Leena's first soccer game

Since Leena is attending school at the DOD on base, we thought she should do as many extracurricular activities as possible with the local kids.  Every town has their own Fußball (soccer) club.  Leena loves soccer and Taryn is anxious to play, so we wanted to sign them up.  It took us three attempts to show up at the soccer field on the correct day and time.  This was because we misread or simply could not read the website correctly.  At any rate, we finally did it right and I managed to get the girls to their respective groups (Greg had to work on this particular night and I was stuck at the soccer field solo).  Nothing comes easy!  Naturally, none of the soccer coaches speak English, so I managed to tell them that the girls did not speak German and away they went.  After 15 minutes, Leena motioned me over to her spot on the field.  Thinking that she needed her water bottle, I ran out there only to find her in tears.  She was crying because she was the only girl (out of about 15 kids) on the field and she could not understand her coach.  I let her sit out the rest of the practice.  In the meantime, Taryn ran around with all of the "Bambinis" and had a great time.  At one point, she did come over and tell me "Mom, I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing" to which I replied "just do what the other kids are doing". That night, Greg talked Leena into returning the next week by promising that he would stay out on the field with her.  Fortunately, Leena's coach agreed to have Greg "assist".  To my relief, a girl showed up on the second week to join Leena on her all boy team.  As a bonus, she is American and has been living here for three years and she speaks both German and English! 

Leena participated in her first European tournament this weekend.  When we arrived at the host soccer field in a neighboring town, this is the first thing we saw....

I thought it was a little odd that they would be roasting a pig at a children's soccer tournament and the kids were a little disturbed by it (as you can tell from Leena's face and honestly, I don't like looking at them either).  But hey, this is Europe, so I guess this is how they do it.  Come to find out, the town was hosting a fest (surprise!) later that afternoon and that is what the pig was for. Anyway, I digress... Leena's team ended up winning all four of their games!  We never figured out why Taryn's team did not participate in this tournament.  As you can tell from the pictures, the weather was fantastic.  No need to go to New England to see the change in seasons.... you can just come to Germany!