Start of soccer season tournament (plus a visit with the Kings)

***Warning***  this is a whole post on a soccer tournament that I am super proud of how Colin did, so there will be lots of bragging!!!

We decided to have Colin play club soccer again for another couple years, after going back and forth about possibly switching to a rec league.  

We love his coach, they have a pretty new team and we just weren't seeing any improvement or growth in Colin's skills.  But...we went to tryouts anyway and found out there would be quite a few new kids playing on his team, so we decided to give it another try.

The boys always play in a soccer tournament at the beginning of the season, just to get some good playing time in and work together as a new team.

It was hot...

so so hot...

but Colin played his hardest in almost every game!

He got to take some sweet penalty and corner kicks and had great shots!

And our family was a trooper and sweated through all the games 

(with a little help from other soccer moms and families that helped entertain the little ones!)

Colin booting the ball from the corner

He has such a big foot!

The tournament was played out in south KC, so we visited with Tiff and Chad in between games.  Barb and Bob King were in town from Chicago and were over visiting as well.  It was so nice seeing everyone if only for a few hours!

Then everyone came out to cheer Colin on in his next soccer game!

We were all yelling like crazy people!

Meemaw and her crew!

More games over the next couple days...

Which ended up with a tie in the championship game. 

They did a penalty kick shootout to determine the winner, which didn't go our way.

But, the kids had fun and played hard and it was a lot of fun to watch!

After the boys got their medals for being runner -up in the tournament, the coach presented Colin with the MVP award for their team. 
He was so surprised and shocked!  It was nice to see him with a huge smile!

Colin with his buddy Finn

So proud of this kid

Logan, Ethan, Colin and Finn

It was definitely a LONG weekend, but it was time well spent on the field!

Incredibles 2

Well we finally scheduled a couple hours of time one evening to go check out the new Incredibles movie.  It was really good - the whole family loved it! (well, minus Eli, he didn't get to come, but I'm sure he'll love it too when he gets to see it eventually)

Brian was off getting a huge thing of popcorn that we refilled a couple times during the movie!

All the sass coming from that little girl of mine...

end of summer fun (new school shoes) and triathlons...

Summer is coming to an end - but we really did have a nice one!

We had plenty of down time, some swimming, a few vacations, and lots of fun!

The kids got their new school shoes (always an exciting time at our house!)

The kids hit up Crown Center with our nanny Katie one last time!

We got to see Grammie on her birthday

and Colin and Maggie participated in our neighborhood kids triathlon

(we have wanted to do it in the past, but never was able to for various reasons...)

Maggie couldn't really decide if she wanted to do it or not, but ended up rockin' it!

Poor Colin came straight from a 2 hour soccer practice so he was already tired, but did really great too!

The kids did great on the swim and had really fast exchanges to their bike

Maggie caught up to a lot of people during this first exchange

Here comes Colin zooming along on his bike (just look for the bright orange shoes!)

He was pretty tired for the run and ended up walking some of it, but finished strong!

Here comes little ol' Maggie on her bike!

And she did great on the run, too!

One of our neighbors took this pic as she crossed the finish line - she was so proud of herself!

Brian, Eli and I were there to cheer them on!

Afterwards they let the kids swim for a while and even had the ice cream truck stop by!

Yeah for medals and ice cream!

Eli is such a goober - he wanted in on the picture taking too!

(Yes, he swam even without his suit on...3rd child problems!)

Fishing club morning and the KC Zoo

We had a super busy weekend when we returned from Texas...

Maggie had a super fun birthday party at a roller skating rink

It was super girl themed - really cute!

Meanwhile, the boys were at a fishing club outing held in our neighborhood.

We hurried after the bday party and met them just in time for the pizza lunch and water balloon fight!

The adults get on the pontoon boats and the kids are on the shoreline - it's a lot of fun!

The next day we hit up the KC zoo.

I'm embarrassed to say that we haven't really been there since Maggie was just a baby!

We borrowed a friend's zoo pass and tried to go to as much as we could in just a few hours.
We were all super tired from all the walking we did!

Eli loved this polar bear!

We also loved the penguins (I didn't realize how stinky they were) :)

Then we decided to see the new stingray exhibit - we even got to touch them as they swam by!

Maggie was a little nervous and didn't really want to, but she tried her best anyway!

The gorillas were so funny - you can hardly see here but there is a mama gorilla laying on the ground and then the baby gorilla came marching over and pretty much just laid right on top of the mama.  Just like real life in our house, right?  The mama moved over and then eventually walked off to a different spot...just to be sat on again the baby gorilla.  This repeated for some time and the kids thought it was hilarious!

It was so hot - the hippos were all rolling in the mud to keep cool!

Afterwards, Maggie really wanted to surprise us all and take us out for Hawaiian shaved ice for a treat after dinner.  She is so thoughtful - she used her own money and really loved it!

Eli was super appreciate of the sugary snack that evening!