Only a few months behind schedule, here are a bunch of photos taken during fall 2014—that’s right, just last year. Most of the pictures are from soccer, with a few other snapshots thrown in for good measure.

Julia had the same coach, Jim Dueltgen—father of Phoebe and Zoe—as last year, and she had a great time playing with a bunch of other girls from Booksin. This was the first year the girls were playing in a U12 (under 12) league, so they were largely smaller and less experienced than the other teams they played against; in fact, Julia was still eligible to play in U10, but she opted to play up a level to stay with her friends. The team hung together through some ugly losses early in the season and put together a nice string of games at the end (albeit after the customary league–wide rebalancing halfway through to make things more competitive) to wrap things up. In the end, they were in a position to earn a trophy on the last day of the season–ending tournament, but things just didn’t go their way. Julia was disappointed, but she is already looking forward to next year—after some of the soccer–related drama we’ve had in the past, it was nice to hear her express that sentiment.

Joe also moved up a level, to U10, so he was often the smallest kid on the pitch. His team was very strong all year—if I recall correctly, they only lost one game during the regular season—so expectations were high going into the tournament. Unfortunately, the wheels more or less came off the wagon during the tournament weekend, and they ended up losing all three of their matches. Joe showed good improvement throughout the year, and mostly brought a positive attitude and healthy outlook, with only a couple of episodes of the pouting that has plagued him in his other endeavors over the last few months.

William loves being outside, so soccer season wasn’t any great hardship for him; we just had to make sure that he didn’t run onto the field when he saw the bigger kids chasing the ball around. He did get bonked on the head by an errant kick at one point, but by and large, he was happy sitting on the sidelines, playing with the equipment, and making friends with dogs.

In fact, the first time I personally saw him walking well was the morning of October 14, while we watched Joe’s team warming up for their game. I managed to capture the moment on video, which I’ll try to post sometime soon.

Gallery: Fall 2014.