Cousins

The girls had a great time playing with their St. Louis cousins this weekend. More on our whirlwind of a weekend later but I had to post this picture of them all holding hands on our nature walk - ADORABLE!

Our Diego Story

On our way home from our last soccer game of the season, we drove by Main street in Eudora. I noticed some roadkill on the side of the road - an opossum. At this stage in my life, I'm fairly desensitized by roadkill and accept it as part of life. However, somthing caught my eye. I saw something moving. It was a little opossum baby. My husband was driving and kept going through the intersection, not seeing what I saw. The kids were in the car so I didn't want to say anything that would upset them and spelling no longer works since Ava can read. I kept quiet for a minute but couldn't stop thinking about it. I even said a prayer in my mind to please bless that someone would stop and help them. Then it dawned on me that we were probably the ones that needed to stop and help them. I did my best to hint to Chris what I saw and what I wanted to do. Ava was onto me and kept demanding that I tell her. I didn't know what to do or if this little life had a chance to survive, but I knew I couldn't just leave it there to suffer.
I used my handy-dandy iphone to look up the number for Operation Wildlife and called to see if this baby was "saveable". The lady on the phone said that many times they do remarkably well and that this was how they got most of the opossums that they help.
We turned around and went back to the site. Without making eye contact with any of the cars driving by, with people probably wondering what the heck I was doing, I put on my vinyl gloves (thank you first-aid kit) and grabbed a box (thank you mom-van) and proceeded to scoop up the baby opossum. I checked to see if any of the other babies had made it - and I found one more that was still breathing so I got him too.
The lady on the phone said that if I was willing, I should check the mom's pouch for any other babies or just bring her body in and they would check. I then came back with yet another box (after I emptied the diapers out of it - thank you Costco trip night before) and shuttered as I pick up the dead mom by the tail and put her in the box. I grabbed the other babies that didn't make it too - a clean sweep I guess.
We got a bit of gas (light had just come on) and headed to the rescue center. The girls, having finally been briefed on what we were doing, drew comparison to Diego and his animal rescue adventures.
Luckily the center was only about 10 mintues away from where we were. We brought the babies in. One looked really good but the other looked injured and dehydrated they said. They sounded optimistic but said the first 24 hrs would tell a lot. We talked about how at the minimum they could keep them comfortable but that they have a good success rate with orphaned opposums and in fact, had about 3 other this size that they would put these two with.
She also checked the mom's pouch but there were no other babies.
After making a donation, we asked if we could call and check on them in a day or two and went on our way.
This experience definitely brought about some teaching moments. On the way home we talked about life and death, our bodies and our spirits and how we did the right thing to help the orphaned opossums. The girls wanted to say a prayer for them so we did right there in the car.
I don't know if these baby opossums will both be strong enough to make it, but at least they will know warmth and love and may not have to suffer as much as they would've had they been left there.

Spring Soccer

We've been playing soccer in Eudora for several seasons now. We've had some decent coaches and some that were just okay. I decided to try my hand at coaching this year. It was the last time Ava and Elise would be on the same team for a while so I figured why not. I've always enjoyed sports, and although I'm still quite out of shape, I thought it would be fun to try. I was even more excited when my friend Amanda agreed to be the assistant coach.
We definitely wanted to do a good job and be organized. Our goals were for the kids to have fun, learn soccer skills and get some exercise and fresh air.
I won't go into all the details of how we planned and organized each practice - but we definitely honed in on the skills of rebounding and defending the goal.
It was awesome to see the kids really learn something and progress! We started our season with 2 losses, which wasn't much fun but we learned from each game. We ended the season 3-3 which we'll call a winning season.
Our team name was the "Dragons" and our color was dark green. We had a few chants the kids helped create. Our favorite that we used was, "Dragons, Dragons, shoot your flame. Dragons, Dragons, win the game!". We'd do this chant when we brought our hands in before each game. Another funny one we didn't use was "Dragons, Dragons, fight, fight, fight! Dragons, dragons, bite, bite bite!!"
Our last game was great! The kids did an awesome job and we won 4-0. Amanda and I were quite proud. Here are some pics from today - our last game of the season.





cousins

Here we are telling the kids how proud we were of them for playing so hard.

Ava and Elise had fun and all this year but really aren't all that excited by soccer anymore so I think we'll try something different in the fall...like dance. Oh well, it was fun to have this experience of coaching their soccer team - even if only once.