As the Seasons Wind Down

Soccer season is over.

One more week of gymnastics, and then that's done.

A single make-up violin lesson for Josiah before we say goodbye to Johann Sebastian Bach and Fritz Seitz and shut the violin cases for a while..

Things are winding down.

The conclusion of these extra activities is met with different reactions from various members of the family.  Tobin, for example, is already looking forward to the fall and hoping that he'll get to play soccer again.  I, on the other hand, won't mind having a free schedule on Saturday mornings now (although I will miss seeing Jennifer, a new friend God gave me through the soccer team--her daughter played on the team with Tobin and Shav, and Jennifer and I hit it off right away--such a gift!).  

"To everything there is a season," the Preacher tells us; and I'm ready to slip into the season of fewer things on the calendar.  Of course, I know that before too long, my to-do list will be saying things like "make strawberry jam" and "freeze peas," so it's not as if I'm going to be sitting around with nothing to do.  ;-)  

As our spring extracurriculars drew to a close, I grabbed my camera more often when we walked out the door, knowing that I wanted to try to capture a little bit more of this particular season of life before it was gone for good.  So I took it along to one of Tobin and Shav's last soccer games...

 Tobin and Shav had a really great coach; his upbeat, low-pressure attitude and continual encouragement were exactly what they needed at this stage of life.

 For the first soccer game of the season, I put Moriah in her stroller, and she very contentedly stayed there the whole game.

 But after she--and I--got more familiar with and comfortable in the surroundings, she progressed to not being in the stroller at all.  Instead, she walked along this gravel path and picked up handfuls of rocks (and then I began to teach her the fine art of dropping rocks, not throwing them).  :)

 The last few games, she also got bold enough to go up to some of the other parents and grandparents who were watching the games.  She might show them a hat she was wearing, or set her doll on their laps, or even just stand there and smile at them.  Nothing big.  But people loved it.  :)

I also took the camera along to one of David's recent gymnastics classes...

 It was tough to take pictures there, especially because he happened to be way at the other end of the gym when I was trying to photograph him.

 But it captured a memory and showed another step along the gymnastics journey.

 I'm so proud of him!

Today the camera went along with me to the year-end Suzuki concert that Josiah and David performed in.  Again it was hard for me to get good pictures; you'll have to suffer through bad ones.  :)

 Finding my boys in these pictures is kind of like playing Where's Waldo?  But to make it easier, I'll mention that Josiah is wearing an orange shirt.  See him now?

 David is wearing a yellow shirt, but it's mostly hidden by the music stand.  He's standing two students to the left of the lady leading the group (she happens to be his teacher, Megan).

 I was always so grateful when my parents used to come to my concerts, sporting events, etc. when I was young.  Now they come to my children's, and I'm still grateful.  :)

 After the concert, I got to snap a couple more pictures of my favorite musicians.  :)

I also took a few videos.  Keep in mind that the sound quality on our little camera that can take videos is nothing to write home about; the concert sounded better in person than it does here.  :)

These are some folks songs/fiddle tunes.  The first video is part of "Faded Love," and the next two are excerpts from "Crippled Turkey."

I often found myself stumbling over the names of these tunes and, when talking about them with the boys, would have to really think of the right words so that I didn't end up calling them "Faded Turkey" and "Crippled Love."  Neither of those sounds particularly appealing.  (Food poisoning, anyone?)  ;-)

Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end.  Soccer, gymnastics, and violin have certainly fallen into the "good things" category this spring!  :)