State Champs!

I've been busy so its kind of old news, but my high school won the boys soccer state championship about a month ago. I am friends with a few of the players, and I went to elementary school with the star player, Billy, who the Chicago Tribune named the Illinois player of the year. I have a few friends who were also fans and I went to every playoff game except for the first one with them. It was an incredible run and very exciting. Billy was in my group in calculus and we talked a lot more about soccer than calculus during the playoffs! After defeating our arch rivals in double overtime in the sectional finals, we advanced to face Neuqua Valley, the 2nd ranked team in the nation, in the round of 8 teams. That happens to be where my mom works. They had beaten us 4-0 and 2-1 in overtime earlier in the season. But this game, we beat them 1-0, and after the final buzzer sounded all the students stormed the field and celebrated with the team. We went on to defeat the defending champs in the semifinals and a good Lake Zurich team in overtime in the championship. Billy scored the game winning goal on a corner kick. There was a group of 3 seniors who had been on the team together since freshman year, and it was a special team. In their final rankings, ESPN ranked us #11 nationally.

Dr. Valve

This summer I'm off to band camp soon, and I'm taking my old trumpet from Aunt Susan because I use it for marching band. The trumpet is real old, and has masking tape over the spot where a spit valve just fell off once. I thought that it would be good to give my trumpet a good cleaning before I went to camp. There is a guy who lives right in our neighberhood, Dr. Valve, who cleans really high end instruments, and agreed to give my trumpet a chem clean on very short notice. He was nice and told us that the trumpet was a great student trumpet. When talking to him, we learned about taps for veterans. Apparently, there was some invention of a bugle that carries a small mp3 thing attached, so you hold it up to your mouth and it plays taps. At Grandpa's funeral, the suspician I had that the bugler wasn't playing was right after all. Now there has been a movement to have taps actually played for our veterans by signing people up and they could just play on regular B flat trumpets. Dr. Valve knows the guy who started that. The bugle man buys bugles on ebay then sends them to Dr. Valve to do dent work, and get them in good condition. We heard that Reed was interested in playing taps as well.

Dr. Valve was really nice. Whe cleaned my trumpet on short notice in time for camp, did dent work, got the slides working better, and put on a new spit valve, and even cut us a bargain. Someday when I'm in high school or college and am good enough I'll play taps for the veterans too. If you are interested in Dr. Valve you can use this link to go to his website at http://doctorvalve.com/

New Couch

This is the new couch we got for our new family room. It's a leather right angle couch. Everybody really likes it because it's much more spacious than any other couch we've had. Everybody can have room to stretch out, which we haven't experienced before. The corner spot is the best. I've always fantasized about having a right angle couch but I never would've thought we'd actually get one. It fits in the room nicely. What I love about the new couch is how comfy it is. Our old couch didn't sink in as much, even though all the springs were broken! The couch is so cozy John couldn't stay awake! He dozed off while doing his summer reading.

Peoria Soccer Tournament

Last weekend my soccer team finished our season, our last one together as a team, with a tourney in Peoria. It was really fun, and everybody had a great time. I am the center defender, so I started and usually played the whole game. We made it to the championship, but ended up losing in a tough battle. We were the better team, outplayed them, and had way more chances to score but didn't finish. It was hard because we really wanted to win.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. Unlike most girls I don't have a digital camera, and I'm pretty much the only one without a cell phone. When we weren't playing we would always be doing something fun. We went to a minor league baseball game! (We got on the dance cam about 10 times!) We went out to lunch at an Italian restaurant famous for their gondolas. We had a team dinner at a restaurant right next to the river. One of my favorite parts was this: The ball park and the restaurant were very close to our hotel. (The Mark Twain Hotel). So, the hotel had a car and would give us a ride there, and we would later call for a ride home. It was like having a chauffeur! The cool part was that our whole team fit in one car. It was a tight fit, but pretty awesome. The driver, Clint, was really nice and posed for pictures after the ride.

Overall, it was an awesome way to end the season. It was kind of sad, because I decided not to play club soccer, I'll just be playing for my high school. So it was my last moment with our team,which is a special team. We've been together a long time and have special bonds as teammates.

Community Service

To get confirmed, it's necessary to do 20 hours of community service, and today I finished. My dad, my friend, Claire, and I went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It is a great place to volunteer, so if you're looking for volunteer opportunities, I would recommend this the most. What you do there is repackaging food, and then they ship it out to soup kitchens and places like that. They don't only do food because today we packaged shampoo, then these cleansing pad things, and plastic silverware. I've been there 2 other times, and done melons, and cornflakes.
The other volunteering I've done in my 20 hours is working at the library, a plant nursery, and I did a concert for residents at a retirement home. The most special one was the concert. I played old jazz songs, because that would be the kind of music they listened to in their youth. It was also the hardest because at first I was really nervous, and didn't want to do it, but I relaxed when I started playing.
I am happy that I have enough for confirmation, but I want to get the 50 hours of community service award at my school, so I will be doing more.

We've committed

After some hemming and hawing after the inevitable bids over our budget, Chris and I signed an agreement for construction. Our architect has a general contract business, and we are staying with him. The single-story addition will push the house out to the back to expand the existing kitchen and dining room and make a new family room that will be two-steps down. Also on the side of the house, we'll get a mudroom, replacing the existing covered landing. The heft of the project before us has us anxious. We want to get as many of our selections taken care of as possible before Chris starts her new job in mid-August. We also need to clean out all unwanted junk from the house and plan for how we'll live amidst the construction. Wish us luck. On the drive home after signing the agreement, a black cat crossed our path. Good thing we're not superstitious.

Juggling technique

Practicing your juggling is key to soccer success. Clare and her teammates juggle in warm-ups, training, and sometimes in the backyard. To the right is Clare's soccer coach from the past year, Jo. She's from Liverpool, and Clare learned a lot from her this past year. Taking action photos with our digital camera is impossible because of the delay in the shutter. I was lucky with these shots, so I thought I would share.

Harry Potter is in the house!

Chris and Clare went to the bookstore Saturday afternoon after Clare's trumpet lesson. Harry Potter was on hold an waiting for them. I think there was a line. No midnight parties for us. We'll be sharing the book, except for me. I read aloud parts of the first two books to the kids, but never have read through the whole series. John may be reading the #6 to remind himself. I don't know if he'll have time though because he's behind on Tale of Two Cities, his summer reading assignment for English class. I guess he'll go to the new Harry Potter. Clare reminds me to write that we received a free poster as well. Who else is reading Harry Potter?