Marco loves soccer. He lives, breaths, talks, watches, plays, dreams and sweats soccer.  He is improving everyday and you never know he could be the next Ronaldinho but I won’t hold my breath.

Today his soccer team they had their first match of the season and they lost 7 to 1...why did they lose? Well, I’m not a soccer specialist but as Matt pointed out here are a few of the reasons: Their goalie is the size of Bella, the coaching sucks, the kids didn’t know what position they were playing and the other team was double their size…

There were a lot of kids who left crying their eyes out, luckily Marco is a good sport and enjoys playing, which in the end is what is all about. So I’m proud not only of his participation in the game but his sportsmanship and positive attitude..

I will keep you updated on the season and see where they end up in the leage….

Bella learns how to crawl, check, learns how to walk, check, learns how to ride a bicycle, check, and now we can say bella learns how to swim, check!! Yes, a 15 day intensive swimming course and she is ready to go… Isabella is a very quick learner and our neighbors joke around that if the Olympics were not next month she could have easily entered and won a medal..hahaha, other predict she will be walking on water by the end of the summer.. But for now we are just happy she knows how to swim.

She is very scared of the water (we think, it’s the only thing she is afraid of), so it took her longer to let go and get swimming, but her fears are slowly going away, so let’s see what she will do next week!!.. Above is a quick video of her new achievement..

As most of you know Spaniards are soccer fanatics!! well, since we are living here, Matt & Marco have joined in the madness.. Tonight was the final game of the Eurocup Spain vs Germany and our entire urba gathered downstairs to watch the game and have some beers.. The men mostly watched the games while the kids ran around playing and the wives just gossiped and also drank some beers. As you can see from the pictured above the men were very into the game.. Luckily we won 1-0 after a 44 year losing streak.. You could imagine the celebration here… fireworks, screaming fans, cars beeping…and everyone jumped in the pool with their red t-shirts!!

Marco and Bella prepared by painting the Spanish flag on their cheeks..

They also prepared Matt while he took a nap by painting flags and the word “podemos” (we can, the motto of the game) on his back!!

 
Marco had his semi-final soccer game this weekend and they beat their opponents 5-1. Marco plays defense and just loves to not only play soccer, watch it on TV, play video games, computer games, collect cards.. He is a real fanatic..His tecnique is getting better but I’m not getting my hopes up that he will be the next Beckham.

But for now he is very happy and the exercise  is good for him..

On Sunday we went to a mini camping trip with Marco and Bella’s school. We met at the school grounds and took a bus to a city called Castalla and went to a mini camp ground called “campament de fonts”. As soon as we arrived there were monitors who took the kids organized them by age and started their activities. The adults were also taken aside and given choices of what we wanted to do..

Our choices were hiking and yoga, paddling a canoe and going over some net bridge to fall to our death, mountain climb and repel down...and other great ideas which you all know I’m not quite fond of. I wanted to hike and do yoga but Matt decided it would be fun to plunge to our death in the mountains and paddle our way in a canoe. And that is what we did…I don’t think I have laughed so hard in my life.. My one person kayak (canoe, whatever you want to call it) just wanted to go in circles for the life of me I couldn’t get it to go in a straight line.. it looked like water bumper cars more than anything, from there we were taken to bridge of death as I like to refer to it, where they hooked us up (not, me I refused!!) with a harness and a helmet (like the helmet is going to help you when you plunge to your death!!) and the willing participants like Matt walked across a net.. Anyway, from there were hiked a little then went tree climbing. I did dare to do this but didn’t make it quite to the top.. Matt did make it to the top!!

The kids had a ball, above you could see Bella rowing!! and no life vest, Matt took this picture I’m glad I didn’t see that.

Marco had a blast with all his friends, they saw caves, climbed, jumped…A little of everything.

Overall, we had a great time, ate a great Paella, drank beer, sang songs.. A really fun way to spend our Sunday, although today I’m sunburned and I’m not sure how I’m using my hands to type this because I’m very sore..

You can see all the pics here. 

Today Marco received the congratulation of his judo teacher for having the best Osotogari tecnique. He personally congratulated me and said Marco was getting better and better everyday, after 3 years in Judo Marco finally receives some praise.. The teacher was more excited than Marco.. His face showed a lot of emotion, as if to say FINALLY!!! hahahaha.. I guess he feels after all his hard work at last he sees some feedback.

Marco tried to show me what this judo move was but I had to look it up for myself. I found a video in youtube so you can all see what it is.. Congratulations Marco!!! 

Our friends Crystal and Jimmy came over the other day for a visit and Marco took the opportunity to show “Snap” his moves. Snap is an American basketball player who is playing this year for the Murcia team. We met him and his wife last year and just love them.

Marco is in that stage of his life where he finds everything fasinating and is starting to find out what he really likes and dislikes.. so far we know he loves soccer, he likes judo but I think could do without it, he is starting to really love guitar and piano is still a joy, but lately he has been very interested in basketball. For his birthday he asked for a basketball, that is all he said.

Well, as you can see from the video he has a long way to go.. you can view more pics in the December album.

Just a quick note to announce that Marco is officially an orange belt in Judo. He is so proud. He loves going to his judo lessons which he will have a break from now in the summer but hopefully next year he will begin again and go for his green belt. (I think its green next, if anyone knows for sure let me know).

Although it was not very sunny today but very windy Marco wanted to go swimming. The day was in between sun and clouds and he just kept looking out of the window to see if there was anyone in the pool, but nothing. Every few minutes he would check and see until finally I heard the yelling “Sofia, Sofia is in the deep end of the pool” “Mama, Mama hurry, hurry we need to go downstairs” and so we did. The water was freezing but that didn’t stop him and he jumped right in..

At first he was a little hesitant and wasn’t sure if he remembered how to swim. He held on tight to the edge until, he finally realized, hey I float.. yippeee…..then little by little, the same reason I was forced to take him to the pool (Sofia), became the same reason others started coming down. Marco saw Sofia swimming, Cristina saw Marco swimming, Emma saw Cristina swimming, Maria saw Emma swimming and so on and so on until the entire urbanization of neighbors was downstairs hoping their kids would not jump in to the freezing cold water.

All kids went in and swam for a little while but came out frozen, except Marco that swam for about an hour and a half until I had to take him out when his lips were blue…

Marco had his first soccer (here it is called futbol) match. His school called El Faro against another school team. He woke up at 7:30 am, dressed and ready to go..the game did not start until 10 am. He was so excited. The game was great, although they lost 1 to 2, but if you ask Marco how the game was he would tell you that his team one. He is not a great loser, the poor guy loves to always win and hasn’t realized that sometimes in life we can’t always win. Either way, we had a great time. Isabella cheered her brother on and then we went to the beach and had a great day.

you can view all the pictures here Marco’s first Futbol Game