Return of the Tiki Man

Mr. Tiki Man is making another appearance. It's Chris's 17th birthday! How did my baby get so BIG? {sniff} Cheryl picked me up from work at lunch and we took pizza to the High School for Chris to share with his friends. Of course, we embarrassed him with lots of hugs and kisses (it's in the mom and sister job description)... hehehe... The teacher thought it was so sweet.
Cheryl made the cake. What do you think? Well, listening to her, this cake was quite the adventure. Even the eggs banned together to sabatoge

the entire cake making operation. Cheryl did prevail and the cake was delicious!
Chris was complaining how our current toaster eats his pop-tarts. So, we got him a new toaster for his birthday. Doesn't he look happy? Well, I'm sure that happy look is more for the Photoshop CS3 program that he's been wanting. Chris is getting to be a real photoshop wiz. He put the program on Cheryl's laptop and is teaching her how to use it too.


Chris is having a BIG week! Yesterday was the first track meet of the season; and guess who is running VARSITY?!! Chris ran his first meet in the Varisty 800m. He was in third place until about 10 yards before the finish line, then one of his team mates just got his shoulder in front of Chris's. Chris finished 0.3 seconds behind. The last time Chris ran the 800m, he finished in 2:23. He wasn't too unhappy because he finished this race with a new PR, 2:14.

Great job Chris!
You'll get him next time!

If you made it this far through the post, thanks for hanging in there! I want to leave with a scrappy share. Chris's birthday card! I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Some Soccer and Some Scrapping

First, a Quake report... Cheryl's little girls are playing in the State Cup. After the last weekend of games, they've advanced to the round of 32. They played yesterday and won 4-1! This morning, they played the sweet-16 and WON AGAIN 3-0! These girls seem unstoppable! Until this afternoon where they lost in the quarter finals, 1-2. I asked Cheryl if the girls were disappointed and she said they were for about 10 minutes, then they got in line to do the bungee jumping... loss and tournament forgotten, LOL!

Look I scrapped again! I've wanted to do something with these photos for a while. He was less than thrilled of course, but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do, hehehe...

A couple quick sports posts...

Cheryl and the Quakes spent the weekend in Lancaster for the first round of State Cup. In 32F weather, surrounded by snowy mountains, the Quakes defeated the first team 4-0. Their second game ended in another win, 3-0! They played the toughest team on Sunday morning, but they were ready for them! They won again! 6-0!!! The undefeated Quakes move on to the "round of 32" in Temecula next Saturday. If they win their Saturday game, they'll play in the "sweet 16" on Sunday.

Rain is in the forecast for Huntington Beach on Sunday. We are keeping our fingers crossed for a change in the weather. Even though Chris and I like running in the rain sometimes, 13.1 miles in the rain is a long, long way....

Most Outstanding Offensive Player!!!

Cheryl came home from her college soccer banquet and announced, "I was voted most offensive!" And of course we responded, "You should remember to wash your uniform between games!" LOL!

Seriously, We are so proud of Cheryl! She is Saddleback College's most outstanding offensive player for 2009. Which is quite a surprise since she played offense only in the last five games (Up to then, she was a defender). She scored three goals in those five games which made her Saddleback's highest scoring player.

Congratulations Cheryl! What a way to end your college season!

Weekly Sports Report

Here is the LAST sports report of the year. Cross country is over and now so is soccer. Cheryl ended the season with a BANG as she scored the tying goal in the very last game of the season! She said that the ball bounced off the goalie, then the goalie charged out to get it. Cheryl had her back to the goal, reach out, just managed to get her toe on it, and volley-ed it back towards the goal... just at the goalie crashed into her. As Cheryl was laying on the ground with the goalie on top of her, she was thinking, "I wonder if that went in..." IT DID! Saddleback finishes the season with a TIE! Here's the story from the Saddleback website:
http://www.saddleback.edu/athletics/Soccer/2009.html

... and the good news is... SADDLEBACK DID NOT FINISH IN LAST PLACE!

On to other good news... the Quakes last game was another WIN! They finished their BRONZE season in FIRST PLACE and will move on to SILVER next year! Congratulations Quakes!

Weekly Sports Report

I had a crazy crazy week at work... It was a 50 hour week, but I still made time to get to Cheryl's game. This may be the only game I see this season. Uhmmm... they lost... Nothing new there... BUT I got some photos of Cheryl playing! She was playing striker again and took some shots on goal. The keeper on the other team stopped them all this time. Poor Cheryl, with sore feet, a pulled hamstring and hip flexor, she's just managing to limp through the rest of the season. No rest for Cheryl... she plays the whole game. Two more games this week and the season is OVER! Cheryl is very happy! After she takes some time to heal, she said that she will start running with Chris and me.

The last Cross Country meet of the season (for non-Varsity) and Chris is sick. At least his fever was gone, but he was still very congested. Poor guy... he really wanted to PR at his last race. It didn't happen. I think he fell to 8th. The good news is that CAPO is going to CIF for the second year in a row, YAHOO!!!







Coach Cheryl was under pressure this weekend! She was tasked to not break the Quakes undefeated streak while Coach Monica is recovering from knee surgery. And she did it!!! The Quakes win 1-0 on a PK! It sounds like it was an exciting game.

Galaxy went into their second playoff game against Chivas, tied on aggregate! We got tickets, because it was a game NOT to MISS!!! Here's the funny part... we got tickets through Chivas because they cost less than the exact same tickets through Galaxy. We sat between the two Chivas cheering squads. I wish I had my camera... we were given confetti and streamers... they were beating HUGE drums and chanting, waving flags and banners... BIG TIME PARTY!!! Things got rowdy when a couple of guys set off a smoke bomb. The Security people were chasing them through the stands, cornered them under the drum, and hauled them away. Oh, and the game! Very exciting! Galaxy won on a PK (just like Cheryl's Quakes) and are advancing to the semi-finals against Houston!

Weekly Sports Report

The second cluster meet was last week, but I got stuck at work and missed it... so no photos this week. Chris came in front of Ricky! That put Chris in the #5 scoring spot last week! GO CHRIS!!! According to the Orange County Register, the Capo XC team is ranked #10 in Orange County! GO CAPO!

I'll just cut and paste from last week, "two more losses for the Gauchos." There is a difference! Cheryl was moved from defense to striker and scored two goals... but it wasn't enough to win the game...


Quakes TIED!!! That ends their winning streak... but they can still say that they are undefeated. With Coach Monica getting knee surgery this week, that puts Coach Cheryl in charge, GO QUAKES! LOOK! They are on the short list of unbeaten teams in Orange County!
http://soccer.xkorangecounty.com/news.php?viewStory=4717

Weekly Sports Report

No cross country this week... well, actually there was a BIG meet at Mt. Sac. But, the invitational got too big and Mt. Sac cut all the JV races. Since Chris is on JV, there was no racing for him, but he still needed to get up at 4:30am to catch the bus and cheer on the team.

Uhm... two more losses for the Gauchos. An example of just how bad this team is: Cheryl was playing center defender, she got between the ball and the other team's striker and was ready to kick it out. BUT her keeper called for the ball... Cheryl expected her to pick the ball up, but she came out and tried to kick it. She ended up missing the ball and kicking Cheryl in the leg... the ball rolled past the keeper and into the net. Cheryl has a big bruise on her hip flexor.

Quakes win again! They played the second place team last weekend... looks like they will sweep the entire league!

Weekly Sports Report

Does Chris look like he just played a football game or ran a cross country race? The answer is the latter... He hit himself in the mouth with a water bottle right before the race started. This is the same tooth that he broke when he was about 8yrs old. The dentist glued it back together, and it’s held for all these years. He had a root canal done on the same tooth last year. We were told then that it would weaken the structure and he would have to have it capped eventually... well, not yet... the dentist wants to wait until he's 18yrs, so he glued it back in again. As for the race, even with the distraction of his missing tooth, he came in 6th for JV, just one position back from scoring… so he’s getting BETTER!

The Gauchos WON A GAME on Tuesday! It’s AMAZING, especially since there are only 11 girls on the team who are not red or gray shirted. I just learned that red shirted means injured for the season and gray shirted is injured with a chance of playing again. They lost again on Friday, but that’s not unexpected against 1st place Santiago Canyon. Cheryl said she had to play center defender and that she was amazing! Parents, trainers, and the coach’s mother seeked her out to tell her what a GREAT job she did.

Quakes win again! They were scored on again, so that makes two goals against them (a wet ball slipped between the goalie’s legs). BUT the Quakes are still undefeated! The head coach is going in for knee surgery soon and that will put Cheryl in the head coach position. Hopefully Coach Cheryl can keep up the undefeated streak!

Weekly Sports Report

It's raining is pouring...
We are having our first rain of the season. It's not cold, but it's pouring. I am sooooo GLAD that I only work 6 miles from home. The freeway is going to be a major MESS tonight!

Speaking of a mess... Cheryl is playing tonight. I just hope that they are wearing the cardinal uniform today and not the WHITE! The Gauchos had a buy last Tuesday and finished with another loss on Friday. Cheryl said that they started well... they scored first and were ahead for the FIRST time this season. That didn't last very long because a Gaucho defender scored an own goal and tied up the game. Riverside scored one more giving the Gauchos another loss.

This sounds like a broken record... Gauchos lose and Quakes win... TWO more wins for the Quakes. Half the season is over and the Quakes are undefeated with only one goal against them. Now they have to play all the teams one more time and the season will be over. They are looking really good for moving up to Silver next year!

Chris is ran his first JV race last week. The first 4 runners that finished for his team were Seniors, followed by Ricky. Chris ended up in a non-scoring position. He was sick last week and ended up having to sprint straight from the finish line to the port-o-potties. He's sure that he'll do better this weekend at the OC Champs now that he's feeling better.

Weekly Sports Report

No Cross Country for Chris this week. The first official XC meet of the season is this Thursday at Aliso Niguel High School!

The Gauchos lost one and tied one game this week! You'd think that they'd feel good about a tie, but the team that they tied had to forfit their last two games because of injuries. So, in the standings the Gauchos are tied point-wise with a team who forfitted twice... and because Cheryl's team has more goals scored against it (as a result of having played two more games than Irvine Valley), that puts the poor Saddleback Gauchos in last place.

Check this out!!! http://www.coastsoccer.com:443/2009/SG10ZS.htm The Saddleback Quakes are in 1st place! Two more wins this weekend for the Quakes!

As a result of their win last Friday against Chicago Fire and Chivas defeating DC United, Galaxy has locked up a spot in the MLS playoffs. The last time they made the playoffs was three years ago. Unfortunately, we will be watching the playoffs on TV... Our season tickets don't cover playoff games...

Weekly Sports Report

I know... I'm bad... The sports report is really late this week. Chris's team ran at the Dana Hills Invitational last weekend. The Varsity boys+2 were gone at the Stanford Invitational. That left Chris and Ricky competing for the top Junior spot. They both started in front, side by side. It was a race to the finish! Chris finishing only one second ahead of Ricky. Chris was the #1 Capo Junior runner, finishing in 17:54 (one second over his PR).

Cheryl's college team chalked up two more losses last week. Those poor Gauchos... Cheryl said that they play well, but they don't have a striker with a drive for the goal.

The Quakes are having a GREAT season... two more wins last weekend! They are in second place in the league. The first place team has played one more game than they have. They are looking good for moving up to Silver next year! Congrats to the Quakes and Coach Cheryl!

Weekly Sports Report

It's a sports report with NO PHOTOS! I was at work while Cheryl played her two college games this week. The first game was against 1st place Santiago Canyon... Saddleback lost 0-5. The second game was against 2nd place Cerritos... Saddleback lost 0-3. Not off to a great start. There were lots of injuries this week, two concussions, sprained wrist, torn MCL, pulled hamstring, strained hipflexor, hurt backs/knees/ankles; and it's only one week into the season! Thank goodness Cheryl is still healthy, but the hard teams are over and done with. Hopefully, they will have a better week next week.


Chris had another cross country meet this weekend, but he didn't race. He was messing around with his friends and didn't get from the field to the coach's classroom in a reasonable amount of time. Around 1/4 of the boys team didn't get to run at this meet.

The Quakes had another great game this weekend. They played the Blues' team and WON! There are two Blues teams in their bracket, and the team they beat isn't the "good" team. But, still, GREAT JOB QUAKES and COACH CHERYL!

Galaxy WON! YAHOO! Poor Chris... he didn't get to go to the Galaxy game because he had a meet, and he couldn't race at the meet because he got in trouble. He was still expected to go to the meet and cheer the team on. So, Papa came with us to watch Galaxy defeat Toronto. Galaxy remains in second place in MLS West.

Weekly Sports Report

Hey, look at the ticker!!! Mary, I'll be there in time for dinner on Tuesday, hehehe!

Cheryl's college team won 1-0 in their first season game. This week they are playing their rival, Santiago. Santiago came in first place last season; Saddleback came in 6th. It's going to be a tough game... Oh, the player bios are up on the Saddleback site. Checkout Cheryl, HERE.

Saturday was a busy sports day. Chris did okay at his first meet of the cross country season. Capistrano Valley has the #1 Junior team in Orange County. Five of the Junior runners at his school are fast enough to run Varisity. He came in 8th with a decent time (it was around 18.50), but he was bummed at his posting. He went running with me on Sunday because he wants to impove... his goal is to be 6th (that will make him the top junior runner behind the varsity).

The Quakes played at UCI in their first season game and won 10-0!!! Cheryl said the little girls played GREAT! She was so proud of them!

Saturday night was Galaxy against (last place) Dallas. If Galaxy won that game they would be in first place in the league! They lost 6-3! Galaxy played terrible! Cheryl said that it's been a long time since she's seen 19 goals in a single day, LOL!

Weekly Sports Report

A sports report with no photos? Yep! It's a bummer being stuck at work while everyone else is playing.

Jim had almost every Monday and Friday off during the entire summer. He's been surfing, A LOT! Sometimes Chris goes with him, sometimes he's running with his cross country friends. Oh wait! I do have a photo! Here's Chris running through the forest at XC camp in Big Bear.

Poor Cheryl... she is on soccer overload. She had college soccer training M-F, she had two college scrimmages last week (they lost both), the Quakes had practice two evenings, and she had four games this weekend with the Quakes(they lost 2, won 2). She said that she needs a day off. Cheryl has another busy soccer week... practice with the Quakes, training at college, and a BIG college tournament in Santa Clarita next weekend.

On another soccer note: GALAXY WON on an amazing shot from this guy! Galaxy is in 2nd place in the western conference. It looks like they will finally make it to the play-offs!

Weekend Sports report

This is the last game of Chris's soccer career. The game has gotten rougher and rougher as he's gotten older... checkout out a snip of the game this weekend by clicking on the image below:

He hurts where landed on his hip, and I'm sure he's going to be sore tomorrow. That's the hardest take down I've seen him take.

He came out of the game right after that. I wanted to check on him. But, Cheryl said it's uncool to have your mommy checking on you. Jim and Papa checked if he was okay. He was... in fact he was okay enough to go back in after a short rest. The tournament this weekend was a disaster... Three losses this weekend, 0-1, 0-5, and 0-1. With the red card in the first game, that left the team with -3 points as their weekend total.

As I said, that was Chris's last game. He's decided to give up AYSO to concentrate on his running. He wants an alternate Varsity spot at CIF this year (assuming that the school makes CIF again this year)... Good luck with the running training, Chris!

Happy National Running Day!

It's been a wet wild Wednesday! We had thunder and lightning this morning, but I still managed to get out for a run at lunch. Cheryl even drove over to come with me. Chris ran after school. So that is our family's contribution to National Running Day!

I've been a bad blogger. Chris had a soccer tournament last weekend. The team did great!

His team lost their first game 0-3. (The team that they lost to went on to win the tournament.) Chris's team won their next two games. Chris showed his conditioning in the third game, when he was one of the few boys who could still run. He was moved to mark the fastest striker on the other team and was able to overtake him. They made it to the playoffs and were supposed to play for overall third place, but the other team didn't show up. So, they all came home with third place medals. I asked Chris if everyone was happy or sad that they didn't play. He said, "The ones that could still move were a little sad, but everyone else was happy!" LOL!

Cheryl was in a tournament Memorial Day weekend... now you know what a bad blogger I've been... Her team lost their first game; won their second game 3-0; tied their third game... and that put them in the semi-finals. They had to come back and play two more games Monday... both were loses. They came home with 4th place medals. The girls were so tired! I can only remember one other tournament where Cheryl played 5 games. On their one win of the weekend, Cheryl scored one of the three goals, and assisted the other two (one on a through ball to the striker and the other from a corner kick). I'm so excited, I actually caught her goal on film! Look at the placement of that ball!



Cheryl is playing in a tournament this weekend at World Cup. These will be her very last recreational soccer games.
Saturday - 2:15 and 7:15
Sunday - 10:30

Weekly Sports Report

Cheryl's little girl's team picked the name, "Quakes." How apropos since we just had an earthquake today! Anyway, her team won their first game, lost their second game, and won their third game on forfeit. All the teams in the pool were tied on points, but the Quakes went on to the finals because of goal differential. They ended up losing 4-3... it was an exciting game. They all came home with silver medals and were very happy!

Galaxy is hopeless! I guess you can agree with Galaxy PR that Galaxy is in an unbeaten streak... they've only lost one game this season... BUT they've only WON ONE GAME this season too! Another tie today against Columbus (the last place team in the MLS East)!

Next Week's Sports Schedule:
Chris: No Sports
Cheryl: Cheryl is skipping her BOB game since she has finals this week. She will be playing in a Soccer tournament in Cypress this weekend (SAT&SUN)

Chris and I have signed up for the 10K Turkey Trot. We couldn't convince Cheryl to run it with us, so it will be just the two of us. Still no luck finding a summer half-marathon... fall is out because it's during Cross Country season... so, it's looking like our next half-marathon won't be until winter. Lots of time for me to get out of shape {sigh}...

Have a great week everybody!