The Soccer Practice That Wasn't

Thursday was supposed to be Phoebe's first soccer practice. There was a lot of excitement around here most of the day on Thursday.

Practice was scheduled for 6:30. Around 4:30, there was a little bit of thunder outside. I wasn't overly concerned because we did have 2 hours to go. And the thunder did, in fact, stop for a while. We left the house about 6:15 and it was thundering again. I started preparing Phoebe for the possibility that practice could be cancelled. She kept pointing out, "It's not raining, mom!" So, I had to remind her that thunder meant lightning and lightning probably means no practice.

About 2 minutes from the house, I said, "Wow, Phoebe, look at that wind!" A big gust of wind was blowing dirt across the road and quick on its heels was the rain. Sheets and sheets of rain blowing across the street. We kept driving toward practice, my hopes fading. When we arrived at the park, it was raining harder than I've seen it rain in a while. There were rivers along the curbs of the streets. Phoebe still had hope. That's my girl.

I parked and called the house to see if the coach had called. He had, of course, and we drove home. Phoebe, as you might expect, was less than thrilled.

I managed to get a small smile out of her.

After playing around in the puddles, we came inside and the girls played a little bit.
This did help improve Phoebe's mood. Note the spiky black hair at the bottom right of the picture. J sure likes to be held.

This was the sky outside trying to decide what it wanted to be. A little stormy, mostly sunny, still thundery.

We also noticed these two little guys. They started showing up this week around 5:30 in the evenings. We have 3 windows in our living room. One gets on the left window and the other gets on the right window. I'm not sure if they are aware of each other, but they are always there at the same time. Judging from their bellies, I'm thinking it must be a good time of day to catch bugs around our windows. I couldn't tell you if the same one gets on the same window each time.
This one decided he wanted to hide. He wasn't stuck. because he's long gone now.