West Muskingum vs. Tri Valley for the Muskingum Valley League Championship!

Friends celebrating a wonderful victory - MVL Champions!

A happy Jimmie Boyd and Cyrus Kinkead.

Paul, David, and Adam Wilson

I wasn't trying to knock him over, he was swinging me around in a circle. Such excitement!

Tri Valley set this up for us - it was so nice of them!

West M needed either a win or a tie against Tri Valley in our last game of the regular season to be the MVL Champions. If we lost to them, then Tri Valley was the league champion once again.

We beat Tri Valley 2 to 0 earlier in the season on our home field. This game was being played at Tri Valley on their 'senior night'. Tri Valley shot off fireworks while they were introducing their seniors and had quite a display going on and on and on and on. I was worried that it was going to 'psych' our kids out. They were feeling so much pressure! Sean said that he had a horrible time focusing on anything during the day of the game. That is really not like him.

It took a while for the team to settle in to playing their game - some of them played 'nervously' most of the night. Passes weren't the greatest. We didn't win the long balls as well as usual. But they played without stopping and picked up some steam at the end of the game, and it paid off! We are a better team than Tri Valley. Just wish we would have put one more in the net. Had several close ones. The game ended in a tie - 1 to 1! We are the MVL CHAMPIONS outright. The first time in many years (although we have shared the title a few times, including when Tanner was playing).

Sean did kick the assist that Dominic Cikhart scored off of! It was a beautifully placed pass! He had a near assist a little later in the game. And he nearly scored a goal from way out. It just barely missed. He had a non-goalie save. Did a great job for his team!
GREAT JOB WEST MUSKINGUM!
Looking forward to tournament action next week!

Click on this link to view the news broadcast about this game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLtPGH7ex3U

A Gorgeous Day for a Zoo Visit!

Ashley, Matt, Ryan, Katie pushing Averi, and Sean enjoy a nice stroll through the Columbus Zoo on a fabulous fall day!

Ryan was really amazed at that rhinocerous!

I think this was an extension of my birthday party. A delicious dinner at Genji's Japanese Steakhouse!

Sean's Senior Homecoming at West M 2010

Olivia Bobb, Sean, Ross Watts, and Tara Pumphrey

Sean took Olivia Bobb to Homecoming. I don't know a lot of details. They said they had a good time. Okay!

Sean's 'Senior Game' vs. New Philadelphia

Introducing Sean and proud parents.

Thirteen seniors and their parents! What a fantastic group of boys! Six of them are LDS. We will miss this group.

The traditional sheet to be hung on the fence during the senior game.

Stand strong, Sean!

Such a nice victory!

The 'senior game' where we honor all of the seniors on the soccer team. This year we have 13! Too many to have them all start the game (for those of you who don't know soccer, there are 11 men per team on the field). It was a beautiful fall day. The weather forecast was cloudy, rainy, maybe 60 degrees. Instead we were delighted to have the sun shining and it was almost warm - 70 degrees.

It was so much fun to have Nic, Kendyl, Matt, Katie, and Averi all here to share in the day with us! We wish everyone could have been here. Sean played a good game, and even though we had a scare at the beginning of the game (New Philadelphia scored twice in the first 10 minutes), we had the next 6 straight goals! We had heard that New Philadelphia was really good this year. They have a great record. However, we were much better. We just needed to settle in and make some adjustments. Pulled off a 6-3 win! Yea Sean and team! Sean will have great memories of this day. Thanks everybody!

Kendyl's Surprise Visit!

The big, well actually she is quite tiny, but regardless, a great surprise at the airport! It was so late, 11 p.m. Kendyl wasn't sure what she thought about the whole thing. It took her a little while to warm up. She is a daddy's girl. She didn't let him very far out of her reach. But she did give me some great hugs!

Watching the soccer team warm up before the big game!

Such a beautiful day!

The Nana - as happy as she can be!

Kendyl

Averi

Matt, Katie, and Nic - pregame conversation.

During the soccer game, they found it fun to chase each other on the baseball diamond, behind the bleachers.

Such friends!

There just can't be too many hugs!

More hugs!

Getting ready to head back to Utah!

Bye-bye papa! See you in Puerto Rico in December!

Nic flew to Ohio on Friday night, October 1, so he could watch Sean play soccer on Saturday. That in itself was very exciting, but when he stepped off the plane with Kendyl that just took the excitement level over-the-top! I guess most everyone knew about the plan, except for me. I was very surprised and delighted. What a great birthday present! We had a very fun weekend with them. Matt, Katie, and Averi spent lots of great time here, so those little girlies had fun with each other as well. They spent hours following/chasing each other around giving hugs and playing.

Thanks everybody for making it such a memorable weekend!

Love you!

Tate Fuhriman at Grandparents Day!

I got to go to Grandparents Day with Tate. He is a fun 2nd grader! He read me a book about Corduroy and The Best Day Ever!

Soccer Updates

He is always smiling! Look how well he tolerated his mother trying to get a shot of his purple eye while he was busy doing AP Government. Not a great picture - he didn't shut his eye all of the way. But you get the idea!

Defense during the Philo 9 to 1 game. Jim Boyd, Cy Kinkead, Sean Clark, & Aaron Berry.

Since the Tri Valley game we have had lots of ups and a few downs! We played Bloom Carroll High School and were ahead the ENTIRE GAME until the last four minutes and they scored twice - putting them up by one goal. It was our first loss of the season.

Three days later we played Philo and beat them 9 to 1.

We played River View and beat them 4 - 1. I don't remember the last time we beat River View! It was a sweet win.

Then we played Maysville. Remember earlier in the season we beat them 7 to 2? Well, we couldn't quite put things together. Ammon Laulusa got tackled three different times in the penalty box (the last time was with 4 seconds left on the clock & the ref decided not to call it because essentially the game was over!!!!) Not once did he get the call. And he should have had 3 penalty kicks. So frustrating! Lots of crowd yelling! Oh well. We ended up tying Maysville 3-3.

We played Lancaster and they were really tough! We beat them 2 - 1.

Last night we played Morgan.... 11 to 0. Sean took a hard hit to his left eye by the back of a guy's head. He has a really colorful eye to show off! At first I thought from a distance that the hit popped his skin open. Then I was afraid for a while that his cheek bone may be fractured. It was so swollen and his nose was bothering him. He talked funny. But he didn't even get a nose bleed, so they never stopped the game and he didn't ever go out.

We only have two regular season games left. It has been an extremely enjoyable season, with the exception of the Maysville tie!