Living Orange

NSC 2019 - Games 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10

We've had several Nashville Soccer Clubs to go to the last couple of months.

NSC played the Swope Park Rangers on Saturday, May 11th. The big boys did stripes across their faces and Gray did whiskers :)

The next day was Mother's Day so we got flowers (which Gray totally destroyed, of course).

NSC won 5-1!!!

On Saturday, May 18th, NSC played the Charlotte Independence. It was a beautiful night to watch soccer!

The boys played a little cornhole on our way to our seats.

Cutie with some crazy hair!

The game ended in a 1-1 tie.

On Saturday, June 22nd, NSC played Ottawa Fury F.C. The boys painted their faces again.

And they all caught their second mini-soccer balls with the new MLS logo!

That game also ended in a tie but the score was 3-3 so there was a lot of exciting moments!

NSC played New York Red Bulls II on Wednesday, June 26th. Unfortunately it was one of those summer nights with summer storms. The game was supposed to start at 7pm. But at 8:45pm when the game hadn't started and there was still a lot of lightning in the area (though it still hadn't rained at the field), we decided to go home.

Though we were entertained as we got to watch the Vandy baseball team take on Michigan in game 3 of the College World Series on the big screen. And when they seemed to have secured the win, the stadium switched over to the US vs Panama game in the Gold Cup tournament.

NSC had these cool temporary tattoos for Pride Month with their new logo. Rylan was game enough to put it on his face.

The game finally got underway after we got the boys to bed. Brian and I got to watch the first half on TV. NSC was up 2-1 at halftime when the storms started up at the stadium. After another hour or so, the game was called off. The teams will play each other in a couple of weeks but have to start the game over from the beginning.

NSC played against Indy Eleven at Nissan stadium this past Saturday (July 27th). We have already purchased our season tickets for next season when NSC will be an MLS team and be playing at Nissan Stadium until their stadium is built. Since we are also current season ticket holders, our seats were the same as they will be next year. And they are pretty good! We are on the front row on the goal side of the visitor's bench (we had planned on getting the goal side of the home bench but there were issues the morning the tickets went on sale and it took almost 30 minutes before it was figured out).

We got on the jumbotron before the game started.

Rylan had me paint his entire face before the game. But once we were in our seats, he was not happy about it. So before the game actually started, we spent 10 minutes trying to get it off.

Our view ...

We loved being on the sideline again. The boys pay much more attention to the game. Plus it's fun to hear the players talking during the game and we get to see their footwork up close.

NSC won 2-0! It was a fun game to watch!

Championship Swim Meet

The boys finished up swim season at the end of June with the county-wide championship meet. Both Carter and Rylan set some new PRs which is awesome! Carter swam Friday afternoon (June 28th, Rylan's birthday) and Rylan swam on Saturday afternoon (June 29th).

Rylan's events and times:

Boys 7-8 Years Old - 100 Yard Freestyle Relay AAAAA - 1:16.96 (2nd) - Best time by 4.89 seconds

Boys 8 & Under- 25 Yard Butterfly - 29.82 (18th) - Best time by 5.46 seconds (Rylan got a heat ribbon in this event!)

Boys 7-8 Years Old - 25 Yard Backstroke - 24.76 (23rd) - Best time by 1.92 seconds (Rylan didn't swim this event all season so this is improvement from last year)

Boys 8 & Under - 25 Yard Breaststroke - 31.93 seconds (31st) - Best time by 1.69 seconds

Boys 7-8 Years Old - 25 Yard Freestyle - 20.32 seconds (15th)

Boys 7-8 Years Old - 100 Yard Medley Relay AAAAA - 1:34.24 (2nd) - Best time by 7.58 seconds

Carter's events and times:

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 100 Yard Freestyle Relay AAAAA - 1:06.83 (3rd) - Best time by 6.26 seconds

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 25 Yard Butterfly - 26.03 (37th) - Best time by 10.41 seconds (Carter didn't swim this event all season so this is improvement from last year)

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 25 Yard Backstroke - 23.90 (44th) - Best time by 0.55 seconds

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 25 Yard Breaststroke - 28.04 (36th)

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 25 Yard Freestyle - 19.04 (43rd)

Boys 9-10 Years Old - 100 Yard Medley Relay AAAAA - 1:40.17 (8th)

Utah Trip 2019 - Day 3

This is what we woke up to on Monday (May 27th). There was probably 2" of snow on the ground.

We spent a little time in the tent playing games getting ready to brave the cold morning.

The snow continued through the morning and into the afternoon. We got about 4" at our campsite and about 7" at the higher elevations of Bryce Canyon.

Once we got brave enough to leave the tent (which wasn't warm if you got our of your sleeping bag), we cleaned off the tent and then had breakfast in the warm car.

We drove over to Sunrise Point to check out the hoodoos in the snow and take a few pictures.

With the snow getting heavy again, it was hard to get good pictures! Plus my lens kept fogging up!

We knew before leaving for our trip that there was a chance of snow. But we were already flying with a lot of gear and didn't want to pack another whole bag of snow gear (it was hard enough carrying all our other duffels and the kid carrier through the airport!). So we had to make due with lots and lots of layers and raincoats as the outer layer to stay dry.

Since we didn't have awesome hiking attire, we decided to drive through the park and stop at some view points.

Natural Bridge overlook was pretty awesome (when the snow slowed down enough to see it!). It's really hard to tell in these pictures but it's massive (85 ft tall).

We made it to the end of the road through the park and Rylan and I checked our Rainbow Point. The roads were getting rough so we only stopped for a couple of minutes.

It was pretty much impossible to see anything!

On our way back down through the park, Gray had had enough!

And the snow just kept coming!

You may have noticed I was taking pictures from the back seat. By this point in the trip I was sitting in the back between Gray and Rylan while Carter sat in the front seat. There was no more fighting and driving was so much more pleasant!

We stopped by our campsite and cleaned off the tent again (snow is heavy!). Then we ate lunch in the car again - we shared hummus, pretzel chips, and fruit.

Then we went to the visitors center to finish the boys Junior Ranger booklets. We went through the exhibits and watched a film about the park.

The snow was finally slowing down so we decided to do a hike. We parked at the General Store near Sunrise Point and hiked the Rim Trail north. While at the visitors center we learned about a program called "I Hiked the Hoodoos" challenge. To complete it, you have to hike at least 3 miles on specific trails and take pictures at 3 benchmarks. So our goal was to reach one of those benchmarks. Goals are always good to keep the boys going!

The hike was very muddy (and cold) but beautiful!

We made it to a benchmark!

It was about 1.25 miles to the benchmark so we did a total of our 2.5 miles. We had planned on doing a lot more that day but we so glad we still got to do something!

We decided with the weather that it would be a good day to eat dinner out. We drove over to Tropic (only about 10 minutes from the entrance of the park) and had dinner at Pizza Place. The pizza was so good and we had way more than we could eat. Brian and I got the chicken bacon ranch and the boys got a cheese pizza. We were so stuffed that we decided to do a short hike before heading back to camp.

Closes to Tropic is a hike that is part of Bryce Canyon NP (but not behind the entrance gate). Mossy Cave Trail is off of Highway 12 and is a short hike to a cave and waterfall. We probably did about 1.5 miles round trip.