Fall Soccer Begins!

What a busy day!  Somehow we have found ourselves participating in two soccer leagues this fall.  Quinn played for San Diego Crusaders last spring and really enjoyed it.  When that season was over I  found another club through our neighbors that played all spring and summer, so we signed up.  At the time we already knew that we were committed to coming back and doing Crusaders in the fall, because Jeff had volunteered to be the assistant coach.  Both clubs play in the fall, so I figured as long as Q can hack it, we'd try to continue doing both.  Well this was the first week we had 2 practices and then 2 games on Saturday (most Saturdays the games will be at similar times so we'll have to skip Liverpool).  What a fun opening day it was!  Our little guy who barely touched the ball all spring season scored 3 goals during the Liverpool game and 2 goals during his Crusaders game!  Way to go Q-Bert!  :)

A few photos from our morning game:  The Liverpool games are smaller, shorter, and played on a smaller field (all good things).  They play 3v3 and all 3 players play for the whole 20 minutes.  Because there are so few players all of the kids really get the chance to handle the ball a lot.  It was a lot of fun to watch them go.  All of the boys did a great job!

After lunch we changed clothes and had our Crusaders game.  This league plays 5v5 on somewhat larger fields (still small goals with no goalie), and they play two 20-minute halves.  It's a tad more hectic, but just as fun, because they really get the experience of playing on a team and rooting for their teammates.  There sometimes are a handful of older, more experienced kids who really dominate the play, but luckily so far this year it seems that we have a more balanced team, so more of the kids are getting the opportunity to contribute during the games.  Quinn didn't do much during the 1st half, but came alive in the second and scored 2 goals!  Not a bad day.  I'm just glad he's having fun participating!

Dino Obsession

I feel as though Quinn has an unusually strong obsession with dinosaurs (and other prehistoric creatures).  On Friday we went to the library and he picked out 10 dinosaur/sabertooth/mammoth reference books.  Every morning (and any time we have down time at the house) he dives into the books and obsessively compares the anatomy of the various dinos.  He will find the same dinosaur in various books and compare how the different authors portrayed the dinosaur differently.  He is very critical of cartoon dinosaurs that have anatomical errors, such as the wrong number of fingers, arms that are too big, or spikes where spikes do not belong.  I think we may have a little scientist on our hands!  :)  

Morning dino reading

Below we have a couple of videos.  The first is Quinn checking out a new dinosaur book this morning. Before I started filming each page turn was greeted with a loud gasp.  Several hours later and he's still flipping through the book.

Last weekend we visited Don and Janet at their beach house in Mission Beach.  As we were getting ready to leave Quinn decided he was a Smilodon (sabertooth cat) and had a growl-off with Don.  Pretty amusing stuff.  Glad Don was such a good sport.  Mom and Dad tend not to be!  :)