The Bits: June 11th Through June 24th

Summery Bits:

Ben and a group of kids from his Sunday school class took advantage of the summer walk-in baptistry sessions with an early morning trip to the temple.  He is not a selfie taker, but took this one of the temple in the early morning sun. 

I had the really neat opportunity to be a part of our elementary school's assistant principal hiring team.  It was my 4th choice out of the four we sent through to the next round who was ultimately the one who was hired by the second round team, so I was a little disappointed, but hopefully she's a great fit!

Beating the heat wave!

Josh and the Beginner Band Camp crew sounded solid at the end-of-session concert!

The Conlin boys' number one soccer fan...well, maybe in a tie with Dad.

It's so easy to let the days pass without actually planning things to do because the boys are pretty typically entertained by each other and there are enough things that we HAVE to do scattered in there to keep things interesting, but I remembered how many fun little activities I used to do with my older boys during the summer, and decided to make a calendar of fun things to create each day with my guys until we leave for Washington in a couple of weeks.  First up: cork boats!  They are perfect for floating in the water table, but what we would really love is a good rainstorm so we can float them in the gutters.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon....

Hot days mean cooling off in the sprinklers on the trampoline!

Kate has been such a good friend to Tommy over the past year.  She is his favorite friend!  And, sadly, she is moving to Tennessee this summer, which makes our Tommy really blue.  We had her for one last playdate before goodbye! 

We love Nemo, Dory and Marlin!  What a great sequel to our favorite animated movie!

Meet Mary, Carrie, Barry, Larry, Harry and Gerald.  These little birds are so awesome!  And so are these boys!  I thanked the older boys for being game for our little activities, even if they were geared toward the younger crowd, and they said, "No!  We think they are fun!"  Best boys ever.

The boys invented a new backyard game this summer called "Kick."  Part tennis, part volleyball, mostly soccer, they've been entertaining themselves with this game daily.  The little boys get in on the fun by being commentator and medic.  Haha!

Lulus to treat my loves!

We finally had a storm that gave us rain without hail and lightning that moved through before the rain did, so we could put the cork boats to work!  Tommy's boat kicked our booties every time.

Saturn spotted!

While I am a firm believer in the power of boredom to foster creativity, it can also foster a lot of bickering, so we are keeping up the plan to throw a few fun, planned activities into the days to break them up a bit while we countdown to our Washington trip.  Painting with feet definitely kept things fun and argument-free--and messy!  Of course this mess was made on the one day we didn't have afternoon rain.

Father's Day 2016

When it comes to dads, we got one of the best ones, so we are always happy to have an excuse to celebrate and spoil him! 

Adam's special day consisted of: breakfast in bed with a chorus of "Happy Father's Day to You" (such a useful tune that the boys sing it for almost every special occasion, always makes me laugh!), homemade caramels made by me and the little boys, a pair of goalie gloves from the older boys (they came up with the idea, bought and paid for them themselves to save Adam's hands from their stingers), a good long session of shots on goal out in the heat of the day, brunch casserole, Zootopia in the AC, time at church, just a bit of relaxing, Facetiming with our own two fantastic and inspiring dads to wish them a happy Father's Day and thank them for their awesomeness, and a backyard hamburger picnic (and the hamburgers were actually good--I didn't kill them, thanks to the Internet).

We love you love you love you, Adam and are so grateful for the wonderful, loving, faithful, hardworking, supportive father that you are!  Life is better because of you!   

The older boys thought it was about time to give Adam his own pair of goalie gloves, since he is the de facto goal keeper for all the hundreds of thousands of practice-at-home shots taken on goal over the years.

They're a little softer than usual, but still oh, so good!

Faking the dive....

Making the dive!

All my very favorites right there!  What an awesome crew I have!

Life doesn't get better than this.

When I was getting Adam's "special plate" down for dinner, I noticed this on the back of the plate.  I had forgotten that Zac and I made it for him for his first Father's Day in 2001.  That tiny footprint that fits in the inner circle on the back of a dinner plate is now almost the same size as Adam's foot.  What a treasure!

Josh had a searing headache around dinnertime, so the poor boy missed out on the picnic, but otherwise it was a lovely night!  He recovered just in time for Adam's Father's Day treat: rootbeer floats.  YUM!

Aaron's Camp 2016

Last week, Zac spent the week at Camp Firewalker, a high-adventure LDS-run faith-based camp for boys aged 14-18.  Adam was able to join our ward's boys for the first two days as a leader before he had to be back at work, too.  Lucky guy!!

Scattered among the many adventures, such as high-ropes, rappelling, obstacle course running, team building, Leap of Faith-taking (jumping off a 30-foot tree stump), hiking, canoeing, and Amazing Racing, are many opportunities for the boys to grow their faith and get in tune with the Spirit of God, from devotionals to testimony meetings to solo experiences out in nature.  It's really an amazing time--an opportunity for these boys to get to know one another as brothers in Christ, get in touch with their spiritual selves, often for the first time, and spend some quality time invested in becoming more like their Savior.  This year's theme was "Called to Serve" and centered around service throughout their lives and missionary work.  We are so glad Zac had this unique and wonderful opportunity.  This camp is held every-other year and we've heard about how incomparable it is over the years.  At last one of our boys has had the chance to experience it and it lived up to the hype!  One of the best experiences of Zac's life so far, for sure.  

After arriving home and telling us 100 stories about all that he did, Zac summed it up like this: "It was faith-promoting, exciting, thrilling, a little tear-jerking, and really fun.  I enjoyed it a lot!  I wish it was longer and can't wait for the next one!"

First day downpour...and then it just got hot!

Copa 03 Goes to Regionals

Over the past three seasons, Ben has had the privilege to play for the Copa '03 boys' team.  Many of the boys on the team Ben has played with since he first started competitive play on his United '03 team back when he was 10, and a couple of them even longer than that.

It's rare to have a golden team like this one, in our many seasons of Conlin boy soccer this is the only time we've ever seen a team like this, but sometimes everything aligns just right for a team, great talent, great kids, great parents, great team-mentality, great coaching and you get a team like Copa '03.  Game after game over the seasons these boys have come together in a great blend of individual skills and personality, ultimately culminating in an undefeated spring season, including against a team ranked #2 in the state.  It was a wonderful way to finish out this year and the boys' time together as part of this team. 

To top it off, after finishing second in the President's Cup state tournament in the fall, the boys were wild-carded into the Regional tournament.  They had the opportunity to be one of two Colorado teams to play other top teams from all across the Western States (Colorado was able to send 2 teams because our state was hosting Regionals, but all other states just sent one--except for populous California which had a north and south team).  The President's Cup is the US Soccer national tournament for non-Super League teams. 

Game one of pool play they faced Montana, beating them 3-0
Game two they lost to Arizona, 2-3.
Game three they lost to Idaho, 2-3.  This was the real heartbreaker because they really should have won but they had a hard time coming together.

Thanks to the 7 goals they scored in pool play, our boys still made it into the quarterfinals.  This achievement placed our team's national ranking into the top 36 Priemer-level teams in the nation!  Sadly, they ended up losing to a big, strong and fast team from Southern California, the team that would ultimately go on to win the entire tournament.  As Ben said, his team played hard, they just didn't play as well as they needed to.  It was a tough match-up and we were proud of the effort and never-say-die mentality our boys had!  Each boy really gave it all they had, which is all we fans could ask for.

As an individual player, Ben played tough and never backed down through all of these Regional games in the roasting summer sun.  Ben is a strong, unselfish team player and always looks for the best outcome when the ball is at his feet.  He was an asset to his team during the tournament and over the seasons, and we are so incredibly proud of all that he has accomplished on the field.  He loves the game, is determined and puts in the work to become better. 

What an honor and blessing it's been to be part of this team, to watch them play their guts out and find success, support and root for each other, and earn their status win after hard-earned win.  We are so sad that the age-group changes will break these boys up, but it has been a great run!

Montana

Arizona

Idaho

Scorcher week!  Thank goodness the games were on grass!

International Walk-On

Southern California

(back) Coach Kelly Robinson, Tanner Kilgore, Ashaun Frazier, Brendan Sullivan, Branyon Murdock, Jose Nunez-Arocha, Ricardo Motter, Connor Clancy, Griffin Scruggs, Devon Whiting, Coach Adam , Coach Mike Archuletta, (front) Jake Peters, Gavin Hughes, Caleb Dodge, Kevin Martinez, Devonte Parker, Nathan VanKeulen, Sam Reynolds, and our dear Benny!

Soccer moms!

Shout out from our club's Facebook page.