Bolder Boulder

This year's Bolder Boulder was an opportunity for Gage and I to run the race together.  Tara has had a bit too much trouble with her ankle to run and Gavin decided that it would be just too difficult for him to run at our speed with us, so we went by ourselves.  I wasn't quite sure how this would go as Gage at six is too heavy for me to carry.  He would have to get through the whole race on his own power.  We woke up early and he was super psyched!  This is the pre-race picture above.  I told him that if he ran the whole race I would buy him a stadium pizza at the end.

It was such a joy to experience this with Gage.  We started off with a fairly long wait for our wave to get started, which was probably the toughest part.  After about an hour of slowly moving towards the line, we were off.  Gage hadn't really done this before so he didn't exactly know if he should take off sprinting or what but he quickly figured it out.  Our plan was to jog until we were a bit tired then we would walk for a bit.  We probably ran a bit more than we walked in the first half and walked a bit more than we ran in the second half.  We made sure to stop and get Doritos and Gatoraid and cotton candy all along the way but we kept rolling and rolling.  The last mile his legs were starting to get pretty sore and I offered to carry him but he insisted he was doing it all on his own.  We were so excited to hit the stadium after we made it up the last hill but the crowd brings you home!  Here is Gage giving out hi-five's on the way in.  We finished in a super awesome 1:32:00 that put him at about 25th of 92 in his division.  We averaged just over 15 minutes a mile.  I was so happy for him and how hard he worked to finish the race!

Survivor Gavin

One might take this as a sign that our kids have been watching too much Survivorman and other similar shows on TV.  We came outside to Gavin working on a makeshift hand drill (typically made of a straight hard piece of wood that is rubbed back and forth between both of your hands and is notched into a small hole in a secondary piece of wood) to start a fire in the rocks on the side of our house.  You can see his partner in crime, Gage, standing right next to him watching.  I have to say it was a fairly good attempt and emulation of what we watch.  It is also a bit disturbing that he is trying to light fires next to our house, but I know that it is all in relation to his love of camping.  In many other occasions we come to this same spot and see him arranging wood in a nice stack as we have practiced while in the woods.  He also will arrange some bench and pretends to roast marshmallows over his fake fire.  It's hard to describe how much these guys love getting outdoors together.

Track & Field Day

Rumor had it that good old fashioned track 'n field day was a thing of the past, but Mountain View's new P.E. teacher had other ideas.  At the end of the school year, he brought it back with flair!  I volunteered at a station that involved blindfolds and water, and it was so fun to have the boys come visit my station with their classmates. 

Gavin's sitting with his classmates in the black hat, sort of in the middle of the picture.  He had so much fun that day!  Their music teacher was the DJ (and he was a hoot on the mic!), and lots of parents and the PE teacher's former students volunteered, which was cool.

The highlight of the day for the older kids (I guess it was everyone except for Kindergarteners, so Gage didn't get to participate) was the tug-of-war at the end of the day.  Each class was paired up with another class of the same grade and matched up against the other two classes of the same grade.  So in the picture above, Gavin is mightily pulling the rope with his second-grade peers, desperately trying to out pull the rival second-grade classes.  Unfortunately, his side lost, but they all had a blast!  And I think he had about as much fun just sitting on the sidelines and cheering for the other classes, which was fun to watch.  I'm really glad I got to be there that day.

Gavin's Last Spring Soccer Game

Gavin had his last soccer game on the same day that Gage did.  I was a bit too busy coaching to take pictures of the game but this is the celebration party afterwards.  We had the usual combo of pizza and sugary drinks for all the kids. Coach Tim and Coach Gerrid handed out patches to each of the players for the season.  I have to say that this was kind of a bittersweet party as most of the team was being split up with the upcoming age changes and Gavin won't be able to play with most of his teammates again.

Gage's Last Spring Soccer Game

Gage finished up his spring season just as strong as ever.  Here he is during some pregame drills working on his moves against his teammates.  It was a hot day and he was in black but he powered through.

Gage always was an enthusiastic teammate and he never gives up.  You can see him in hot pursuit with another player closing down and playing some tight defense.

We loved watching Gage play this spring.  He continues to love the game and has learned quite a few new moves which he tries during the games.  In particular, he loves the dragback turn to fake out the nearest opponent.

At the end of the season, Gage received a metal from Coach Taylor for playing on the team.  Coach Taylor also took the time to say some great things about each and every kid that he has coached for the past few years.  Some motivation for the longer speeches were likely driven by the same age changes that Gavin was being effected by and was splitting the team into different groups after they have played for several years together with mostly the same team.  Thankfully, Gage will likely end up on the same team again next fall with Coach Taylor, but two thirds of the team is moving up two years and won't get to play together.

U10 Tryouts

Gavin finished playing U8 soccer this past spring.  At U9 and above Broomfield Soccer Club splits its club into two tracks: Competitive (Select) and Recreational.  This separation always seemed like something to look forward to as Gavin was one of the better players on his team each year and it was always a bit frustrating that some kids on his team didn't seem to be interested in soccer all that much.  Unfortunately, USA Soccer made some rule changes this year in the way the age groups were defined.  Kids are now being sorted by calendar year age rather than school year age.  This meant that kids with birthdays between September 1st and December 31st had to move up the equivalent of two years rather than the normal one for the fall season.  This changed Gavin from moving into U9 in the fall to having to play U10.  Also, it meant that most of the kids he was trying out against had already played Select for a year.  Above, you can see Gavin in blue next to the goal.

This was Gavin's first ever tryouts.  They played 7 on 7 on the biggest field Gavin has ever played on before for about two hours.  There were several coaches there evaluating the 30 kids or so from this session with another session taking place a few days later.  The other funny issue that was happening during the tryouts was that Gavin had a severely infected toe and couldn't even wear regular soccer shoes.  I am not sure that made a huge difference as this seemed like the first time that I have ever seen Gavin intimidated on the soccer field.  He was quite tentative and ran around a bit but certainly seemed to stand back and not really engage.  Sitting with Gavin's Coach, Tim, we remarked at how quickly you could look across the field and within 30 seconds tell which kids were playing up two years and which kids were just moving up one.  In the end, Gavin did not make the Select Gold or Select Silver teams which was a bit unfortunate, but I am happy for him taking the chance on trying out and putting himself out there to be evaluated.  I think these are the kind of life lessons that hopefully are bigger than soccer and I am proud of him for it.

Wow Hail!

We usually have a some hail storms in the early summer, but this was much more than the average storm.  Gavin broke out the full winter snow shovel to gather all of the hail off the deck.  You can see the small mountain he has piled up in on the side of the deck.  It always cracks me up to see the outfits these guys try to pull off...he is wearing a full winter coat with shorts and crocks.

Gage also got in on the action and was bagging up some of the biggest hail pieces from the gutters.  We are quite thankful that the size was not that much bigger than grapes.  We froze a couple of bags of these just for fun to look at later.