The Race

We registered Zach, Gabe & Max for their teams in May with the understanding that Matt and I would divide-and-conquer when it came to the torrent of games in September. Five days before the season begins, Matt gets the news that HP is ending their travel-freeze and he's expected in California for 3 weeks... oh, and then it stretched to 4 weeks.













You have to understand that I've done a soccer season ALONE before with kids on 2 teams and it was NOT my finest hour. This time we had kids on three teams and a then some!
Elder Boyd K. Packer once cautioned about the problems of over-scheduling. "When you schedule a child, you schedule a family, and most importantly, you schedule a mother."













We SERIOUSLY over-scheduled.

I could hear a Kentucky Derby announcer in my head saying, "The race is set to begin at 2:45 folks and Cock-eyed Candace has entered the shoot. You can feel the thrill in the air; it's going to be a great race today.

BANG!!!!

And she's off, folks! The first lap is a 40 minute round of school carpool and then they'll try to squeeze in a snack and a 1 hour lap of homework before they're off to the daily hurdles...

Monday: Lauren's Karate Class & Family Home Evening
Tuesday: Lauren's Drama Class and Max's Soccer Game
Wednesday: Lauren & Zach's Piano Lessons, Gabe's Soccer Practice, & Zach's Soccer Practice
Thursday: Zach's Scout Meeting, Max's Soccer Practice, Zach's Soccer Game, 20 minutes for dinner at the park and transporting the chairs to Gabe's Soccer Game!
Friday: Boys out of school at noon, so it's weekend house cleaning and a family field trip to the Children's Museum, park, or aquarium
Saturday: 8am Max's Game, 12:30 Zach's Game, 3:30 Gabe's Game
Sunday: 3 hour wrestling match at church with Jared the baby gorilla.

"... And then she'll do it all again!"

"Eeeewww! She forgot the treats for Gabe's team! That's 14 broken-hearted little boys... she'll be hard-pressed to recover from that one!"

"Oh! Ladies & Gentlemen we have a few surprise obstacles on the course this month! It looks like Matt's birthday, 3 team pictures, 5 canning classes, 2 Native American dioramas, 3 parent-teacher conferences, a YM/YW combined etiquette dinner and 20 volunteer hours for the school carnival, website and auction.

"Can she make it!?!?!?"

"You can see the strain as she enters the final stretch. She's looking pretty haggard but she's not dead yet."

"YES!!!
Racing fans, she has crossed the finish line! The sweat is dripping from her brow and you can actually see the new gray hairs, but it's over, ladies and gentlemen, and she's still BREATHING!"

In all seriousness, I've loved watching the boys play soccer. Zach passed off his first series of piano books and Lauren is about to pass off the second series. All the kids got rave reviews at their parent-teacher conferences, and I have to express extra thanks to Lauren who so CHEERFULLY helped with Jared and even took Max to his soccer practices at Westmore.

I couldn't have made it through the month without her!

Matt was wonderful on the days he was in town and even one-time things like my Mom moving our van from one soccer parking 'lot' to another made a huge difference at a FREEZING soccer game. I'm so relieved that we made it through, but I have to add...













Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh PLEASE
let Matt be in town for the April Soccer Season!