One Week

Melanee goes back to Virginia in ONE WEEK. Next Friday!!!! Having her home has been wonderful. I am going to miss her. This past 4-5 weeks has gone by SO FAST!

Unbelieveable (part 2)

Our cat ran away again....do you think it doesn't like us???

Hat Trick

Melanee had another soccer game tonight. It was an indoor co-ed game. They were playing a team made up of a lot of the Chico Bigfoot premier mens and womens teams. Melanee's team is pretty much a Butte College team. Melanee's team won 11-6. Before half time, Melanee had scored 3 goals! It was a good game. WOO HOO! I'm going to miss watching all this soccer when she leaves. Luckily Chico Youth Soccer begins at the end of August and William is going to try out for the high school soccer team, so I'll be able to get my soccer fix through them!

HOPEFULLY, also, Melanee will take (beg someone to take) a lot of pictures and videos of her playing, so I can feel a little bit a part of her SVU season.

Monkey Face

We did NOT want to sit around watching "Hannah Montana" all day today, so we got in the car and drove. We also didn't want to have to spend any money so we decided to go on a hike. The boys love hiking to Monkey Face and Melanee has never been up there, so that's where we went. It was fun. Now we are home and tired from the hike.

Senior Pictures

I can't believe that William is going into his senior year of high school!

Last week I took him to get his senior pictures taken. It was a nice studio, but there was only one photographer and she took William in to get his pictures taken while another girl changed into her cheerleading uniform during her photo shoot. The photographer took no more than 5 minutes with William and it shows!

I have the proofs, do you think it would be legal to scan them and share them here on my blog?????

But NONE of them turned out! 8 pictures, ALL bad!

UGH!

Cross Country Camp

I sent a camera with William, but don't have much confidence that he will take many good pictures, so I took a few pictures as they were packing their cars to leave.

The camp is actually camping...near LAKE TAHOE. They are going to have SO much fun....and be SO sore!

Don't they look excited?

unbelieveable

Two or 3 weeks ago our cat disappeared. Some of the people thought it may have ran away. I seriously thought it was dead. This morning there was a knock on the door....the old lady across the street was standing on our front porch holding our cat. She said it ran through her garden this morning and she caught it! WOW. Didn't think we'd ever see the cat again after being missing for 3 weeks!!!!!

Pack mtg.

I am POSITIVE that we have taken the summer months off of scouts in the past, but not this year....so tonight we had a pack meeting.

Bradley earned a few awards.Andrew earned a few awards.
The Weblos performed a puppet show. The Wolves did a skit....the skit went like this (tell me if it sounds funny)--- one kid is painting and is wearing 2 jackets...the other kid walks up to him and says "why are you dressed for the winter?", the painting kid answers, "I was told to put on 2 coats." No one there really laughed, and I don't even think the two scouts performing even got the joke...haha

Andrew and Bradley! (Richard, notice the Stu Holden hair on Bradley.)

Another game

Melanee had another outdoor/co-ed game tonight. I love to watch her play and tonight was no exception. She played against what we call the Pleasant Valley team and they are PRETTY GOOD, like SCARY good.....when we pulled up to the field and saw them we didn't think it was going to be a very close game. But the game soon started and Melanee's team scored the first goal. The game was close the whole game. The score went from 0-0, to 1-0, to 1-1, to 2-1...like that the whole game. It was very exciting. When the game was 2-2, Melanee's team came down the field on offense, one of the better players shot the ball from the right side of the field, but it was cleared---right to Melanee, who was on the left side of the field. She trapped the ball and did a sweet move to bring the ball from her right foot to her left, then swiftly shot the ball HARD directly right past the defense and the goalie. It was a terrific, unstoppable shot (that I don't even think Richard could have even saved). I think the beauty of the shot was- most people, even guys, would have blasted the ball when it was at her right foot, but that shot would have just hit the defender, you can't shoot THROUGH a person, and Melanee knows that, so she fake shot, then as the defender jumped or planted or braced for the impact, Melanee just calmly moved it to her left foot, the decision and the shot were both beautiful.

The game went from 3-2, to 3-3, to 4-3, on and on until the game was JUST ABOUT over. It was 4-5, but the other team scored on a cross that seemed to be sailing OUT, but was tapped in, or it just bounced off of the guy standing at the back post (no offsides in 7-a-side). I saw the ref constantly looking at his watch and I knew the game was over. I thought it would end right there as a 5-5 tie, but the ref let them kick it off. Melanee's team was not at all playing in a panic. They passed the kick off back and it went from the center back to the right back up to Mel, who was racing up the right corner, she got the ball, made a few cool moves to get herself free and she PERFECTLY crossed the ball to her teammate who headed it directly in. The ref blew his whistle signaling game over and Melanee's team walked off the field VICTORIOUS! The cross was excellent. It was NOT one of those hail mary type, up for grabs, random kick to the center of the field, it was PLACED PERFECTLY to her teammate, where he and only he could put it in! AWESOME and SOOOOOOOO exciting.

Not the greatest action shots in the world, but ENJOY them while you can, cuz she's leaving in a little over a week......(Melanee, you'd better send me LOTS of pictures while you are at school!!!!)

Female Athlete of the Year Nomination

Hey, SO EXCITING, I was at Safeway and Melanee called me on my cell phone and asked, "did you look at the SVU web site today?" I said, "no"...and she told me that she is nominated for the "Athlete of the Year". That's so cool. What an honor to even be nominated, but it would be so awesome if she could win. I know it's up for internet vote, but I think the results are already pre determined....haha...yeah, when it was a vote for "team of the year" earlier, the women's Volleyball team got like HUNDREDS of website votes, but the Women's Tennis team won the award...so I don't know if voting for Melanee will actually earn her the award, but GO VOTE---

http://athletics.svu.edu/sports/sport_SETUP/2009-10/releases/knight_awards_faoty

Melanee did have a very good season, but if anyone is going by stats for this award, she should have been nominated for it LAST year, but they put her up for Rookie of the Year instead, and she won that.

I hope she wins!

fun FHE

Premiere League Final Game

Take my advice----(or leave me some advice)-----DO NOT attempt to take pictures at an INDOOR SOCCER game....they WONT work, there is NOT enough light, the windows are all dirty, and THE PLAYERS, especially Melanee, are TOO FAST!

Look at how fast she is

This one turned out OK (well, at least on the people who are standing or sitting COMPLETELY still).

Here are a few of Melanee's teammates (and her) (and the coach) AFTER the game. It was a good game. Melanee's team won 7-5. The soccer was well played, very fast, and very skilled. The girls were all great passers and worked well with each other. The season is now over and they did not win the Premier League title, like last year, but this team had fun and there was not near as much bickering and back stabbing as last summer.

Arden Fair Mall

These pictures are not in order, but William wants this computer RIGHT NOW, so I'm going to try to do this really fast. Yesterday, while in Sacramento, we had time to kill so we went to some place AIR CONDITIONED- the Mall. There are quite a few malls in Sacramento, but we picked Arden Fair because there we'd have to most chances to see a Kings player randomly walking past (which we didn't, THIS TIME...and the time WE DID see a Kings player we were at the Galleria, so I guess that theory is now SHOT.) We also picked it because it is only a mile or two from the indoor soccer arena we needed to be at by 5:00.

We walked the whole mall, both stories, and didn't see or buy much, except for lunch.
Our favorite store AT THE MALL was the Lego store. We had never seen one of those before. I'm sure Bradley and Andrew would have loved it there.

At Nordstroms, I was looking for a bathroom, but couldn't find one....guess what "Women's Lounge" is just a fancy way to say Bathroom in Nordstomese. haha

Sacramento Temple

Melanee, William, and I went to Sacramento yesterday. Our first stop was the temple. It was a beautiful day, so before we left, I got out my camera and tried to get some pictures. As usual, William wasn't very cooperative, but I did get a semi smile here.

I don't like this picture, (because I am in it), but I now try to get into some pictures every now and then, because we have VERY few pictures of my mom, and I LOVE the ones we do have, even if she thought she looked bad in them, they are still treasures.

Indoor Soccer

I KNEW that my camera wouldn't work very well at Off the Wall, but I brought it anyway and got these awful pictures....enjoy----(Melanee is the one in the bright orange shorts)----
Melanee's team won 10-5. I always worry that she will get hurt playing indoor and playing with all the guys, but so far NO INJURIES. She is really strong, I think that helps.

Landon

We watched some of the Galaxy/Earthquake game tonight and I have even more ammunition to cause me to believe that Landon Donovan is really becoming a bigger and bigger jerk each and every day. I didn't like how he went on a media tour after the World Cup. The USA lost. They didn't go very far in the world cup. They squeaked by teams they were supposed to beat. They weren't "all that" and even thought Donovan scored 3 goals during the World Cup, he wasn't "all that" either. Soccer is a team sport. He is not the ONLY player on the team. He is not the FACE of US soccer. He makes himself "the face" with a lot of help from the media, but he needs to leave his ego somewhere else, cuz I'm getting really sick of it.

I've blogged about this before, but I will point out again where his downfall in MY eyes began. I was realllllly bothered that he never bothered to correct the host of the show "Hometown, with Landon Donovan" (Or whatever it was called) after he repeatedly called Landon the captain of team USA. He is NOT the captain. He should have said something!

And, yeah, he's from LA, but why does he have to have an actress wife???? And why does it have to be Dawson's old girlfriend???? And why does he have to sit in a SPECIAL seat at the ESPYs, not with his teammates? Why is he in a bunch of solo pictures or pictures with his actress wife, while the rest of the team posed for group pictures, without him? And why was the award that the team won announced as "Landon Donovan"???

I've pointed this out, too, but why does he go around on the field telling his teammates what to do?

And, Landon's "goal" (it wasn't much of a goal, he just tapped in a ball rolling around in front of the net while his teammate kicked the goalie in the head) was #6 on SportsCenter, while Theirry Henry's goal wasn't even included. That fact right there PROVES the media is putting Landon on some kind of lame pedestal!

And tonight, this one really lowered my previously HIGH opinion of Landy......why does he need to curse and use foul language. He KNOWS the cameras are on HIM, his lips are pretty obvious to read when he says *%&#. Great role model you are Mr. Donovan.

So, seems like a good time to re rank my favorite players.

1. Jonathan Bornstein
2. Stuart Holden
3. Benny Feilhaber
4. Carlos Bocanegra
5. Steve Cherundolo
6. Michael Bradley
7. Clint Dempsey
8. Landon Donovan....yeah, Jessica, he's LOWER than Clint!
9. Jay DeMerit
10. Maurice Edu
11. I don't really like the rest right now, they've all done something or other to make me mad at them. Tim yells at Jonny (and all the other guys, too). Oguchi is slow and has an ugly neck warmer. Buddle used to be LAZY. Findley blew a lot of easy chances. Clark messed up. The back ups never played.

So, yeah, Landon....stop appearing on the talk shows, you are not all that exciting or even entertaining....stop acting like you are SO COOL, cuz you are actually not perfect.....and please wash out your mouth, SOME kids look up to you like a hero and when they see you swear they may think it's ok or even a cool thing to do. You MUST know the cameras are on you, you are the one who asked for them to be, so just behave!


Here's who my favorites were back on 6-10
1.) Landon Donovan tie for first
1.)Stuart Holden
3.)Carlos Bocanegra
4.)Jonny Bornstein
5.)Benny Feilhaber
6.)Steve Cherundolo
7.)Michael Bradley
8.)Tim Howard
9.)Clint Dempsey
10.)Jonathan Spector
11.) Herculez Gomez
haha, way different!!!

(Richard, I was wondering.....have you gone WAYYYYYYY back on my blog and read the stuff I've been writing for the past 2 or 3 years? TONS of soccer stuff and opinions. Even a bunch of SVU (womens) stuff. do a search for "soccer" but then you'll have to skip through a bunch of Bradley and Andrew youth soccer stuff.)

Melanee Soccer

Melanee's outdoor co ed team finally learned last night to pass to the girls. They guys included the girls in the game and were happily surprised that the girls actually knew how to play soccer. The key to a co ed game win is the girls....the team with the better girls ALWAYS wins. And the team with the guys who realized they need to share the ball with the girls will ALWAYS be more successful than the ones who want to do it all themselves.
My pictures aren't all that great, but I thought I'd share them for those who are interested ---- (my dad, that's about it, I'm sure!)

Stuffed Goose

Look what we now have on our wall in our front room, no it's not a large, glorified SEAGULL, it's a rare goose of some sort that Bradley shot last hunting season. I can't wait for him to move out and take this creature.

(Scott has been bugging me now for days to post a picture here on my blog for all his family and friends to see....so what I want everyone to do if you like this goose, and would like to see more topics like this on MY blog.....send me a COMMENT.)

NOOOOO!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYY????

I always had an odd feeling about becoming a CHIVAS fan....kinda knew it was wrong from the start. Just remembering back to the days when William and I, for no reason at all, would just randomly say, "I hate the Chivas". But then there was Jonathan Bornstein, and I REALLLLLY like him, and he plays for the Chivas.

It is possible to love a sports team and not love all the participants, for example, the Kings, I wouldn't say that I am a big Tyreke Evans fan, but I love the Kings. But it is ODD to love a player and not the team he plays for, so I just randomly started liking the ChivasUSA, this season. Sure, they are in last place, sure they are the anti-Galaxy, but Jonny is on the Chivas, so I follow them on Twitter and watch whatever games I can of theirs.

UGH!!!!!

I guess Jonny doesn't like the Chivas, either, cuz he has decided to go play in Mexico for the next four years. His mom is Mexican, so it's not that much of a stretch, and he probably wont feel too out of place, but JONNY, HOW CAN I FOLLOW YOU DOWN THERE, I don't read Spanish!!!! They at least better have a web site with some pictures.

Good luck, Jonny, I wish you all the best, you are AWESOME. (Guess it's dumb to write him messages here, there is no likelihood whatsoever that he reads my blog, he never replies to me on Facebook, unlike Stu, who is so wonderful at replying to just about every fan's lame comments. COME on Jon, just reply, just ONCE! please)

Outdoor Soccer

Did I blog about this already???

Melanee is playing on a Wednesday night co ed outdoor soccer team. She plays realllllllllllllllllly well, but on co ed teams, the men are complete ball hogs and forget to pass....and if by chance they do pass the ball, it is always to another guy, they ignore the girls... really lame. Melanee gets the ball when she is on defense, she can steal it from the best of them. Then she will pass it up to a guy and never see the ball again.

Don't know if you can tell, but she is doing an awesome fake in this photo, gets the other player totally off balance and takes off with the ball,... cool stuff!