Logan's 1st Pandemic Soccer Game

Since the pandemic hit almost a year ago, Logan has been the one of our three older children to suffer the most in the way of not having after school activities or sports to participate in.  With the exception of the second shutdown that lasted seven weeks from November through January, Ella has been able to participate in ballet and gymnastics since the beginning of the school year.  In addition, Lia has been able to continue to attend her weekly voice lessons and her bi-monthly Girl Scout meetings since September, too.  On the other hand, Logan has only been able to participate in the most pathetic or watered down soccer season this fall which consisted of exactly 12 practices and no games.  Besides this disappointing soccer season, he has done absolutely nothing in the way of organized sports and activities for almost a year.  As a result, it really should come as no surprise that the pandemic has affected him the most out of our children.  Since the fall, I have really noticed that he can be very mopey as he walks around with hunched shoulders complaining about how bored he is.  He also has become very clingy to me and constantly wants to know where I am going if I leave the room or how long I will be gone if I leave the house.  Needless to say, I was starting to worry about him.  Due to these concerns, it was a total blessing that I had two different conversations with my friend Heather in January about a soccer league that I had never heard of in our town starting up a winter season for their club soccer organization AND about swim lessons starting back up at the YMCA for the first time since last March.  I immediately looked into both and, within a matter of days, Logan was allowed to join a soccer team for his age group and registered in a swim class.  It was a total blessing and answer to prayers.  Logan now has an activity three days a week after school which has helped a lot.  He has started to get some well-needed exercise and has become "busy" again.

Today marked the first of eight soccer games that Logan will play which will be every Saturday through the end of April.  The one catch is that all of them are being held at an amazing soccer facility (where the Sounders practice) up in Tukwila which is a 30-minute drive each way.  Luckily, since most of our Saturdays are still pretty open at this point, it isn't much of a sacrifice with the exception of it interfering with the last month or two of ski season.  So, we left Emmett at home with Lia since Logan's game was scheduled during lunch and nap time, and drove up to Tukwila with the two middle children to attend his game today.  Luckily, since Tukwila is half way between our house and my parent's house, my mom agreed to drive down to watch his game which normally does not happen.  After a very rainy and windy week, we were blessed with a mild and cloudy day to watch the game.  Although Logan was not able to play in two of the 15 minutes quarters of the game, he was assigned to play defense for the first quarter and offense for the second quarter.  Since Logan has always preferred to play offense over defense, he saw very little action during his 15 minutes of defense.  However, Logan played a ton during his 15 minutes of offense and did a great job going after the ball every time it came his way.  A ton of the action ended up being in the area right in front of where we were sitting.  It was just so exciting to watch him compete in a sport after so long and to be able to root him on from the sidelines.  Although Logan was disappointed that he didn't get to make a goal during the game, his team did win and we are just so proud of him for playing so hard whenever he had the chance!  Let's hope the next seven games are just as fun and exciting to watch!

The first drive Logan made down the field after going in to play offense.

Logan continuing to kick the ball down the majority of the field.

Logan running back down the field.

Logan going after the ball before anyone else got to it.

Logan kicking the ball as an opponent rushes up to him.

Logan sending the ball off to another teammate.

Logan chasing the ball down the field again.

Another awesome action shot.

Logan kicking the ball sideways.

Waiting for the referee to start the game again.

Logan and a group of his opponents chasing after the ball.

Logan posing for me after the game had ended.  He did such a great job playing while wearing a face mask the entire time.  I can't even begin to imagine how uncomfortable that is!