Club soccer kicked off in 2019 with both kids making the same teams they were on the season prior however it all ended in a way nobody would have imagined by the time we hit March 2020. 😕😷
Practices kicked off in August.
First tournament of the season.
Thatch was one of the team captains.
Soccer locations have a good chance of being closer to the grandparents when we head south and in this case we got both sets!
Sam's first tournament of the season.
Sam's team has had very little turnover since she first started with SBSC so they are a really solid group!
Sam's team lucked out and her coach for the season is Fifi. And not a bad way to start the season coming home with a medal!
It's pretty awesome when your soccer coach is a published author!
We are still riding the wave of having Fifi as a coach today!
Grandma even bought a copy!
Professional soccer players Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan were doing a speaking tour and happened to be in Santa Barbara. The soccer club arranged for them to meet the girls' side of the club at UCSB prior to the event at the Arlington that night.
Megan had her famous pink hair in tow.
Alex didn't arrive until much later citing that she wasn't feeling 100%. We all guessed she was pregnant which she announced shortly after.
Thatcher and his soccer buddies had to watch from the sidelines. No boys allowed. 🤷♀️
Thatcher was quite fond of Alex and followed her all the way out to her security team. 🤣
We have to divide and conquer a lot with the two kids and multiple sports/teams, especially during soccer season. I love my one on one time with each kid which makes up for missing all the games.
Can we talk about how much Sam carbo loads?! This is what she wanted, a side of mashed potatoes and a side of mac and cheese.
Thatcher is more of a post-soccer sweets guy.
Weekends on the field are my favorite!
especially when the girls play at UCSB!
That's Thatcher trying to hide that he is on Todd's phone and not watching his sister. 🤣
Tournament time!
We travel a lot for Sam's team which means lots of random budget hotels which have produced so many great memories for the girls and the parents.
We are always happy to have a plus one with us especially if it's Alexis!
Rise and shine!
Our team forgot a pop-up tent, we looked very Santa Barbara-ish with our two beach umbrellas 🤣
Another great showing!
State Cup for Thatcher!
Thatcher is always (and still is) popular with the lady siblings of the team.
The hotel stays may be more fun than the actual soccer for the boys.
An entire soccer team in the business center of a hotel is never a good idea.
Sam's State Cup!
And an injury after she fell backwards and caught herself on her wrist. We've actually seen this same injury happen several times on our team and others. You either end up with a cast or not....
Very swollen!
Thatcher is always on the hunt for the best wings when we are in random cities for games.
Just a wee bit windy. My mom had a wig on so we were laughing like crazy because that would have been a mishap. 🤣
Lot's of downtime equals team Target runs.
Nice they included Thatcher although they did cut him out of the first photo. 🤣
The girls wanted to revisit their AYSO days and wear bows!
I had never heard of this store but I love the idea!
Again, we land in the most random cities for soccer with lots of new things to explore!
Not broken, just a torque fracture. Phew!
And then shortly after State Cup, we were all of a sudden doing soccer at home. 😷
Both kids were keeping up with soccer doing at-home workouts with the intention of finishing out the spring season as soon as COVID-19 went away. We all know how that turned out...
Team and parent zooms began happening and lots of unknowns about the season started.
This was actually hard for me at first but I can tell you a few more months into the pandemic, I could do 3 zooms at a time and every once in a while I would turn my camera on to show I was present. 🤣
Sam logged in to her weekly practices and did her best to stay positive with the remote workouts and talks. Thatcher, on the other hand, was not having it.
The Club did a good job making things happen including recruiting for the next season despite not playing but it became clear that the Santa Barbara county lockdown wasn't going to allow the kids to finish out the season OR start training for the next season. But we sent in photos for their new player cards as if everything would end up okay.
And then it just came to a screeching halt.
We started the season playing some great soccer and then ended abruptly with kicking around toilet paper instead of a soccer ball. 🤣
