He's a "Keeper"

I realized I haven't spent much blog space on my Josh in the last while. He just is so consistent with who he is that I guess I take it for granted. School ended and he came home with a packet of awards as well as a report card with all A's on it. Sadly, at this point, if he came home with anything less, I would be disappointed. He is my overachiever and it makes life easy for me. I used to stress about keeping up with him, but he has passed me up in so many areas that now I just let him teach me. It's a good thing I'm not a home schooling mom.

Besides being awesome at school, Josh is awesome on the soccer field. I love it. He loves it. Jer loves it. I have to laugh when friends with little one's tell me how their little guy just stands in the middle of the field and won't even run. There is hope. The first time Josh played soccer, he stood out in the middle of the field and bit his fingernails. I was so embarrassed. Now he's almost 12 and makes his mama proud every time he plays the game. We ended our season with a Fathers vs. Sons scrimmage. It was most entertaining to watch Jer and Josh on the field together. Josh had save after save ... he never did let his dad score on him.

The last week of May provided some serious stress for us. It was tryout time. Jer decided it was only fair to take Josh to a couple of clubs. He took him to the Utah Glory tryouts and was not thrilled with the club itself. And, he took him to the USA tryouts. Josh has been playing competition soccer for two years with USA and the plan was to stay with his team and scout out a few new players. After 3 nights of "performing" for 4 hours at a time, Josh had coaches fighting over him. Jer has been coaching so if Josh was to leave his team, that meant Jer had to leave as well. In the end, Josh was offered a position on the Utah Glory Premier team, his current USA Blue team and the USA Select team. Decisions. Wow. Jer and I finally decided to do what was best for Josh (versus keeping the old USA team together). It was tough and it really pulled hard on Jer's heart strings. He has coached those kids for two years and didn't want to leave that team. But, do you hold your own kid back or do you stay loyal to the old team? In the end, Josh went with the USA Select team. We left the Blue team and decided that was the best thing for Josh. He loves the game more than I've ever seen a kid love something. Jer was asked to coach along side Tim Ruff for the Select team (which is flattering for Jer). The team is excited to have Josh and has already started with 60 minutes of drills a day, 2 team practices a week and 3 tournaments this summer. This is serious now. :) I am thrilled for Josh and so proud of him. Soccer has been such a passion for him and now he gets to take it to the next level.