First Soccer Game & a Connection

So even though everything surrounding soccer practice was frustrating for me last week, Andrew's game was a high point of the weekend and soccer so far.

First of all, Saturday was beautiful. Secondly, we left our house around a little after 10 a.m. as planned which meant we could easily deal with the unanticipated congestion in the parking lot. We unloaded everyone and everything, found the field, and set up our chairs (by our I mean borrowed from my parents). It took a little convincing to get Andrew onto the field with his team to warm-up, but he did make it out there eventually in time to practice scoring a goal. He did get to start and was subbed out and in throughout the quarters. We found out there are two stand-outs on our team who consistently understand the concept of going in the right direction, taking the ball away from the other team, and actually dribbling and scoring. The rest of the team, including Andrew, would do those intermittently. Andrew's performance was better than expected; he did get a few touches in. All the kids, for how little it was practiced, could throw the ball in after it went out-of-bounds. Not that it matters, but I think our team won.

Andrew's take-away experience from the game? He and all the kids got to run underneath the arms of their parents after it was all over.

As to the connection? At soccer practice last night, I discovered that the mom, whom I had already talked to a few times during practice, also goes to our parish! Her son was carrying one of the bags that are distributed to new parishioners (not sure where mine went to; it might be holding stuff from the papal visit back in 2008) so I asked. I also found out that she lives in the same section where I grew up, near where my parents still live! Because my husband thankfully watched Lucy so I didn't have to take her to practice, we were actually able to have a conversation: renovations, girls' names, and the parish. We'd both gone to the Labor Day Festival, but at different times.

I was reminded again how thankful I am for the people God brings into my life and little connections and moments that make life so much more wonderful.