Weekend Times

Friday night, Dave started barking at something outside our house. Usually she only barks at strangers coming to our door, so Kevin got up to check what was going on. He walked to the front door and saw a women getting out of her car with some grocery bags and a Q.doba bag. She then looked up and said "You're not Mr. #25." Seems she had gone one house too far. She then told Kevin that #25 was on bedrest and that the kiddo was due on 4/15. Kevin told her she could leave her car in our driveway and asked if she needed any help carrying stuff over and she said nope. She reloaded her car, backed out of our driveway, drove across our house and up #25's driveway. Since then I've been thinking about #25 and I think I'm gonna call them up and offer to make a meal (or two or three) for them. I know they always say to wait till after the birth, but I think bedrest makes it kind of hard to take care of things, especially when you already have a 4 year old.

Sunday was opening day for Women's Pro Soccer(WPS)! Yay! I'm so excited. Wiki and I were huge fans of WUSA and so sad to see it fold. I remember that first summer, we watched every televised game faithfully. Wiki was a CyberRays fan (Brandi Chastain fan really) and I was a Philly Charge fan. I just loved Kelly Smith and Marinette Pichon. Pichon was an awesome forward, always finding gaps and sneaking behind defenders and Smith was an awesome midfielder who always found her players. Too bad they weren't American. Also I really like Mark Krikorian's coaching style. I learned a lot about field tactics and positioning players from watching his games.

The second summer of WUSA, the finals (Founders' Cup) were going to be held in Atlanta (about an 7 hour drive from Tampa) in August. Since Wiki's birthday is in August, I decided to buy her a pair of tickets to the finals and my mom paid for the hotel room in Atlanta. Of course Wiki decided to take me. We made of whole weekend of it, met some awesome players (including Brandi Chastain!) and had a great time. Plus at the game, we saw two of our players who just happened to be Trolley's daughters. They were there with their grandparents. We all went to dinner after the game and then drove back down.

The following year, Founders' Cup was in San Diego. Wouldn't you know it, we have family in San Diego! And we got an amazing deal on flights. That year we invited Trolley's daughters along and amazingly she let them come. We had a fun weekend, including taking a trip to the zoo and fitting in a beach trip and flea market trip while going to all the Founders' Cup festivities. JJ and I even won tickets to the Women's World Cup match being held in LA the next month. Of course we knew we couldn't actually make that game so I think we just gave them away.

Right before the WWC 2003, it was announced that the WUSA was folding. Wiki and I were upset, but we kept faith that womens soccer would be back. And finally it is! I've decided to follow the Washington Freedom for 4 reasons -

1. They are an original WUSA team.

2. They have Abb.y Wam.bach.

3. They are geographically the nearest team to me being only 2 hours aways.

4. Kevin bought me a three pack of tickets to their home games, so I gotta support them.

The inaugural match was held in LA and featured LA Sol vs. Washington Freedom. It was an okay game - Freedom lost and Marta didn't get a goal. But still Women's Pro Soccer is finally here!