FC academy and he brings over proper qualified soccer coaches from the UK to train their ~4,000 kids that they have registered with the club. Training begins the week commencing the 18th July and we will be taking Harry and Toby along. Toby is rather enthusiastic but then he was when he went to rugrats the first time – I’m sure he’ll last longer this time though!

While I was busy on Friday afternoon working (sorting out soccer training), Dane came round to play with Harry and Toby. He mainly came round to play with Harry but it’s sort of like a play with one, get one free deal with Toby! After the initial showing off part had died down they spent hours in the garage making dens in with the boxes that we still haven’t got rid of. I’m not sure we should get rid of them either with the amount of time they have both spent playing in the garage this weekend!

They were going to spend the night in their on Saturday but they quickly changed their minds when they released what that actually meant!

On Saturday morning, after the adventure discussions, we went to Sammamish Club to check it out as a way of reducing the size of my belly! While it may not be the most glamourous of clubs, it’s dirt cheap and has classes and a gym for the belly shifters plus it has a pool and tennis courts which we can take the boys to use. We signed up for a 3 month trial (another positive is they don’t tie you into 12 month contracts) which if nothing else will enable Sally to go to the gym for the 3 weeks she is out here – so there shouldn’t be any withdrawal symptoms there!

After signing on the dotted line for the membership, we watched England lose on penalties in the women’s World Cup – doesn’t matter where you are in the world we still lose on penalties – and then we went over to Phantom Lake to see what it was like. I drive past it on the way home from work each day and it looks pretty but now was the time to check it out. As it turns out, there isn’t an awful lot to do there but it does have possibly the most extensive spread of lily pads in the world. That may be a slight exaggeration but it was still pretty impressive. Almost as impressive as the lily pads are the houses that surround the lake. Many of them had, amongst other things, giant slides from their garden into the lake. I think we may have been in a somewhat exclusive area of town!

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After this very busy morning we went home for a nice burger – which kind of demonstrates why there is a need for the gym membership! The rest of the day was a nice relaxed time sitting in the sunshine in the garden which is quite a sun trap considering the height of the surrounding trees.

Fortunately for Toby there were no adventures planned on Sunday either, just the first batch of waffles from the waffle machine (and the second batch – slightly less burnt!) and a trip to see Cars 2. This was much more agreeable than a trip up and over the mountains to the east and down into the Washington desert, which sounds ever so boring. Maybe next weekend …

 

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July 4th

FYI, if you don’t like fireworks then this probably isn’t the post for you!

Our first July 4th, 4th of July or Independence Day depending on your preference was spent relaxing in the sunshine. We’ve had a good few days of sun now and long may it continue. After some soccer at Lake Hills Park in the morning the afternoon was spent lazing around in the garden – I think this is a definite requirement of the resolution of independence as proposed by Richard Henry Lee.

Just after 6pm we headed over to Bellevue Park where the Eastside spectacular had been going since early in the afternoon. Harry and Toby launched themselves into a variety of bouncey slides and obstacle courses without any of their normal hesitation. Maybe their confidence is growing? They would normally require some persuading.

After dinner at the Cheesecake Factory it was back to the park for the fireworks. Apologies in advance for the shaky camera (occasional altering of sound quality and lack of focus!) but if I’d known the display was going to last for seventeen and a half minutes I would have gone to the gym to train for the holding steady of a camera. Pins and needles in my right leg didn’t help either but hey, it was July 4th and I was going to record every last second of it!

Part 1 is as follows:

httpv://youtu.be/Rms0YWD9_bQ

Part 2 is here:

httpv://youtu.be/xGgFAWIgM_s

I would say I split the video up in order to give you a break however it was just because Youtube wouldn’t let me upload a video that is longer than 15 minutes. You’d have thought the fireworks team would have taken this into consideration and shortened their display accordingly. All in all the display was very good (a bit better than Northampton but it was close!) and best of all was the fact that Toby watched it all and didn’t cover his ears at any point. Confidence and bravery was clearly flowing through him tonight!

If having watched that display you think it lasted quite a while then you will be pleased to know that for about every minute the display lasted we spent 3 sat in the car park trying to get out! Their organization at big sporting events and the like is normally pretty good but I guess most of the police had taken the day off to celebrate Independence Day! Never mind, it’s all part of the fun!