Co-ed Tournament in Vegas

 Every year some awesome friends of ours put a team together to play in a soccer tournament in Vegas!  I have never been able to go, and I was determined that this year was going to be my time, dang it!  Well, it seems as if the forces of nature are against me.  The tournament ended up moving weekends, which meant that it was going to be day after the one day of the year that I CANNOT miss work - Graduation.  Ahhh!  

But, don't worry, the story is not over.  Like I said, I was DETERMINED to go!  I had committed, I had told my sister Nicole that we were going to do it together (she was missing running the Ogden Half Marathon to do it), we had talked my little brother Christian into doing it, and by golly, I was going to do it!  So we decided that all we really could do was leave after Graduation.... at 8:30pm.

And that is what we did!  I bolted home from work, changed my clothes, and hit the road by 8:50pm!  I arrived in Farmington before 10:00, where I picked up Nicole, Christian, and Dustin (who we convinced to come along for the ride), and we were on our way by 10:20.

"On the road again.... Just can't wait to get on the road again!"

The drive was really fun :)  Everyone stayed awake to keep me company, and we had some good laughs!  I only almost killed us once, which is good ;).  We arrived in St. George where we had decided to stop to get a few hours of shut eye around 2:30am.  Biggest Mistake EVER!  Haha.  We stayed at a cheap-o hotel that was so nasty, I didn't dare even take my shoes off.  Dustin sprayed the room with hairspray to try and mask the smoke smell, and we all laid down to try and get some sleep.  Problem is, I didn't sleep at all.  Oh well, 2 1/2 hours later, and we were on the road again!

Then sometime along the way it hit us... we forgot to factor in the time change.  We could have slept another HOUR!  Brilliant :)  But, we just laughed and carried on.  We arrived in Vegas about 7:00am.

The first day of the tournament was great.  We had 3 games: Won the first two 4-1, 11-0 (that was a fun one), and then lost the second one by way more than we should have.  It was totally lame.  Here we are taking some fools to school ;)

Or looking like a fool rather ;) At least my one leg looks buff!  It's been awhile since I've seen that!  Ha!  (P.S. Thanks to our friend Kami for taking the pix!)

  

Nicole - our All-Star defender.  No one gets past her!

 Christian really did take some fools to school!  In our last game he pretty much literally dribbled through their whole team.  Don't be deceived by this picture, that girl was dang good.  Then this was me, "Hey! That's my little brother!" as I'm on the sideline icing all of my sore old muscles (just kidding - although I definitely feel it more now than I used to!)  I was hoping a little tiny bit that someone would get hurt so that Dustin could play, haha.  That sounds terrible, I just love my family ok?!

After our 3rd game, we headed back to the hotel to take a dip in the pool.  It was seriously like HEAVEN!  The water was perfect and felt SOOOO good on my sore legs.  Oh BTW, I forgot to mention that the weather was in the upper 90's while we were there.  Yeah, hot.

We concluded the night with an amazing dinner at Sweet Tomatoes with the team.  I've never been there before and it was pretty tasty!  Especially the soft serve ice cream, with tiny cake cones!  I'm a sucker for soft serve.

I am just now noticing that girl in the back!  Ha! :)

The second day we only had one game.  We lost 1-0 and it was also pretty lame.  The girl that scored their goal was totally shocked that she scored, and we kept getting called offsides when we were CLEARLY not.  It's ok, I'm over it ;)

When all was said and done, we'd played teams from Albuquerque, NM, somewhere, somewhere, and Seattle, WA.  We really had a blast!

 

Our awesome team!

 I have so much fun playing with my siblings.  I miss the days when we all played indoor together (with my dad - ha! :) ).  I'm getting nervous about getting old.  I really do love soccer, and I've finally gotten to the point I think where I can accept that I'm not as good, or fast as I used to be, and that's ok.  I just want to play and have fun!

After our last game, we got slurpee's and then went back to the hotel.  That may seem like a silly thing to blog about, but I don't know that anything has ever hit the spot more.  I think it was the most delicious thing I've ever had!  Anyway, then we hit the road!  We stopped at In-n-out on the way home, which was also mighty tasty. 

The drive home was full of more laughs.  I didn't almost kill us this time, which is good ;).  On the way home, we also got to try and watch the eclipse!  For some reason it was really funny... most likely because of the serious sleep deprivation.  Here is Christian, being funny :)

Dustin is wearing my sunglasses ;)

All in all, it was one great weekend!  Short, but great!  I love being able to spend time with my family.  They always seem to make a potentially miserable situation fun and exciting.  Wish more of them could have been there!

Thanks for the invite Kami and Neil!  We had a blast!