She's been playing soccer since she was 5. One year she was encouraged by a couple of older gals to try out for a developmental league.  She did and she made it. Then she tried out for a select soccer league and she made it. For the last three years she was on a C team for that soccer league. She's had friends that moved onto the B team then onto the A team. She's played positions all over the field. She was always hoping to move up but it seemed as though she was stuck on the C team. And then it happened, the B team coach asked her to play a game and she was excited. It wasn't her regular team but she loved it. She loved the girls, she loved the coach. The team lost and she still loved it. She practiced with them a couple of times and was asked again to play.  She did and continued to love it. She didn't play her regular position and still loved it. Sometimes she looked lost on the field, sometimes she looked dialed in and ready. She played more games with them, practiced more and then her season with her team ended. They had the end of year party. They said goodbye to their regular coach and that was that, except it wasn't.  She was asked along with 6 of her other team mates to join this B team for a "mini" season. A tournament season and she was thrilled. It was what she wanted. She wanted to be able to say that she made it to the B team. She wants to make it to her senior year in this league.  She's having fun again and excited. We will see where this chance takes her. Maybe it will take her to the B team for the next year. Maybe it won't.  We will have to see, but for right now, she's excited and happy.

How many times have I walked into this building? How many games have I watched to see the outcome be the same? How many photos have I taken of my kids, of my husband coaching? Too many times of each thing. Yet I keep going. I keep watching, keep taking photos, keep cheering. The kids have fun, the coach does too.  The outcome while sometimes discouraging really doesn't matter. They are getting out there, getting involved, doing something. Some of these kids only have this game in common. Some of these kids wouldn't be able to play unless this team was created. In the end it is about supporting however I can, by a photograph, by a encouraging word, and by showing up. There are games I can't make it to for one reason or another, however when I do, I bring my camera and cheer. Then on the way home, I listen as the game is replayed, analysed and discussed.

I arrived at the bridge and the valley hadn't yet woken up. The sun was still just a hint of brightness behind the hill. The fog clung to the river as I walked out onto the gravel bar. I heard them, the eagles as they called to each other. There were one or two in the trees the rest hiding. I wandered along the river in my knee high rain boots. I wore them so I could cross some of the shallow spots and venture further than if I just wore hiking shoes. The further away from the bridge the less eagles I heard. Thinking I had come to late in the season I started heading back to the car but I took my time just in case and in no hurry to head home. This was my therapy. My quiet time. I stopped and turned, marveling in the way the sun streamed through the trees as it cleared the hill. The illuminated fog took my breath away as it trailed along the ground. There was just magic out there in the quiet, the stillness of the valley waking up. Slowly I made my way back to the car and then it happened. The eagles, they started to emerge from the trees. They soared over head, looking for their first meal of the day. The spawning salmon carcasses were still available to these birds and they hadn't totally disappeared from the river.  There were fewer left than before and may be the resident eagles in this part but still just as impressive as ever.

He's always liked the color green but his school colors are maroon and grey.  Its cold at his school, eastern Washington cold with highs in the 30s, sometimes in the single digits. He took nothing winterish with him to school.  Why would he when it was in the 90s as a low? But winter came, and I knew he would need something so I went on a search for a project.  Something that I could make as I rode in the car, listened to sermons at church, waited for wrestling matches and soccer games to start. I settled on this hat.  There was enough of a change in pattern to keep me engaged and simple enough that I could finish it.  At Christmas I wrapped in my signature brown paper and placed it under the tree, knowing that he wouldn't understand the amount of love that went into the hat.  It didn't matter, it was enough that I knew. I imagine him wearing it at school as he goes from class to class to dorm, keeping just enough of the chill off him. I imagine it being the perfect hat for a football match or a midnight sledding run, but it is all in my imagination. Truth be told, if he still has it when he comes home for the summer, I would be surprised. To me its more, but to him its just a hat.

For the last three or four years our youth group has had a Mount Baker Day. We all meet at the church, load up vans, small buses, cars, and trucks and carpool up to the Mount Baker Ski area. Some years I go and some I've stayed home. This was a go year.  The day was beautiful and it couldn't have been more perfect. I stood at the bottom of the hill and took photos as the kids bomb down the hill and kicked up the powdery snow which glowed in the sun.  I was in my element.  Watching and laughing with the kids.  I wish all my kids could have been there but it was just Job that was able to go.

Winter had come to the PNW if only for a few weeks. It was here.  The air in the morning was crisp and cold, the wind tearing through the valley with force. The nights clear with specks of light in the sky. One of the last days with the oldest of his Winter vacation and we planned on a hike to Artist Point. The first planned outing hadn't worked out and now we were at the end of his time at home. Placing gear in the back, he drove us, just the two of us, to Heather Meadows. Others were there before us and had already left their vehicles.  Most had skis and skins for their hikes up. We had snowshoes and he had the pack.  I made him carry the sleeping pad so that I would have something to sit on and not directly on the snow for our lunch.  It was an unbelievable day, so clear and the wind that had been blasting the country for days had subsided to a mild breeze.  Within in 10 minutes of climbing, I started shedding layers. I wasn't in a hurry though, I was soaking in the light of the sun. It was peaceful, a therapy of sorts. There was something rejuvenating about the snow and how the light is reflected everywhere. How the sun peaks through the branches of the evergreens or over the hills. It was what winter should look like; how I need it to look like. We headed for table mountain, preferring the steeper slopes rather than going around and gently climbing. We past skiers and some pasts us. Once on the plateau we had an amazing view of Mount Baker, Table Mount, the Canadian Cascades, Mount Shuksan and Baker Lake. Sitting behind a snow drift we pulled out our lunch and gobbled it. Enjoying the hot chocolate that I had packed. John and I normally climb to Huntoon Point but the oldest and I decided to skip it this time and instead head back to the car, it was enough to be out for a little while.  We toyed with the idea of hiking into Raven Lodge for a hamburger and fries but it just felt good to be in the car. Another hour and a half and we were home, enjoying dinner, the rest of the family gathered round. Smiling at each other, we knew it was a special time with just the two of us, maybe a tradition had started.  Next year will tell.