World Cup Woes

Gabriel and Elijah have been going to British Soccer Camp every year for three years now. They love it. The coaches are fantastic and have amazing English, Irish or Scottish accents. They get to play soccer for three hours every day and on the last day there is a World Cup.

This camp, and the World Cup, have a bad habit of being the last week in May which means that we often have to rearrange anniversary plans because of it. This year the World Cup was actually on our anniversary so we spent a very romantic evening watching nine-year-olds play soccer in the freezing gale-force winds. Marc wasn't able to be there on time so I was managing all of the boys on my own for quite some time. The World Cup wasn't until the last hour of the three hour block so I had two hours of entertaining small people who were either freezing or starving at any given moment. There is a playground there, thankfully, and that kept them entertained for a good chunk of time although that was fraught with its own perils. Tobias kept finding suspicious food items on the ground or in the trash can and attempting to eat them. Benjamin and David John were engrossed in a large game of cops and robbers which was occasionally getting a little too rough and at one point all three of the boys were crying. The play structure has three levels and I had to laugh when I heard what David John (who put him in charge?) told everybody what the different levels were. "Okay guys, the bottom level is prison, the middle level is the bank and the top level is the science museum." The idea was that it was bad news if the robbers got to the bank but if they got to the science museum then it was game over for the cops. I mean, the bank has millions of dollars but the science museum has a lizard, some strong magnets and an air cannon so I think we can all agree that protecting the science museum is a higher priority.
When the play structure lost it's appeal, we took a walk to keep warm and to run off some more energy. We walked over to the skate park area where the boys enjoyed running up and down the smaller ramps and stairs. They were very happy and entertained by this so I felt it was safe to go check on the twins and see how their soccer practice was going. I could still see the skate park from the soccer fields and it really wasn't that far away. However, when I looked back at the skate park to make sure the little boys were still running up and down ramps I saw that they were now sliding down some very large steep ramps. On a skateboard. With no wheels. That's cool. It's totally safe. It's like sledding. On concrete. I ran back over there to confiscate the skate board and herd them up the hill to the soccer fields. I'm still not sure where they got that board. I'm guessing Tobias probably found it when he was digging in a trash can looking for uneaten cheetos at the bottom of a discarded cheeto bag.
Marc finally arrived and the World Cup officially began. Happily, our boys did very well. Everyone is supposed to make a flag for the world cup to represent their team. Gabriel was on Germany and Elijah was England. Huh, I just realized that their countries matched their first initials. Strange. Anyway, Gabriel created a flag out of 81 pieces of construction paper and won the biggest flag award. Elijah created his with a teeny tiny scrap of paper and won the smallest flag award.
Both boys played well and defended goal well. They each got an MVP award for their team. England won the cup, but Germany came in a close second so everyone was pretty happy. I mean, except for the freezing, starving little brothers who told us repeatedly they were going to die. They didn't. Just for the record.

My windswept air is super attractive, right? Happy Anniversary babe from your hoodied, blanketed wife. It wasn't really all that sunny, but those glasses were stopping small objects from being blown into my eyes.

Gabe was over-the-moon that his flag was the biggest. We had to unfold it very carefully and hold it down so the wind wouldn't catch it. Go Germany!

Tobias is a very dramatic photo-bomber. He popped up in front of the camera and ripped off his blanket at the same time.

Doing the dab.

Here is Elijah's teeny tiny English flag. Go England! (For those of you are confused the Union Jack is the United Kingdom's flag but England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own flags.)