Soccer Stud

Soccer season is here again, whereupon our lives are taken over by weekday practices and Saturday games in the punishing sun or the pouring rain. We live for it!

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Here is Dylan after his first game of the season last Saturday (August 9). He was very excited because his team, White Chaos (the boys named the team, go figure), won the game by a handy 6-0. Dylan kicked in 2 of the goals and set up a third point, so he was quite happy.

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Yesterday's game was much more of a challenge, though. First of all, we weren't even sure there would be a game, thanks to a big thunder-storm that rolled in.

In the photo you can see storm clouds glowering over the ballfield adjacent to the soccer fields. The little white speck in the bottom left corner is Dylan.

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To his delight, the lightning stayed in the not-so-far-off distance and only a light rain fell on us, so the game proceeded as planned. The boys played a hard-fought game that ended in a 4-4 tie.

In this picture you can see Dylan going head-to-head in yesterday's game. In the background you can just see a fence the town put up around the soccer fields. It seems it was becoming a problem to have horses and elk wandering onto the field all the time!

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In Arizona, even here in the high mountains, we have a monsoon season, usually from late June to early September. It is characterized by daily heavy rains and noisy thunder-and-lightning storms that echo through the mountains. Mornings are generally clear until a storm rolls in during the afternoon. Most of the time it rolls out after a few hours, but sometimes it stays all night. It can be humid before a storm hits, but our temperatures rarely reach above the eighties during monsoon season. Personally, I love the monsoons!

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We had some excitement at church today when lightning hit the roof over the chapel TWICE within a few minutes! The building rocked and the windows and doors quaked loudly. Kind of thrilling and frightening at the same time! No one was hurt, thankfully, but it fried the speaker system, which made a horrible piercing squeal for a short while. Never a dull moment here on the mountain!