More often than not, when I’m coaching a sports team we pretty much have an end of the year party to celebrate the season and hand out sports gifts to the players and other coaches.

Looking back I remember playing on my dad’s soccer team all my years and at the end of year we get trophies or some type of gift.  It was a lot of fun.  So now coaching I like to do the same thing.  I think the players enjoy it and appreciate the gifts.  We have a couple more months left in this season, but we haven’t figured out what we will do this year.  And since it will be at the end of May or early June, we have some time to put all the pieces together.

In more ways than one.  It was pretty windy out almost all weekend.  At times it felt like there were gusts between 25-30 mph with sustained winds in the teens.  Our backyard patio chairs moved a few feet Saturday.

Secondly Saturday and Sunday seemed like a disappearing act.  It went by really fast.  Saturday we had two soccer practices.  The first one from 9:00am to 11:00am and the our afternoon practice was 3:00pm to 5:00pm.  Toward the end of the afternoon practice I almost let them out late as I wasn’t paying attention to the time.  Maybe I need to finally get a watch or something.  I should check out Oakley watches, as they have some really nice ones.

Sunday was more laid back.  Church in the morning and the our small group that evening.

To finish out the weekend I awoke this morning about 3:00am with a huge wind and rain storm pounding against the house.  I stayed awake long enough to realize it was the storm finally hitting and then I went right back to sleep.

How was your weekend.?

And I hope in a good way..

One change, the weather.  I think our nightly lows are creeping to the upper 40’s, low 50’s which is nice and that also means (I hope) that winter is nearing it’s end and spring is around the corner.  Forecasts show possible thunderstorms Monday through Wednesday with some potentially reaching slight severe levels..  YES..  Bring on the storms..  Although this might impact soccer practice, but I welcome the heavy rains and thunderstorms.  (that’s one of the things I like about Texas)

Speaking of soccer, we are only one week from spring league starting up.  Wow we are in bad shape too..  The girls decided over winter break to not practice and we are now behind schedule getting everything ready for the spring opener.  Maybe that is why we are having two practices tomorrow. hmmm..

That’s probably the only two big changes at this point.  Oh, we did get our final approval for our Adoption/Foster license so that was some good news..

I cannot believe it’s already the 17th.  This month feels like it has just flown by.  In fact it’s been so busy I haven’t posted anything in a long time.

Soccer started back up for 2 weeks now, and that takes up a couple of my free nights after work.  Trying to get the girls ready for spring league games which start in mid February.  Speaking of work, that has been busy too.  We usually are pretty swamped in January right after the holidays.  The IT Dept (my boss and I) came up with our 2009 goal list and there are some things we might not accomplish, but I hope we can complete all of them.  Here are a few items from that list which I also have to learn and research prior to completing.

• Moving from Exchange 2003 to 2007 (on a virtualization system)
• Windows Server 2008 (Active Directory)
• Put in new phone system (ah that is what I’m doing later today) – Check..
• Hire a web/print developer
• And various other goals and small projects.

I have put in a lot of Facebook time looking up people and using it more.  I haven’t played the Wii too much this last week but a whole lot up to last week.  I guess I need to jump on that today and get some time in =).  Tomorrow I will be taking my little brother (I’m a big brother for North Texas Big Brother, Big Sisters) to the movies it should be fun.   I have also been using up my commute time to listen to some cool books lately.  This one is called “The 7th Son” it’s by JC Hutchins.  I I just finished book 2 and starting book 3 today.  What an awesome story so far.  I highly recommend it.  Oh and it’s free to download.  And last but not least we got our final approval for our adoption/foster license.

The rest of January is uncertain except a few things.  Of course more soccer, might goto the sci-fi/comic con in Dallas next weekend and more work and soccer, lol.

Has your January been busy so far?

Well after the first week back at soccer practice I have to say I’m pretty disappointed.  Last Monday we had to cancel due to freezing rain but had practice as normal on Wednesday night and then we had practice this morning since we missed Monday.

Wednesday night was nice out weather wise, just a little chilly but not bad.  We had 2/3rd’s of the team there and didn’t do too shabby.  However this morning was a disaster.  Now it was pretty cold this morning with the wind chill.  Beside the weather they just showed lack enthusiasm, intensity, and showed a willingness of not really wanting to be there or practice for that fact.

I really hate to be mean about it but there are a few players on the team that just don’t do anything.  And to top that, a few players didn’t take care of themselves over the 3.5 week break and have hurt knees.

Tonight is a pizza party that they earned.  I hope they have fun cause serious soccer will be back starting Monday!

The second half of soccer is upon us.  After one week of weather delays and two weeks for Christmas break, tonight we were supposed to start back BUT we had to cancel practice again with near freezing temps and freezing rain and ice.  I mentioned to the head coach earlier today that we needed to get together and get a game plan down for the spring season.  He just said “We need to Win.”

Yep that’s for sure.

So Wednesday we are back at it and now adding next Saturday  since we missed tonight.  We really need to get a plan together so we can excel and win some games in the spring.  I guess I need to scout out 2 tournaments between now and May.  I’m looking forward to practice starting back up in a couple days and getting this team re-focused.

After watching this video I guess there is a new meaning to standing to close.  I will need to make sure to tell my players not to ever stand this close to a throw in.

found at: http://onthepitch.org/blog/

What a long but short weekend.  I know that really doesn’t make any since but that is what it felt like.  The first half started off really busy and the last half seemed to disappear rather quickly.  Friday night after work I started the weekend off by heading out to our soccer tournament.  It was FREEZING out.  I didn’t dress quite warm enough.  After the game (which we lost pretty bad) I cranked the car heater most of the way home.  My buddy Tim from Seattle called and I talked to him most of the way home so the time seemed to go by pretty fast, plus it helped to keep me awake.  Since the soccer field was about 1 hour from the house I didn’t make it home till about 10:35pm.  The bad news is I had to be back by 8:20am for our next game.  (hmmm why didn’t I just get a hotel room?  well probably the $$)

Our Saturday morning game was nothing short of a disaster.  0-10.  I can’t really explain what was said but I’m pretty sure the girls were not really happy.  Oh did I mention that Saturday was just as cold as Friday night?  yes it was, so I had about 1 hour to kill before the next game so I went down to Starbucks and got some hot chocolate to thaw out and write up some speech notes that I was going to deliver to the team after the next game.  We lost the next one also but it was 1-2 and they played much better than the first 2 games.

The rest of the weekend was rather uneventful.  Except the Flattening of Texas Tech by Oklahoma..  That was so awesome..

Anyways hope everyone had a good weekend.