Too old to play soccer!

One of the things I have enjoyed about living here is I am 'Carla' to many people. In MN, I was Matt's wife, Mrs E, A - B - J - or M's mom, pastor's wife, youth group leader, etc. But to very few people was I Carla. I love my job and it has led me into the lives of some wonderful people. Particularly some lovely moms who play soccer once a week all year long. Well, we take a few weeks off here and there, but pretty much all year. And to them, I am Carla. Most of them haven't even met the rest of my family. I love to be active. I love to run. I love being part of a team. And I love to kick a ball .... hard. I have always been fast over short distances, so that has transferred nicely onto the soccer field. I hadn't played soccer since before Anika was born. We had a fun coed team in MN for a bit.

But, these ladies asked, and I showed up, and the rest is history. And its oh so much fun. 

Until Feb 19.

I was so going to score a goal. Really. Matt was there and he agreed. Just me and the goalie. The cleat on the bottom of my left shoe popped off. Yeah, I didn't know that was possible either, but it is. I caught my fall with my right foot, only to have the outside middle cleat pop off of that shoe. Really. Two in one second. On two different shoes. Crazy. My foot folded. I fell. Seriously scraped up my knees and had to be helped off the field.  Of course I had to leave promptly because I was in charge of picking the kids up from church and I knew it was going to take FOREVER to get to the van on a foot that didn't work so well.  Matt grabbed the keys (he had a game right after ours) and pulled up the van.  Driving was interesting - I quickly learned I had to brake with my left foot, but I got to the kids on time!

Right foot front, left foot heel

That night I was quite sure it was broken. My body was in shock... nauseous, short breaths, light headed, etc. But I slept great and could put weight on it in the morning. I could so do this.

The morning after, purple on top and swollen

As the days went on, I was told by many to get it checked out. By now, I was pretty sure it was just sprained. I had biked, been on the elliptical, swam laps. Things were fine. Besides, if it was broken, they just put a boot on you and tell you to keep going. I didn't need a doctor to tell me that. But a few people mentioned that if it was broken and displaced, I was going to have bigger issues down the road.

A week later, purple toes, purple arch (bottom of foot) and purple all around

In comes a little boy at Little Peeps, the program for preschoolers at church on Wednesday night that I was the helper this week. He is an active little thing and knocks over a chair onto said foot. After I crawled back down from the ceiling, I had an epiphany. Matt was taking the kids home from church, I was going to the urgent care.

The urgent care is a story in and of itself, but these pictures tell the rest of the story. 

You can now catch me walking through the parking lot with a boot!

boot and scraped knees from the fall

To the future!

Let's Play Hockey!

The Muskegon Lumberjacks is a USHL team right here in town. Many of them are high school or just out of high school kids - I can't imagine leaving home to go play hockey in another town!

We had some free tickets and were planning on going to a game. The day I was going to go pick up the tickets, I got a phone call. I had signed all four kids up to be the junior announcer at a game and Anika's name had been picked - so we got four more free tickets! She got to go out on the ice and shout 'Let's Play Hockey' right before the game began.

A few weeks earlier we had played 3 on 3 hockey with our family. The high school made an ice rink in their parking lot to play broom ball and we made use of it! Good times!  

Olaf lives - for a bit

We are huge fans of Frozen here - can't wait for the DVD! So, when the snow starts to melt a bit, it packs really well. We decided we needed an Olaf! He never did get a nose before he melted - I was all out - but he was cute while he lasted!

snow much fun

We have had so much snow this winter. And we have tried to have plenty of fun with it. This was several weeks ago already, but it was snowing huge fluffy flakes - several inches already, and we went to have some fun in it!

covered in the fluffy stuff

Anika going over the jump

snow angels and watching the flakes fall - they are SO pretty

Anika, after a trip down the hill

Matt and Maria after a trip down

Brandon catching some air on his snow board

Black Tie at the Y

We have great friends. She is the same size as I am, has some incredible dresses, and she let me borrow one!

The Black Tie at the Y is a fundraising auction held at the local country club. I was one of the employees that helped organize the whole shebang this year with a bunch of other women.  

One of the items on the live auction was The Mackinac Bridge Tower Tour. The Mackinac Bridge authority only gives out 25 passes a year to non profits for their auctions such as this, and the Y got one! We were so excited. If you are interested in seeing what the tour is, check out the youtube videos and see how high up you are, how windy it is, and how small the hatch doors are that you have to fit through! 

We had a great event and I had lots of fun dressing up and helping raise some money for the Y!

Friends

A friend, grandma to my children, mentor, mom to some wonderful youth group kids that grew up and became great friends and parents themselves, fellow pastor's wife.
Its great when life says you are too busy to stay in touch, much time has passed, and when you meet, you sit down and talk for hours as though nothing has changed. It had been years since we had seen each other, even more since we had actually carried on a conversation.
Thanks for taking the time to visit!
My favorite part - we went into school so that Brandon could say 'Hi'. He wasn't coming home right away with us, he had to stay at school for basketball practice.  We found him in his room cleaning up. He immediately stopped what he was doing and ran to her to give her a hug. He took a step back and looked up. The wheels were spinning. You could see that he knew he loved this lady but just couldn't figure out who she was or why he knew he loved her. Finally he came up with 'Aunt Winnie' to which we corrected him with 'Grandma Winnie' and then all was right with him. It was so precious!

Birthdays and Christmas AGAIN

With three birthdays in two weeks (besides Jesus),  there is lots of celebrating.  Grandpa and Grandma stopped by for round 3.

Best jammies EVER

I didn't even take pictures of round 4.  The kids received one last present from Matt and I.  Brandon got stuff for his soccer uniform, Anika a desk chair, Maria shoes, and Jessica a Webkinz.  I think the world can go on now!