My First Ever Soccer Game

For the past few months, I have been trying to get on a soccer team. I mainly perused craigslist classifieds for female soccer players wanted in Fairfax. I e-mailed many people with no responses until last Thursday. This team was not in the greatest location, Rockville, which is 30 minutes away from where I reside. They did however want to give me a chance to play. So on Sunday night I journeyed to Maryland to play in my first (indoor) soccer game. One of the players showed me the basics before the game and then at 7 the game began. Less than a minute into the game, I was reminded why I do not like sports with moving balls. The soccer ball met me square in the face. For a few seconds, I wandered if I had a face. I vaguely recollect the guy saying sorry. Slowly, the numbness wore off and I realized the game had still gone on and that I was standing and okay. I played defense the whole game and never got the ball away from any player. I did however get a team that said I could come back to play again and a compliment from an opposing team member. He told me that my team's goalie should be thanking me because I helped him (the goalie) out so much. I was constantly in the way of clear shots to the goal. I don't think the opposing team realized that I had never played. That compliment ended a great first game. I am now an official member of an indoor soccer team. Go MD United!

Niagara Falls and Canada

Niagara Falls is just water, but amazingly wowed me as I came home with tons of pictures of it. I guess that it has to do with God's amazing creation. There are two falls, the Canadian Falls and the American Falls. I thought the Canadian much prettier and more impressive than the American Falls. The American Falls borders on being really, really steep rapids. The Canadian Falls however was horse shoe shaped with water cascading down with no interruption. The pictures where I am really wet is from taking a boat close to the Canadian Falls.



After spending Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning at Niagara Falls, Camille and I ventered over into Canada. I drove to Toronto in km/hr on the QEW, that pretty much was the only difference I found in Canada from the US. When we arrived in Toronto, Camille and I wandered around the city before deciding to be a little different and venture into the Hockey Hall of Fame Museum. It was strange for me considering I have only attended one hockey game in my life and really do not care either way about the sport. Camille liked it and tried on her favorite team's jersey. We took a picture with the Stanley Cup and then left. Camille and I dined in a small city (Burlington) near Lake Ontario. After walking the boardwalk, Camille and I headed back to the states. Getting back into the U.S. took a little longer than getting into Canada. We were questioned on specific things we did in Canada, how we met, where we were born, what state my car was registered (this one confused me, because the security person first went and looked at my plate before asking!?!), how we were financing our one day in Canada, and so forth. I was so happy to get through that interrogation in one piece.



The last day of the trip was spent finding a beach front for Lake Erie and driving home. We came upon a beach front, but it was private. Thankfully, the owner was very nice and allowed us to walk out onto her beach for a half-an-hour. While sitting on the beach, Camille asked me if the lake was fresh water. To prove to her it was, I went an stuck my tongue in the water. For all readers, Lake Erie is fresh water.

4th of July-ing

It was a perfect day in Virginia for fireworks and play. Camille and I met Uncle David and Shea at the Spy Museum in the afternoon. It was so much fun. We each took an alias and entered into the museum to learn more about how spying works, famous spies and much more. After finishing the museum, I was much more watchful of what went on around me. After the long afternoon in the Spy Museum, we went to get dinner North of DuPont Circle at a Fish Market Restaurant. I got an Arctic fish that tasted similar to Salmon. It was delicious. The next order of business was to get to Washington Monument. Unfortunately, right before we were leaving the restaurant it started to rain. It continued as we walked. After making it only a few blocks, the rain started pounding down. We sought shelter under an awning of a nearby building. We waited out the hard rain and then continued to Washington Monument. We got excellent seats on the grass fairly close to the fireworks. It was also a little to close to the loud live music being played by a country singer. Alas, everything can't be perfect. The fireworks were welcomed with the National Anthem and then had accompinant music during the whole show of good American tunes. The traffic afterwards was insane. The metro stop was flooded with people. After waiting in a massive crowd for twenty minutes without really moving, Camille and I decided to walk to the last orange line metro stop in DC, Foggy Bottom. That walk was so enjoyable, we decided to walk to the Rosslyn metro. This was a bad idea, but unfortunately was not realized until our sore muscles arrived at the metro.

Crazy fun weekend

This past weekend was very busy. On Thursday I got together with Christina for lunch. She is about one minute away from my work. We had a wonderful time catching up on life. It was great to hear how much she was enjoying school and how God was blessing her. I know that we will be having lunch again soon.

That night, Christina invited me to a pro soccer game. From my recollection, I have never watched a full game of soccer. I also had no clue about rules and basics about how to play. The fans were very intense. There were pre-written cheers and many of the fans stood up. Of the standing up fans, most stood on the bleacher seats! With less than fifteen minutes in the game, the elements let loose and we had to escape inside the stadium to avoid lightning. After a half an hour we were back on the bleachers. This time I joined the crazy fans and stood on the bleacher seat.

On Friday night, Camille, a friend of Camille's, and me went to see Ratatouille. It was excellent. The story moved along, all ages enjoyed, the main characters were likable, and I actually wanted to cook afterwards.

Moving on to Saturday. Camille and I went for a beautiful walk around Royal Lake. We both tried out our jogging course skills on the exercises around the lake.

The best day was Sunday. After church I went to brunch at Clydes with Opa, Oma, Uncle David, and Shea. It was wonderful to hang with family and eat great food. The climax of the day was going to see Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center has a fantastic view of DC from the terrace. Camille and I strolled the whole terrace before going to the opera.

a year of work

Wow! It has been a whole year of working in Virginia for me. There was hard times, but also rewarding times. I had trouble working with a few of my co-workers. One did not give me enough feedback in a timely manner. This caused a very horrible Friday, where my co-worker gave me to much feedback at one time. I started to cry. From this, I learned to keep persistently bothering my co-worker for feedback early on in my work. Getting my first project done was wonderful. To realize that I had a party with structural designing a small water tank in a country I will probably never visit.

Outside of work, my social life is slowing coming. I go many places and hang with many people from church. I also have taken short trips with my roommate. Overall, I have been blessed with new friendships as well as keeping up with old friends in AZ.

Summer is here and the bugs are biting

It reached the 90s today. In Phoenix, 90s are not to bad, but in Virginia the humidity makes the weather miserable. The rise in heat also brings my least favorite insect, the terrify, pain inducing, mosquitoes. I received my first bit yesterday. Unfortunately, the bite is on my foot. Itchy pain went with me each step I took today.

My Good Friend's Wedding

My good friend Deb is now happily married to her perfect match, Jonah. I was grateful to witness the wedding on the evening of June 8. Deb looked elegant, calm, and elated the whole day.
I realized at the wedding, that I have known Deb for over 10 years. We clicked the second time meeting and God blessed me with a wonderful friend in Deb. Watching her story unfold from the musicals, high school co-op, Coffee Talk, college, her meeting Jonah has been amazing. Through out the whole time Deb was God focused and a great listener. She contemplated a lot and her thoughts were always interesting and insightful. I look forward to watching Deb in this new stage of life.