some pics of my home-stay siblings and two of the teams i coached. em and me up top, the delafield girls, the oakbrook girls, and my sister becca in germany just above. 

heck yes we were in the newspaper. don't bother trying to read - mom - because it is written in Deutsch. i believe one of the headlines reads, "Weidelbach vs Eagles - not a chance." yeeees im pretty sure we won every game - =). the picture above is the women's team that went on tour in Germany - yep, there really is just 13 of us... one is the coach and one is the coordinator... you do the math. 

i've been sifting through nearly two-thousand summer shots with the hope to find a few jewels - a.k.a. pictures i look amAzing in ... just kidding - i came across a ton of landscape and architecture pics that i thought i would share (it might have something to do with an inquiry like "hey nicole do you have any more germany pictures?). the fact is, i didn't. i don't have a camera. buuuuuuuuuut Serena volunteered to compile everyone's pictures and make a cd for the entire group - she also volunteered my computer. 

delafield

the trip to Wisconsin was a blast. Coach Lance and I ran an advanced camp by ourselves at a seperate site all week - he had a coed high school group and I had a U-12 girls team. my little sister EMILY was amAzing and we had a sweeeet time kicking it during the week. i bought both of us a USA donovan tshirt - how cute!

i lived solo all week while Serena and Jessica roomed at a mansion on Lake Nagawaukee. Of course, I visited and we tubed in the sunset.

The Shevelands loaned me their GMC Denali. Let's be honest - I was terrified. It had XM radio and I'm gonna have to say I'm definitely a fan (channel 75 is my fav). Once in awhile I would roll down the windows and blast hip hop for Emily - good times.





COLEY AND ROLEY POLEY. Juan Carlos was my absolute favorite camper in pilsen. he was about as tall as he was wide and watching him run was comedy. 

overbooked

Serena and I are going terminal at the moment. We are sitting in the beloved O'hare airport hoping that we can snag a seat on the 8:15am to Seattle that has -4 open seats and twenty-leven non-revs.

it looks like we might be able to fly out tuesday. for now we will just hope and pray that we can get home at all. =( 

extra pilsen

those who know me know that i'm really not a big fan of cake, BUUUUT Dolph baked all of us a strawberry frosted white cake and it was AMAZING and SATISFYING.


serena and I had a horse race with the kiddos. coley and roley poley won!


during our road trip to Delafield Wisconsin jessica and I got a little wacky

we just finished up our second to last eagles camp in Delafield.... more info to come. 

Pilsen

this week we are staying in a neighboorhood in Chicago. it is the second larges hispanic community in the nation (1st is LA). rachel, serena and I are staying on the second floor of this triple decker. we have the whole flat to ourselves. i'm sleeping on the couch.


rachel, seth and me hanging out at harrison park

before we moved to pilsen our group spent and evening walking through the neighborhood passing out flyers and recruiting potential campers. i met a ton of joses, a nikolas and a javier to name a few.

after the first day of camp a mom was walking my way with her shy little son hiding behind her. she told me that her son wanted to say something. he slowly came out of hiding and said, "you are the one who invited me to camp." i instantly remembered who he was and said, "what's up Nikolas!? I'm so excited you came!" his mom had a huge smile on her face and he started to giggle as I gave him a huge high five. he reported that he was having a lot of fun. it was a sweet moment.

rachel, serena and I came home to a kitchen full of boys after soccer practice. yep, the guys invaded our flat and cooked us dinner. we had to wait outside on the porch and the front room until it was ready. we were each escorted to the candle-lit table and our ushers had postured arms adorned with napkins. it was cute.


the next night the girls decided to make breakfast-for-dinner for the guys. they ended up taking over anyway. our boys just like to cook.

the kiddos taking cover - how cute!

it all started with a little bit of mud... and then it rained a little harder...

the rain in spain falls mainly in the plains. here it falls right onto Harrison Park.
we had a rainstorm on tuesday AND THAT MEANS MUD, a lot of mud. we were getting kind of dirty just playing out in the rain anyway, so we decided that if you scored you had to dive in the huge mud pit in the middle of the field. seth scored and did a slide tackle... matt scored and did a belly flop... rachel scored and did a knee slide... I scored and did a full out superman. the kids had a sweet time getting us dirty from head to toe.

serena didn't score, but trust me, she got dirty



serena, matt and I bought a pinata as a surprise for the rest of the group and we set it up during the breakfast-dinner.

I just wanted to show you how hideous the pinata creature was - it's the one with the black and white stripes =)

matt's twirling me and tim's hitting me on the head with the bat before i get to take a crack at the pinata... they even made me do "i'm a star" jump (we have it on video).

Dolph, Coach Coffee, and his little buddy Cristian at the Pilsen soccer camp.

me and Serena at open mic wednesday night

Matt, guitar/vocals, and Justin, drums, entertained us at Cafe Mestizo. I have tons of video BUT NO PICS!! definitely will work on that.

blob tag! don't you miss being a kid?
yep that's me... getting paid for smacking kids with fun noodles while going through a tunnel in an obstacle course. good times.

Oakbrook Camp

doesn't it just look like so much fun? 

vamos a chicago

serena and Matt Kearney outside of H&M


the group went to chicago AND IT WAS MY FIRST TIME. i didn't expect the windy city to be so neat and tidy - it was incredibly CLEAN. i don't think it has as much character as Seattle, but it is sweet nonetheless.

FLASHBACK
so on the fourth of july KB and I were wrestling and she stepped on my adidas thong sandals and they BROKE =(. sorry gblock, I LOVED THEM. i think they are reparable - and I tried to repair them so that I could wear 'em during the trip to Chi-town BUT THEY BROKE...
PRESENT TIME
...again and this time it was in H&M (a sweet clothing store). we were all shopping and the white electrical tape that i used just didn't hold up. BUUUT i found these sweet soccer ball thongs for $4 so I bought them as temps (turns out that I paid $4 for blisters). while in line to purchase this sweet striped wife-beater, i asked my amigo Matt to snatch me a size 6-7 of those temporary toe torcherers that i needed. when he left i started making small chat with the guy behind me in line who was buying the same exact hat i had bought in germany for Nicky. when Matt started to return the guy had told me, "he didn't even check the size." i just smiled at Matt and noticed that he was in his own little world. he then turned to the guy behind me and asked, "has anyone ever told you that you look like Matt Kearny?" The guy started to laugh and said "I am Matt Kearny...., and no I don't think that anyone has told me that."

It turns out that Matt Kearny is one of Matt's favorite Christian guitar players/vocalists and he had been playing at the Taste of Chicago the night before. I didn't know who he was and didn't pretend to, but he was a good conversationalist and I enjoyed the exchange.

serena, dolph and rachel's team won the younger division Cup 

world relief cup

i know what you're thinking, and NOPE it's not wild and crazy kids. last saturday the eagles participated in the world relief cup. it was for local refugees. I coached a team with kids from somalia, bosnia, and russia - it was a pretty sweet mix. the camp was represented by even more countries in Africa and even the Middle East. 

Coach Trippy RIck

Rick McKinley, the director of Chicago Eagles, broke his ankle while pinching in a soccer match in Germany.
on the 4th of July we all crammed on to Rick's front porch after the Main Street parade to watch Germany lose to Italy =(.