Damon's soccer game

A while back, Damon saw some kids practicing soccer and decided he wanted to do that, too, so Amber signed him up for a local league. There was apparently a misunderstanding between one of the parents and the league, and Damon's team ended up without a coach. An email went out asking for volunteers and after days of silence, Amber volunteered to coach the team.

His first game was rained out, so he played for the first time on Saturday. Amber had a previous church responsibility that day, so another parent substitute coached, and I brought Damon and the kids. Carmen made a sign to cheer Damon on.

There are a couple of really good players on Damon's team and the game was embarrassingly lopsided. I wasn't keeping track, but it must have been at least 15-0 before the other team scored their one and only goal towards the end.

Damon, bless his heart, was not one of the really good players. He either slowly shuffled towards the ball, reluctant to confront anyone who had control of it, or found something else more interesting to look at.

Despite this, he managed to get into the thick of things a couple of times.

He didn't score any goals, but he seemed to enjoy himself.

Beach

It almost didn't happen, but we decided at the last minute to do our traditional end-of-summer Galveston beach trip. We couldn't leave Saturday because of Damon's soccer game. The game ended up getting rained out, but we would have been rained out on the beach, too, so it turned out all right. We drove down Sunday morning, and had church in Galveston.

Then headed to the beach.

The weather was nice and warm, and as usual, since we went after Labor Day (and during school) we pretty much had the beach to ourselves.

The kids knew exactly what to do, and we soon had sand castles and seaweed collections, toilets and sea creatures.

Amber even found a phone someone had lost in the ocean! (I checked when we got home, and it has a sim card, but no memory card.)

We stayed until Tuesday evening, and by then everyone was a little sun-burned and tired out.

Labor Day

I spent the Labor Day weekend doing something I'd been meaning to do for years. Back in 2008, I put a few drywall hooks in the garage to hang various tools out of the way. They were a step up from having everything on the floor, but over the years they started loosening and falling out.

This time I got a rail/hook system. The rails are attached to the studs and the hooks are movable. It's much sturdier and I found I could even fit a few things I wasn't expecting to hang, like the tricycle and scooters. I cleaned out the shelves while I was at it, and now it looks great!

Miles was my helper at Lowe's while looking for the hooks. He came dressed up as Batman, mask and all, and got lots of comments. The best was one of the employees, who saw Miles going by and said, "Hey Batman, it's me, Robin!"

Sure enough, her name was Robin!