My Soccer Habit: Summer Tournaments: Part I

Our summers are defined by how many days until our next soccer tournament and how far along we are in packing. Luckily our first tournament this year wasn't so far away that we couldn't sleep in our own beds at night. However, since both girls have the same coach, both girls went to this tournament. In order for the coach to make all the games, they schedule them every 3 hours. When you add warmup time in there, we had about 30 minutes between each game. Meaning we were never able to leave the field.

Meaning we were there for 11 straight hours on the first day and 10 hours on the second day.

I still can't believe how we were able to survive.

Did I survive?

Those 21 hours equal Mom having to pack a Ginormous amount of food for 4 people over 2 days. Plus, the food has to be really tasty, otherwise everyone will whine that they want the fries being offered in the food tent. It's not easy, especially when Mom is preoccupied with making sure the first aid kit is extensively outfitted.

What?

We have had everything from contacts popping out, face balls, sprained ankles, bloody noses, sunburns, you name it. And that is just my kids, I worry about ALL of the girls on their team. I like to be prepared.

Today, we will be reviewing Maria's experience at the tournament.

I consider myself pretty smart in regards to soccer and everything that has to do with soccer and anything that sounds like it might be related to soccer.

But I don't think you are supposed to have this much fun on the bench:

Her shoes are really bright and colorful this year, and that means she can run really fast in them.

The ball likes to stay close to shoes like that:

Can we take a second to discuss these freckles?

I think they are super adorable.

I'm sorry, I got off topic.

Back to soccer: I have noticed that she likes to play with her forearms out- creating a protective bubble of space that no one should dare to enter.

Even if she can't see you, she will put her arms out.

Sometimes I put my arms out to help make that protective bubble, but she always asks me to stop embarrassing her.

Why do I even worry? She will just shove people out of her way.

Her team scored 20 goals in the tournament (over 4 games) and only had 1 goal against them. They don't even have a goalkeeper, they just all take turns every 15 minutes. You can imagine how much Maria loves to be goalkeeper. Especially when her turn came in the championship game!

You know me...

I was having a heart attack and wanted to throw up when she was in goal.

She was probably keeping calm by visualizing this memory from earlier in the day:

They were taking pictures of this:

CUTE! She was squealing like a 12 year old girl.

Not the dog, my daughter.

I am telling you this- if you try to push her off the ball, she will not take it well.

She will make you sorry, even if you are wearing matching headbands.

They are so cute when they pose all professional like.

Especially when they sweep their division.

But they also smell really NOT GOOD when they play soccer all weekend and the sun comes out and makes them even hotter and then they take their shoes off in the car.