Tournaments = Vacation

When we have 4 tournaments over the course of one summer, two of which require hotel stays for all 4 of us, and they eat up our time off from work...that kind of leads to them replacing what might have been a normal summer vacation. That doesn't mean we don't have fun!

I know I failed to document these occurrences this summer. They were sandwiched around family visits from out of towners, and one day I said to myself, "WHERE DID AUGUST GO???". It was just gone. I went to bed and it was July 31st and when I woke up, the kids headed out the door for school.

Here is a little peak into one of those tournaments. It was the least stressful for me because we only had 5 games (all for Maria) where the previous 3 tournaments had anywhere from 6-8 games each between both girls. Five seemed like a walk in the park!

Here is my girl running like the wind blows. I love it when she does that.





Here she just outsmarted someone and ended up taking the ball down to the corner where the other girl kicked it out. Maria loves to earn her team some corner kicks.

This may have been between games. Maria might be holding a giant machine gun and be shooting at the arcade game.

She is so sweet.

We brought some serious fire to the tournament with us:

I saw some very interesting things at this tournament. One of which was this train, carrying a plane.

If you look very closely, just to the left of the plane, there is a guy just standing on the train. I guess he is guarding the plane? Like someone is going to jump up on the train and steal the plane? Or maybe HE just jumped up there and he is going to steal it? Shoot. I should have called someone about that.

It looks kind of fun.

Now, the Sounders (whom I refer to as "my boys") like to have my presence at practice. I don't ask them why, I just do it.

You may think I am randomly bringing this up. I left Maria warming up on one field, and just walked over to this one and here is what I saw:

In this shot, Mike, Fucito, who had new stitches under his eye, is retelling the story of how he got them. He was elbowed in the face. The outrageous part is that the foul wasn't called. He was bleeding all over the place and NOTHIN'. You can bet we spent some time gesturing at the ref over that one.

This is Patrick Ianni doing a wicked slide tackle against Erik Friberg.

I love it when they do that.

I also love it when certain 11 year olds turn all pro NFL player on me and put black under their eyes. It makes them look intimidating, doesn't it?

This is actually (I swear it!) during one of Maria's games. Morrie is on the phone. My brother in law is on the phone, and Morrie's brother is on the phone. If I remember correctly, Loren was buying high, Ryan was selling low and Morrie was fixing an overheated server room.

Or Ryan was making fun of the brothers.

Yup, I am pretty sure that is what really happened.

And then, there was Summer

The kids got up early this morning and headed out the door for the first day of school. Can it be? Can it really be that time already? Summer just got here!! I was just starting to feel warm again. I am not ready for fall. I thought all day about summer. Well, mostly the 9 sunny days we have had just played back on a continuous reel.

Taken with my phone one morning on the way to work, summer means feeling warm at 8:30 in the morning because it is going to be over 80 that day.

Summer means shooting a bow and arrow just for the fun of it.

Summer means kayaking on the lake.

Summer means getting that all important haircut before school starts. The one that is easy to schedule because you have all the free time in the world.

Summer means soccer tournaments and in our house that means Mom gets to paint the windows of the car.

Summer means the flowers that we have been waiting for all winter, blooming like crazy.

Summer means picking cherries in the backyard.

Summer means lots of family bonding during soccer tournaments. We have played 21 games over the course of 8 little days this summer. Those 8 little days required hours and hours of driving, gallons and gallons of sunscreen, and really strong arms to cart around coolers of drinks from field to field.

This was taken this morning. Isabelle smiling the most epic of smiles after wearing a uniform for years and finally getting to pick out her own clothes every day. Maria is smiling because she gets to wear a different type of uniform now that she is in middle school. I am smiling because I am about to stuff them in my pocket and take them somewhere that stops time and they won't get any older.

Go away fall!

Bribes

I don't get to see my niece Maleah very often. She lives on the waaaaay other side of the country and we see each other maybe once a year. She is only 4 and sometimes she is still shy around me- because I am very scary. Very.

When they visited a few weeks ago, she had on her shy cloak and was not having any of her Aunt Andrea. No thank YOU.

That is until I invited her up on my lap to show her the funny stuff on my phone.

Who knew the iphone could bring families together??

We hung out frequently after this.

She thinks I am great.

Or that my phone is great.

Or somewhere in the middle of those two.

Colorspalsh for My Phone

Hold on to your hats, becuase I have a new camera app on my phone. I may or may not be up to 5 camera apps now. Possibly.

Most likely I am ridiculous that way.

But this one lets me COLOR!! It makes the photo all grey and I can manipulate where I want the color to be put back in!!!

I think I am in love.

By the way, Morrie did not appreciate being cropped out of that last photo. I am sorry honey.

This app is just for the kids.

Oh, and the dog.

And sometimes plants.

Summer, can you hear me?

As our area has been living in an impenetrable bubble of overcast, drizzly cold air, we have been desperately trying to find our summer. We spend our days peering into the sky for the sun, checking the forecast for hope and wondering when we can take off our jackets.

Poor Maria. Here she is wondering if she will ever see 80 degrees again in her life.


The dog is using her stuffed animals as an extra layer in order to conserve heat.



Kittens are supposed to be filled with energy and playfulness. Our kitten won't even move. I think she is depressed.

Our one ray of hope was a lone Sounders game where we weren't soaked to the bone. We didn't even have to get out the ponchos. Maria and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. We took a picture to preserve the moment.

We have been forced to spend long days indoors, wrapped in cozy sweats and watching movies. The dog is wondering when winter will be over. It's lasting FOREVER.

Our kitten was hoping for a hot tub.

Since it hasn't even felt like summer, I practically forgot that we had Isabelle's birthday! Since she turned 14, she got 14 gifts. Morrie was really amped up to turn 36, but I told him it's a girl thing and there was no way he was getting 36 presents.

Then I thought what the heck, and bought him a case of beer and a dozen eggs.

Isabelle's gifts were wrapped in paper that had beautiful maps of the world on them. I want her to have hope that she can move somewhere where people are happy and the sun does shine. She looked at them for days and begged to open JUST ONE early.

I said FAT CHANCE GIRLFRIEND.

That paper was pricey and we are going to spend at least a WEEK admiring it and complimenting it.

I enjoyed looking at them. I would be happy if I moved here:

(I think Tuscany is calling me...can you hear it??)

As I let her begin opening the gifts I told her to STOP and give me a model pose.

Then I told her to relax. She doesn't have to move anywhere hot.

She detests the heat.

Morrie and I will let her live here and WE will move somewhere hot.

She was very relieved and quite happy with that plan.

Pictures From My Phone

Although I haven't had the big camera out and about with me, I do have my phone. I thought I would share where my phone has been lately.

Keeping track of this little pip-squeak. Meet the newest member of our family: Ming.

She likes to meow much too loudly for her size, ignore the dog but be scared of our other cats, balance on the back of chairs, sit in the kitchen sink and growl at her toys.

My phone and I also went on a hike with some people from work.

My phone was absconded by a certain 11 year old at the mall who likes to take self portraits.

We may have been at a parade over the 4th and we may have seen the truck from my favorite farmers market.

There also may have been too many people sitting in front of us. Whatever.




This girl still enjoyed the parade. Maybe it was because we camped out next to a certain diner called "The Ranch" and we may have had some french fries during the parade. Verrrry American.

My phone also has been enjoying my new shoes.

These two fabulous people have been hanging out around me a lot lately.

My phone witnessed this dog playing tug of war with a pair of feet. She wants her stuffed bunny rabbit back!!

It must have really tired her out.

And that is how my phone spent the past few weeks. Stay tuned for more adventures from My Phone.

Our night in the ER

Well, the week started out good enough. Izzy and I enjoyed some sun at the Sounders game- which was AWESOoooooooOOOoooooME! (imagine that in my high sing-songy voice)

Then she had soccer practice on Thursday. They were scrimmaging and needed 2 goalies, so she was brought in as the second one (their full time goalie was at the other end). She tells me at one point she made a great save. GreeeeAAAAaaaat!

Her coach, who was playing on the other team took a shot and Izzy tried to block it with her hands. It didn't go so well.

When I arrived on the field near the end of practice, they were just finishing up their wind sprints and then capped off the night with 300 crunches. I could see her holding her arm close to her and knew she was probably in some pain. But she still finished the running and sit ups.

She doesn't like to show pain...or weakness...or have attention drawn to herself.

So instead, she sucked it up and finished practice.

My first look the big bump on her wrist was filled with motherly concern.

I wanted to hold her in my pocket and stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be okay.

During the ride home from soccer she tells me it would be okay if I took her to the ER.

WHOA.

Hold the bus. Even though she STILL wasn't crying this was a HUGE sign of how much it hurt.

We came home, and I had her shower and change (thinking if they put her in a cast, I didn't want her sweaty stinky self stuck in there for 4 weeks). Crazy? Maybe, but let me remind you that she still wasn't crying at all.

When I told her it was time to go, I found her in her room putting on make-up and putting on cuter sweat pants than the ones I had originally laid out for her.

Really? REALLY?

We took Maria to my moms house and as soon as we had Maria squared away, the tears came. 45 minutes after it happened, she finally let herself cry.

Thinking about it is making me cry all over again. One look at her face and I was tearing up. I am apparently made of weaker cloth than she. I am a mushy, gummy, emotional mess.

But you knew that already.

When we arrived at the prestigious Children's Hospital (because where else would an over protective mother take her child??) I felt better.

Izzy couldn't move her wrist at all, hardly any thumb movement, there was a huge lump on it and she kept saying it felt numb. They had a hard time feeling the pulse in her wrist.

They couldn't believe she finished soccer practice and gave her a gentle, loving lecture on taking care of herself. Then they started saying things that were freaking her out, like "bone doctor will be here soon" and "vascular damage" and "definitely broken" and "let's get an IV".

These scary words put her over the edge and had mom feeling pretty worried.

[Worried = scared so badly that her stomach was flip flopping and mom may have felt like she was going to throw up.]

Did I forget to mention that during this entire evening Morrie was at the Jabbawockeez show at the Monte Carlo hotel in Las Vegas?

Yeahhhh. Let's take a moment and think about THAT one, shall we??

When the doctor tested her range of motion and pushed on her wrist and told her to push back, this mom was a little woozy.

Isabelle was so stressed out about the IV, that her veins shrunk out of sight and they couldn't get the IV in. They wrapped her good arm in warm packs to see if that would help, and we kept her injured arm covered up because she didn't want to look at it.


(this picture is fuzzy because she lifted her head off the pillow when she realized what I was doing and gave me a stern "Moooom!")

[This picture has been removed to protect the innocent]

[And because I promised I wouldn't show it to anyone but Dad. It's just her in the hospital bed. Sheesh.]


I took this one while she thought I was texting.

(it has since been removed per Isabelle's request)

By midnight, the x-rays were done. The doctor came in and surprisingly said there were no fractures.

Wait, can you say that again? No fractures?

Then what the heck is going on?

They determined that when the ball hit her hands, her wrist dislocated and then popped back into place. Then a large amount of blood began pooling in the wrist cutting off her hand blood supply (hence the cold hand) and made a huge lump (that looked like a broken bone).


She ate the PB and J sandwich that I brought so they could give her pain meds. Then we waited for those to kick in while she slept under warm blankets.

I pushed 3 plastic chairs together and laid down. My leg fell asleep and my neck doesn't turn to the right anymore.

Meanwhile Morrie was sleeping comfortably in his bed at the Venetian hotel.


After the pain medication kicked in, the doctor came back and made Isabelle move her wrist more to begin to dissolve the large contusion she now has. She wanted to make sure the pain was masked before we did this.

It was hurting me so much that I asked for some pain meds too.


We finally made it home around 3am.

There wasn't too much traffic.

We spent the day today icing, providing meds and working on the contusion when it was icey cold and numb. Well...mostly numb. I could hardly feel it.

Tonight we had already planned a triple birthday party for my nephew, myself and Izzy at my sister's house. I ordered the cake earlier in the week and explained that it was a 14th birthday and could they make it look girly and celebratory- but no old lady pastel flowers. They always do a really good job, so with even the vague direction, I knew it would turn out great.

Plus, it would be a nice surprise for Izzy on this difficult day.

This is what I saw when I picked up the cake:



Um...wait...I did NOT order a 4th of July cake. What is going on??

When the guy saw my confused/dissappointed look, he looked at the order slip with the directions.

"Oh, I am so sorry ma'm. Our decorator had about 30 cakes to do for today and I guess she just glanced at this and saw the 4 from the 14 part and thought it was a 4th of July cake".

The cake looks lame. It looks like it has a flying mustard bottle on it and a ketchup bottle squirting mystery sauce.

Sigh.....This mom might have started crying because I went to bed at 3 IN THE MORNING and didn't get a lot of sleep with the neighbors car alarm going off at 4:30 and my mother calling me at 8 am and my dear husband calling from his plush hotel bed at 9am and I am really stressed about my girl's pain and THIS IS NOT WHAT I ORDERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's kinda been a rough day around here.