Springville Soccer 2013

When soccer started back in August, we were all shorts and bottled water and desperate for shade.  The boys sweat through their uniforms and stunk the car up in only the way a pair of sweaty soccer-playing kids can. And then fall came and week after week the weather got a bit cooler and the nights darker sooner and by this game in early October, we were all in long sleeves and blankets and knit caps and the sun went down so early we had to end a game early on account of the boys losing sight of the ball.

We didn't bring a camera to any of the early games, or any of the midseason games, or really any of the late season games, but we did, on the last day of the season, finally remember to take a few photographs.  A look at Nolan here will tell you how cold it was.

Nolan loves to play defense.  I helped coach a few games near the end of the season and while most kids begged to play offense, I had to convince Nolan to spend some time on that side of the ball.  Here are a few shots of him clearing the ball.

Some fun things about six-year-old soccer: They play in that liminal space between kick-and-chase and real soccer, which means they're learning positions like offense and defense, but if you tell them that defense plays down at the edge of the goalie box, they'll go stand on that line, but then they won't move from it to save their life, until the offense is practically upon them. It means that when they play goalie, they're likely to forget that they CAN use their hands, and when they're not playing goalie, they'll likely forget they CAN'T. And finally, it means they can't wait to go in when they're waiting their turn on the sidelines, but if they have to wait too long, they're likely to end up in a wrestling match behind the row of parents-in-chairs, or sitting on mom's lap under a blanket, or playing with one of the puppies tied to one of the parent-in-chairs. 

It was grand fun to watch Nolan.  Soccer is a no pressure sport in Springville (unlike Lubbock) and all the kids had a great time.  Nolan had  teammates from his school and from our ward and like every outdoor activity in Utah County, we had the big sky and the shrugging mountains as our backdrop.

Callan played third-forth grade soccer, which has transitioned completely into real soccer, and it was fun to watch him and his teammates pass and cross and attack like a real soccer team.  They play on a big field and get pretty tired by the end of the game, but they have a lot of fun.

Funny that there's not much to say in terms of cute little kid antics for a third-fourth grade soccer team. Except for the soccer-ball to the face that turns into an unintentional header or the over-excited coach/dad/mom who gets too into the game and starts hollering at their child/the coaches/the ref/ and has to go somewhere else to cool down, there really isn't much to chuckle at.  Plenty to smile at, and plenty of opportunity to feel proud of these kids who are playing their guts out and learning to cooperate and sweat through 50 minutes of soccer.  And also a little to feel sad, or at least introspective about--that the lack of antics means they're growing up, a bit, that they're starting to figuring the world out, and they're one season closer to not needing us on the sidelines all the time.

Not too close though.  He is only ten.

Some more photos from our summer trip

This is the prison where my grandfather ed franklin spent seven months for embezzlement.

We stopped at multomah falls on our way to oregon.

At the oregon coast. 
The boys first time at the ocean.

safeco field for a mariners game.

the chihuly museum with aunt sherri.

and back home with our new puppy. who buys a puppy on a road trip?

Camping in Hobble Creek

Photos from a quick summer overnighter to Hobble Creek Canyon. Camping, 15 minutes from our front door!

This beetle was hanging out by our picnic table.  He climbed up to the top of the branch and then just stayed there.

Roasting marshmallows for breakfast.

This was a good practice run for our two nights at Yellowstone.

Hobble Creek Hike

Here is a photo dump from our hike up hobble creek canyon.  

We love living so close to the green canyons of the Wasatch front. I jut wish we made it out there more often.

Road Trip 2013: Mid-point Update

We're on day 11 of a seventeen-day road trip through Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and I wanted to do a partial update on the people we've met and the things we've seen.  The trip is part family vacation and part research trip for the book I'm working on and it has brought us through national parks, small town archives, several cemeteries and one state penitentiary, and we've still got a week left.  So, here are some photos and notes on where we've been so far...

Day One - Lava Hot springs

Lava Hot Springs is home to several family graves, including Rozilla and Lamoni Tolman, my maternal great grandparents. He was a big time family man, an amature tinker (he built an elevator on the back of his house for his wheelchair-bound grandson-in-law back in the early 40s)

Oel (the Saint in my book project) and Venna had plots in Pocatello, but for some reason they chose to be buried in Lava Hot Springs.  He died falling of the roof of a church building during a routine maintenance check, and she died in a car accident in a snow storm while serving as a missionary in Missouri). 

The hills around Lava Hot Springs remind me a bit of scenes out of The Sound of Music.

We stopped in for dinner with our cousins Patti and Nolyn Johnson (oldest son of the my aunt Joleen and her husband Laverl, the wheelchair-bound grandson-in-law of Lamoni I mentioned earlier). We had chicken enchiladas and got a tour of their farm, and I interviewed Nolyn about his memories of our Grandpa Oel.

This home a few minutes south of Lava Hot Springs was built by Lamoni Tolman sometime in the late 1890s or early 1900s.

This is the clothesline / swing set at the Johnson's home. Patti gave them quite a ride, and the boys had a blast, until our Nolan got stung by a bee.

Day Two - Sugar City, St. Anthony, Yellowstone

We stopped briefly in Sugar City, ID on the way to Yellowstone to see the grave of great great grandma Martha Steele Franklin.  She was from England and born in 1867, and after her Franklin husband died in 1890, she remarried in 1894, joined the LDS church in 1902, and eventually emigrated to Sugar City Idaho.

Day Three - Yellowstone

We spent two full days in Yellowstone.

The boys loved old faithful, and the hike afterward, but Ian and I had to head back earlier than everyone else for a potty break.

After Ian's potty break, I said, "Let's go," and he looked around and said, "So long, suckers!"  Not sure where he got that (older brothers, perhaps?)

Nolan and Callan spent there first night in their own tent.  We were all a little worried about bears.

Day Four - Yellowstone

Eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns are good, but so much better in the woods.

Our last evening in the park we took a tour of Old Fort Yellowstone, saw some elk eating grass around the old barracks, and the the boys got to help retire the flag.

On the way back to our campsite, right at Grizzly Lake, appropriately, we saw a mama grizzly and three cubs making their way up the hill.

This is how all of us felt by the end of the night.

Our last adventure at Yellowstone was a short hike up to Harlequin Lake...more fear of bears, but the only thing we saw was a rabbit  hiding under a log.

Day Five - Pocatello

We visited the old Pocatello 8th ward chapel building where my mom went to church as a child. Grandpa Oel was a sheet metal fabricator and he did all the copper work on the spire in the background.

Grandma Franklin suggested we stop and play on the Lava Rocks at Ross Park in Pocatello--a place she used to place at as a child.  We also caught a few minutes of a concert going on. The conductor of the orchestra turned out to be one of Oel Hess's scouts nearly sixty years ago.

day Six - Crater's of the Moon

On our way to craters of the moon, we stopped at this old power plant that is now a museum.  Oel Hess did sheet metal work here as well.

I don't think I've ever had reason to take pictures of duct work before, but as Grandpa Hess would have been intimately familiar with every angle of that ductwork, it seemed appropriate to snap a photo.

It really looks like the surface of the moon!

We explored three caves and hiked a few miles and drank lots of water and we appreciated the 85 degree weather and the constant breeze.

Day Seven - Burley

We stopped for dinner at Joleen Johnson's house (Oel's oldest daughter).  These photos are of Joleen's daughter Norel giving the boys tractor rides.

J

Day Eight and Nine - Boise

In Boise, our primary stop was the old Idaho State Penitentiary, where my grandfather Franklin spent six months on an embezzlement charge in 1960.

This is Ed Franklin's cell block.

They wouldn't let us go up to the second level to take pictures of his cell, so I put Callan on my shoulders to get these shots, and it didn't work so well.

Then we spent an hour canoeing on Quinns Pond in Boise. The boys' first time in a boat.

Day Ten - Drive to Portland

This is how we all felt after so much time in the car.

The Columbia River gorge is beautiful. We stopped at Multnomah Falls for a break, and then made it to Misha's by 5pm.

Day Eleven - Portland

In Oregon, we visited Melissa's grandparents, and then Maggie Joyce and family (recently discovered half-sister of my father...a child from one of Ed Franklin's failed marriages).

We loved meeting the new family, and got some great stories to share.

On Saturday night with Misha and Chad we bbq'd and roasted marshmallows!  So much fun.  Then we all slipped into sugar comas for the rest of the night!

And that brings us to today, Sunday. The boys were all up by 6:30 AM, which means for the past hour and a half we've been playing the "how do you keep three boys quiet in an unfamiliar home" game.  It's nearly 8 AM and Callan is reading a book by the window, Nolan is playing with a puzzle on the table, Ian is watching a video online, and Melissa is trying to stay asleep on the air matress. I am hearing the foot falls of morning upstairs, which means the whole house is finally awake, and we're planning a fun breakfast.  In the next week we will visit an Aunt and Uncle in Lincoln City and a sister in Seattle, catch a Mariners game, and spend a whole lot more time in the car. And then we'll be back home and school will be starting in a matter of weeks.


(I wrote this on Sunday, but you know how it goes....more to come for sure. We're just leaving Lincoln City where we spent the night at David and Joi's on the coast (David is Oel's third child, and the he and Joi are the aunt and uncle I have know best)  Now we're off to Seattle to see Sherri and then we'll be turning our headlights southeast towards Utah by the weekend!)

-Joey