June 7

I don't think Elliot actually scored on this kick, but this was the nicest picture that I took of him. This is when they took him out as goalie and let him play forward, because everyone on the team except him had scored at this point.














Receiving his gold meal at the Golden Spike Invitational.














The tournament team: In the back, from the left, Elliot, Demi, Nico, Zach, Luis
In the front, Big Mario, Alex C, Little Mario, Alexis, Jens, Jorge
Alex B isn't in the picture because he had to catch a flight to Argentina to visit his grandparents.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I've been having fun having the kids home from school. On Monday I called my friend Kaitlyn to see if she could play. She's the Holdaways' granddaughter. Her sister Alyssa came, too, because her Mom and Dad wanted to have lunch together. We had so much fun playing. And Danny came over to play with Elliot because his dad had to work and his mom was in Mexico. We went over to show Danny the squashed rattlesnake that we found on the road, and we practiced running away from it. But Mommy's afraid running away from the rattlesnake is becoming a fun game now, instead of being scary. I went to Paigey's house one Wednesday and played. Mommy and I walked down, but we couldn't walk back up because it was raining. We had to leave my stroller at Paige's, and I was really worried. She came here on Thursday. We've been having a hard time playing very much, because it's been kind of cold and rainy. Thursday night, Cameron and his family came over for a party. And a new little girl in our ward, Jayla, came too. She's Cameron's age. She'll be starting Kindergarten this fall. We had so much fun running around the yard and downstairs, I was glad such fun friends had come for dinner. And my Primary teacher Collette was here, too! When it was time to go, Cameron and Jayla didn't want to leave and kept running away from their moms. I've been really worried about spiders, still. Laura worries about monsters and tells me about them, but I don't really believe in monsters. I just believe in spiders. On Friday, I went to Paige's house for a while because Mommy and Daddy and Elliot were going to a soccer game in Brigham City. They didn't think I would like being with them in the rain and cold. Audrey picked me up and took me to Aggie Ice Cream when she was done babysitting Lilly and Jack Jack. On Saturday I got to go to the soccer games. It was still cold, but sunny. My friend Ashley was there, and Demi's sister Anna is my age, too. Between the games we went to the slides and played on them. But we had to be really careful not to go across the white line onto the field. I didn't have a very good afternoon and evening, and cried every time someone left the room. Getting ready for church this morning wasn't very fun, either. It doesn't matter how much time Mommy leaves to get me ready, I can fill it up and run over by five or ten minutes. But at least I was happy to go to Primary.

Cecily

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

On Monday I played with Danny. We played on the computer and we played World Cup Soccer. We rode scooters. We played run away from the snake with Ceci, because there's a snake on the road. We were trying to teach her not to go near snakes. Then we went down to the park and we got wet in the canal. Then we came home and tubed down the canal. We came up and we played more DS. And then his dad came to get him. I had soccer practice with Jorge's team. And we heard some things about him, that between the two coaches there was a huge misunderstanding because they all thought that JC was going to make a U10 team, and not a U11 team, but not Mario and Alex C, so we didn't want to make JC feel bad, so we started thinking about other teams. Strikers and Thunderfoot. They wanted me to come and they kept calling Mom and Dad. It made me feel kind of pressure. So I decided to play the tournament with them. And Mom and Dad talked to Jorge, and I decided that I should stay with Jorge's team. If that doesn't work, I'd see if someone had a place for me or wait out a season. It was a hard decision to make. Because I wanted to stay with JC and my friends but they were split up. I really wanted to be with people I knew, and Mario, big Mario, was my goalie coach and the other teams didn't have goalie coaches. So that's how I decided. I had to decide by myself. Because it's my thing, like I'm the one who's playing soccer. And I'm the one who has to make the choice. It's all mixed up and confused. I played with Austin this week. We did World Cup Soccer on the computer. We went all the way to the finals, and we tied with England, and there's this thing called "Golden Goal" that's whoever makes the first goal in overtime. And my goalie kicked it and everybody headed it into the goal. We played some foosball. I won both times we played. I went to the Thursday night first game in the tournament with Alex C. Because MOm and Dad had a Home Teaching party. The soccer game went really well- I only got scored on once. We beat them 11-1. I've been taking golf lessons this week and Friday was my last day of golf lessons. I had a really good time. We did driving, putting, and chipping. And then on the last day, we played hole number 9 on the golf course, and I'm a really good driver, I can drive about 200 yards, but on the ninth hole I did 50 yards instead, so I was really mad at myself, and I got out my iron, and I'm not good with my iron, and I chipped it in the air, and finally I got right in the middle of the fairway, and there's a little hill and then it goes up to the green, and the flag was two feet from the edge of the green, and I got out my chipper and thought I had to get it on the green, and so I squared up, practice swing, and I hit it too far- over the bumper. That's what I needed to do earlier! It was funny. Jared Higham, he was on my soccer team last year, he was in my golf class. He's good with his chipper but bad with his driver. We wished we could be each other together, then I wish I could be Damien in putting. But Damien has to hold the club different, because the nerves in the left part of his body don't work well. He has Muscular Dystrophy or something like that. My Friday afternoon games, in Brigham City, they were really hard but we still beat them 5-0. There was this one time this kid kicked off, all the way from half field, and by the time the ball had come one yard ahead of me, I looked up to see who I could throw it to, and I mishandled the ball and barely pounced on the ball before they made a goal. The second game that night, the team was kind of easy. We beat them 5-1. Then the next day, we went back and Ceci was mad that we woke her up to go. It was warm and sunny over here, and then it was snowing and hailing and raining in the mountains, and then in Brigham City it was cloudy, so Mom had to go get me a sweatshirt from the DI, because I didn't know what kind of clothes to wear, because I didn't really check out the mountains. It seemed kind of sunny. The first game we were doing really well. Jorge tried to change things around. He took me out as goalie and he wanted me to score some goals. I scored the last two goals, and the score was 23-0. It was kind of sad. When I called my dad and told him the score, he said, "Poor kids". Jorge put in the shortest kid as goalie, and put in forwards and defenders, and defenders as forwards, but he couldn't really say, "Don't play well." But we played really well. There was a girl on my team. Her name is Demi. And she's probably the best girl player in Cache Valley ever. She is really good, and she got about nine goals for the whole tournament, and in practice she wasn't really that good, but now I wish she could stay on the team. She's REALLY good. So our championship game we had to play the Hurricanes. And the Hurricanes were not the hardest ones we played at the tournament. We won 8-0. Then we went over and got our medals and got bee shirts that had shirts on them and we got pictures and played around then went home. This afternoon I went to see Mitch and then JC, because JC's family felt really bad that Jorge took all their players. And my mom just kind of wanted to talk to Mitch's mom because MItch is going to stay on JC's team because he's 9. It was fun at MItch's house. We played foosball and we held some kittens, they have a cat and the cat had babies. We played golf and I jumped on the tramp. At JC's house, we played hide and seek for mostly the whole team with JC (little JC) and Juli. Maybe they're going to come over here some time and play.

Love,

Elliot

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Danny came over to our house on Monday and since Elliot was at golf for a while, I had to play with Danny for a while so he wouldn't be bored. We mostly played DS. Then I did some chores and we went to the park. We decided to float down the canal, so we did. It wasn't too bad. Tuesday I don't think I did anything. Wednesday, I went to Beadles with Bev and I made a necklace which I'm wearing right now. It wasn't really hard to make, it's harder to decide what to make. Bev made a necklace like me, but it was a little different. She made a bracelet, but I didn't have time. I just got the wire. We were there for about three hours. I don't think I did anything Thursday either. Thursday night we had a party. I really liked the potato salad and chicken. It wasn't as good as Michelle's, because it was just store-bought. We were going to have it outside but it was cold and wet. So I sat downstairs and it was Kolter, me, Toph, and Andrew. Elliot was at his game. They mostly talked about going to their grandpa's house, and Kolter mostly talked about how much food he eats. Kolter is my age. We talked about Driver's Ed because his uncle teaches Driver's Ed classes so he gets to start early. He didn't seem nervous about driving. Friday I babysat and babysat and babysat. I started out babysitting Jack Jack and Lilly. It was fun, then Lilly went over to Gracie's house so I just had Jack for a while. Then I went to Lydia's house and picked up Cecily, and we decided to go to Aggie Ice Cream. We made cookies for Bev because Bev broke her nose Thursday night. She was trying to catch a baseball and it went and hit her nose. When we went to take the cookies to her, it looked like she had two black eyes, and she had lots of medicine, and she was kind of funny. It didn't look that bad, like her nose was flat, and she said she broke four little bones. She didn't want me to look at her nose, she might have been a little embarrassed. That's why she wasn't at church today. Saturday we went to soccer tournaments. It was kind of fun. I saw my friend Brooklyn and she plays for a Brigham City team because she says there aren't any good soccer teams here. It was really windy, so if it wasn't windy it would have been fine, but the wind was cold. During the break it wasn't that windy. We went to get pizza and I watched the boys play. I was the only girl there besides little girls and Demi. They can get pretty loud, but that's just what boys are. Love you.

Audrey