Evan starts soccer

This summer, our friends the Isaacsons mentioned that Alex was going to play soccer at the YMCA and Travis was going to coach the team.  They suggested Evan should join, and I thought, perfect!  Alex and Evan are on the same team (The Avalanche).  It's a team for 3/4 year olds and there are 8 kids on his team. 

Evan in his gear - soccer shorts, socks, shin guards, and cleats!

Evan and Caitlin before the first practice

They practice one day a week... I was very curious to see what would happen. Evan loves to kick the ball around, but we hadn't yet discussed many rules of the game (like no hands).

Ready for practice!

Evan and Alex before practice

The first practice went well. It's hard to keep 8 3/4 year olds on task, but Coach T has been doing a great job of making it fun and teaching them.  It's very interesting what a difference a year can make - the 4 year olds tend to control the play a lot more and can maneuver the ball a lot better than 3 year olds.

After the first practice, we really had to work on some things - like reinforcing you can't pick up the ball!  Also, Evan did not quite understand that someone would try to take the ball from him so we had to teach him about running after the ball and kicking it towards a goal.

We had two practices before the first game... I've got more pictures and videos from that which I'll upload next.  We have games every Saturday morning at 9am.  They are pretty funny to watch and Evan doesn't touch the ball much, but he is having a blast.

Caitlin at practice with Ellie (Alex's sister) - she SO wants to be out there playing with Evan. She is constantly trying to run onto the field and kick the soccer balls.