Celebrations & Heartbreaks (week 568)

This week was filled with both celebrations and heartbreaks.  Dad always says to not trust the highs or the lows in life too much.  Enjoy both but know that the only constant is change.  We experienced both the highs of marching in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade and the lows of ending our soccer season within just a few hours of each other.  It was a great first weekend in December.

On Saturday night, we rode the "Paradise Found" Bay Shore Church float in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade.  It was an awesome night with an estimated 20,000 people lining the parade route.  We wore our costumes and sang our songs throughout the entire 2-mile route.  We saw many of our friends along the way and the parents had a great time walking behind the float and shouting Merry Christmas to everyone.  It was a night to remember!

Christopher had a great soccer season that mirrored ours.  They were undefeated most of the season, got the top seed in the Commissioner's Cup for their group, and were eliminated from the tournament in the semi-finals.  He had a great time with the BU10 Green Hornets and although he was only 8 years old and playing with much bigger kids, he had the best season of practices and games ever.  We hope that he will want to play another season since he was the one that asked to be signed-up this year along with his piano lessons and the magic classes at school!

Team United also had a great season, and although we finally lost for the first time in 25 games (over two years), all good streaks must come to an end.  On this particular weekend, we were beat 2-1 by the same team that tied us earlier in the year!  We just ran out of gas.  We missed a lot of easy chances in front of the goal, had three kids leave the field with bloody faces, and were called for 8 or 9 hand balls in the same game!  In fact, it was such a weird game that they made 4 of our players change our pants on the field in front of everyone because they said our shorts couldn't have pockets.  All the parents agreed that there was something much different going-on with the volunteer referees but as they say--all good things must come to an end.  It was hard for the team to swallow but it was also a great season.