TheSwirl.org

Eric had his 1st soccer practice and game this week.  He was dubious about attending since his buddy Trevor had already attended a practice and game and reported that the rest of the team was “all girls”.  However, he agreed to give it a try and enjoyed it.  He was especially enthused by receiving his uniform.  All teams have purple and gold jerseys so that players can be swapped around if a team is short players as well as carrying over from year to year.  Ed and Billie Jo started AYSO soccer playing on large teams, now Eric plays on a team of 3 and they don’t keep score.  Here Eric lines up with his team mates and gets some instruction from the coach.

His coach focused on having him play defense and get in front of the ball.  He got pretty good at running to a position in front of the goal, but has not yet grasped the idea of kicking the ball away from an opponent.  I am sure that will come in time. Most of the running is accompanied by arm swinging and skipping as he is having a good time as demonstrated in the movie.  100_0696.MOV

Mom sold her house, has moved to an apartment and planned on participating in the village wide garage sale held in Schoharie this past weekend.  Friday I picked up Eric after his pre-school and we drove down to help with pricing and set up.  My sister-in-law Linda has a lot of experience with these things and provided expert guidance.  Although the sale was set to begin at 9am on Saturday several shoppers were pawing though items on Friday afternoon as we were setting up.

Saturday night Mom, Eric and I went out for pizza and then Eric and I retired to sleep on the living room floor of the now vacated house - at least Eric slept.  Saturday morning shoppers started showing up before 8am.  With Mom, Linda, Carolyn, Barbara and Jeanne all minding the store Eric and I decided to shop around at other garage sales.  Eric wanted three things: Light Sabers, Swords and Power Rangers-preferably the blue one.  Although we didn’t find anyone selling their out grown Light Saber we did find one Power Ranger, the blue one in fact.  Eric also scored a Rock-em Sock-em game, GI Joe on a motorcycle, and a stuffed Buzz LightYear Teddy Bear (?!).  In addition, I found jeans for Eric and Dakota ($.25 each) and a nice 6 speed bike for Eric.  Although I was buying the bike more for next year, Eric has been riding it with some balance assistance.

My sister Barbara gave Eric an aircraft carrier with planes and used roller skates that her grand children had outgrown so he made out pretty good over the weekend.  The trauma came when he had to decide what toys he was giving away so the new ones could come into the house.

Sunday Kathryn brought Billie Jo and Dakota to Schoharie for a Muller/Tryon reunion held at Marie’s house.

I stopped by ACE Hardware to buy a bolt for my brush hog. $2.79 for a case hardened 3/4 by 2″ bolt.  I lost one mowing over the weekend.  Kathryn helped me re-fasten the bolts.  Afterwards we went across the road and cut and split one face cord of wood - mainly ash.   Eric and Kathryn helped stack the wood. I drove my tractor/brush hog to my neighbor Jeff who is said he would weld a patch.  Afterwards, Kathryn, Eric and I had a milkshake and cooled off.

Kathryn and I went to see our alma mater (University of Washington) play vs Syracuse in their opening game of the season.  Both programs are in year 3 of a rebuilding program. I wore my UW t-shirt while Kathryn decided to go neutral.  I felt safe when we got to walk up University Avenue as the UW Band  came out of the Sheraton and walked to the Carrier Dome - lots of purple there!  There were a surprising number of UW fans at the fame and the % increased through out the game as the SU folks bailed enroute to a 42-12 loss. The game started at 8pm and went late into the night, but it also wasn’t pretty if you were an SU fan.  SU had their new orange on orange uniforms - which look ugly to me.  SU only got 8 yards rushing the whole game and gave up 302 yards rushing.  The SU QB got sacked 7 times. It was clear from the start that UW had a MUCH bigger offensive line and a LOT more team speed in the backfield.  I think Rankin, the UW running back got 147 yards playing in 3 quarters and the UW freshman QB ran for 70 yards.  I saw one girl with a UW t-shirt an SU ball cap - that was a good compromise.  But I decided to bite the bullet and commit to UW.