Our Family of Six

Baseball is often called “America’s pastime”.  It is certainly played in other countries, but it’s not as popular as it is here.  Sisi asked me why the championship is called the “World Series”.  Good question, since only the United States and Canada have teams in Major League Baseball.  (That question also makes you wonder why they call it the “Miss Universe” pageant.)  Our local team, the San Francisco Giants, won the 2010 World Series; this was a huge deal locally.  Our family went to a game last week; it was a lot of fun.  And the Giants won – hurray!

• The Giants play at “AT&T Park”.  The stadium has a beautiful view of San Francisco Bay.  The Coca-Cola bottle on the left is actually a slide that the girls had fun on.

If you say “football”, people in most countries of the world assume you are referring to soccer.  “American football” is played in other countries, and is often called just that.  John and I root for different teams.  My dad worked for the San Francisco 49ers for many years, and John grew up rooting for the Oakland Raiders.  We didn’t go see a professional football game this year; the tickets are expensive.  But Sisi went to every home game at her high school, and was sad when the season ended. 

Sisi was very excited to play “Powder Puff Football”.  Powder Puff is theoretically a no tackle game, but after numerous overtime periods during the Junior-Senior championship game, it was looking a little rough.  

Sisi’s question about football, “Why do they call it a ball when it isn’t round?”

Soccer is the most widely followed sport in the world.  Soccer in Brazil is part of the culture.  Understandable, since Brazil has won the World Cup five times.  The 2014 World Cup in Brazil will have some matches in Curitiba, Sisi’s hometown!  It may be a time for us to visit Sisi’s family.  (Unless we wait for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.  Wow – what an exciting couple of years for Brazil!)

We’re a soccer family.  John coaches and referees for AYSO, which stands for “All Your Saturdays Occupied”.  Okay, it really stands for American Youth Soccer Organization.  But when all three of our girls were playing and John was coaching two teams at a time, all of our Saturdays were spoken for during soccer season. 

• Kerri (age 12), Lisa (age 8), and Rebecca (age 5) - the first year all 3 girls played AYSO soccer.

Sisi planned on trying out for the varsity soccer team at her high school.  After seeing that over 60 girls wanted a spot on the team, she left it to the students to whom it really mattered.  And she had fun going to Rebecca’s games and cheering.

Since John is a huge soccer fan, he bought the soccer cable channels.  Sisi has been able to watch not just the main Brazilian teams, but even her hometown teams.

The other “Ball” this year was a version of a prom.  Sisi went to Francesca’s Senior Ball with her since the girls had so much fun together at Sisi’s prom.