The Spotted Jaguar Hippos

Isn't that a cute picture? Doesn't James look just like a soccer player? Awwwwww!

So, incase you haven't figured it out, we signed James up for soccer this season. Actually, James told me repeatedly this summer that he was going to play, so I made it happen. How it works here is you meet Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, sometimes you have practices and sometimes you have games. We had practices the past two weeks, and the first game was tonight. James was super excited! He had a jersey (he is number 2...THE DUECE!), soccer shorts, shin guards, soccer socks, he was ready to go.

Here is us warming up before the big game:



The big spotted jaguar hippo team cheer "roar!":



The start of the game. Um, James didn't start. :(



James coming in!



The mass of players chasing the ball:



Soooooo, right after this picture was taken, James realized that it wasn't going to be as easy to score as he thought it would be. Not only that, he also realized that the other team was also going to try to score (and might). That can only mean one thing. Meltdown. James did well, very enthusiastic, went for the ball, but I don't know, maybe he is just a little competitive. Here is the result:



For all intents and purposes, the game was over for James. Here is a picture of the post game handshake:



Don't get me wrong, there was another meltdown at this point when James realized he wasn't going to get to play anymore. (?)

Oh well, hopefully the next game will go better.

First Day of School (Finally)

James finally started his preschool recently! I thought this day would never come. Here he is running in.



This year he is a yellow bird!



Andy wants to stay...



...but he has his own school.



Andy finally has his own friends. In this picture he is literally saying, "where are my friends?"



Only 2, and 3 (maybe 4) more years until real school!

Apple Picking

For labor day, Ms. Juliet and I found both our husbands working on this holiay. We decided to take the kids apple picking. We went to Bryson's in Mountain Rest. It took like an hour to get there, but it was a nice drive.

Here are the kids gearing up (ie putting on hats). My kids only wore their hat for this picture.



They gave us big buckets and a very vague description of what we were suppose to do. With the kids, it probably wouldn't have mattered. They were going to do whatever they wanted to anyway:







Turns out, apple picking is not like blueberry picking. Apple picking is like shooting fish in a barrel for these kids. Our buckets were full in about 15 minutes. Now what?

We spent most of our time at the outhouse. You know about these boys...



And James liked to put rocks on his head:



We will probably go back later in the season!

It's game day!

The football games early in the season are not always the best to go to. It's hot, the time usually is inconvienent, and the game isn't always interesting. I think Clemson, knowing this and knowing that their first game was going to be on TV, wanted to make sure the stands were filled. They offered really cheap tickets. Cheap like $16 for adults and $10 for the kids. For our family of four it would cost only slightly more that for one adult to go to a different game. Since this is probably the one and only time we will ever go together, we decided to give it a try. James had been to a game last year, but he was still excited. Andy had never been and to be honest, I still do consider him to be too young, but again, cheap tickets.

We left our house about an hour and a half before kickoff. We still go primo spots by the P&A. We still bribed the kids into the stroller with a pop pop.



We kicked the stroller outside of Bracket and walked the rest of the way. Andy. Andy who does not sleep in the car. Andy who we would not have taken last year cause he needed the nap, but could do without it this year...fell asleep while we were walking up to the stadium, stayed asleep all the way to our seats, and dozed until pregame. Unbelievable.



I walked up this carrying a 34 pound dead weight two year old:



Good view once we got to the top. We were about 5 rows down.



It was hot, we did try to stay hydrated.





James kicked over 3 drinks in the stands. Two of them were ours.

They liked the band, they liked the clapping, Andy was a little horrified they just let all those balloons go, but before long, it was just hot. I took them to the top to walk around a bit. There was a breaze there.



We left not long after this picture was taken.

It was fun, but I am glad we didn't pay full price. We left the stands right after the first quarter. Oh well. There is always next year!