The Lee Family: Sofia's Pink Pirates Party

Yesterday we had the Pink Pirates "End of Year" pizza party at McPherson Park. We met at 5pm so we could enjoy the last hour or so of light and I could take individual and team photos. Our season seemed to go by so quickly and it seemed easier to have a pizza part at our usual practice time of 5-6:30pm on Thursdays since we know all the girls are available. We arrived a little early and I started taking individual photos of the girls while the rest of the team played and had fun together kicking one of the soccer balls around and running around. After the team photo, the girls enjoyed pizza, chips, fruit and cupcakes and had so much fun together. It's really a great group of sweet girls who are all good to each other. Most of the team have been together for years and the new girls seem to fit right in with the team, so they really make a great team who all get along well. We are now playing up into the U11 age group which proved to be a challenge with bigger and stronger girls and several of the teams had a number of very good players. The Pink Pirates did a good job throughout the season of passing the ball and making plays and ended up in 3rd place.

Sofia mainly played defense or goalie, which she's surprisingly good at playing. She really loves playing goalie and also defense. Jeff had her play offense a few times, which she doesn't really enjoy, I think mainly due to the amount of running and she's not as aggressive in taking the ball and passing or dribbling it down the field. However, Jeff really wants every member of the team to score, so he had her play offense in the final game, which was against probably the weakest team we played. It also rained solidly through the entire game, which Sofia said made it a little hard to see since her glasses would get covered in rain. She actually got within a few feet of kicking it into the goal a few times! She did a great job and was so close! After that last game, she was really upset with not scoring and told me she didn't plan to quite playing soccer until she scored 5 goals. I love her determination and desire to score and raise her game. I told her we need to go out and practice during the off-season and she agreed. Sofia had a good season and really loved going to practice and games. The girls are a lot of fun and all get along really well, which she really enjoys too. In the past, soccer practice and games have been a challenge and she used to complain about not wanting to go, but then tell us how much she loved it afterwards. So, it's a great change that she enjoys it now. Before her first practice of the season she started complaining that she didn't want to play soccer and I called CK because I was so flustered at arguing with her. He got on the phone with her and convinced her that she needed to commit to playing and having a good attitude or she could play us back with her $5/week allowance, which would take her several months. She agreed and really had a great attitude since that conversation.

I really enjoy the parents of the Pink Pirates and look forward to our Saturday morning ritual of her 1 1/2 hour game each week. I also enjoy taking photos of the girls, although I feel like my photos weren't terrific this season for some reason. I didn't take as many photos and didn't feel like the quality of photos was very good either. I hope she stays interested in playing and enjoying her friends and learning about soccer and am so glad she's enjoying it so much! We look forward to next season!

And she's got the ball!