I'm not crying-you're crying

High school season has come to an end-cue the water works

This is the also the end of Aiden's high school soccer career-cue the big water works.

First of all, Taylor had another amazing season.  She started every Varsity game and was rarely subbed out.  It was so much fun to see how much she has improved from last year.  Coach Jose is one of the best coaches we've had and he does a great job of helping Taylor feel confident and still motivated.  She is a vocal leader on the field and Her and Aiden were both given regional player honorable mentions.

Aiden also started and played every single game.  Man, it was fun watching this kid play.  That has seriously been one of the highlights of my life.  Watching him on the field-working, running, celebrating, succeeding.  Aiden shines when playing soccer and saying goodbye to that is very very hard.  I am kind of heartbroken that it's over.  I am worried about how he will fill this void. Soccer has been such a big part of his life, a big part of who he is. 

The team advanced to the 1st round of the 4A finals, meeting Amphitheater High in a home game.  The whole game was pretty intense.  Players were emotional and the game was getting pretty physical. Amphitheater had a player out of control who got kicked out. Even with the other team playing down a player, we still couldn't pull ahead and the game ended in a 3-3 tie.  We ended up doing penalty kicks.  Each kick was intense and we were tied when Aiden took his kick.  It was seriously like a movie-Senior year, last game, tied PKs and the lead character has to take the last kick.  Thankfully, Aiden made a perfect shot and I started crying with relief/happiness/grief.  Unfortunately, our next player missed and Walden lost the game. 

I was able to keep it together during Senior night.  But, once that last game was over, we all got emotional.  As soon as the PKs were over, Aiden bent over with his face in his hands and started sobbing. His coach came over and put his hand on his back and just stood by him under the lights while he cried.  It was sweet. (I took a photo but was worried it would embarrass Aiden so I deleted it soon afterwards).  For the next two weeks, my emotions were pretty close to the surface.  I made a highlight video of every single soccer video we had since he was a little kid (for his graduation party).  That was pretty emotional but it also helped me to just cry things out.  Thankfully, Aiden has a few more weeks of club season so we have a little bit more games left. But this feels like a very big loss and we are grieving a bit (part of me knows this is a bit dramatic, but its also true.)

Aiden, we are so proud of you both on and off the field. Cheering you on all these years was one of our greatest honors!