Lake Tahoe Soccer Tournament

 This year we were lucky and got both Hank AND Lyla's teams into the Lake Tahoe soccer tournament in June.  We headed up there right after our Hawaii vacation, so we were just hoping everyone wasn't too partied out and could participate at their usual levels.  Lyla's team came in second, losing a heartbreaker in the finals 1-2 (Lyla scored the only goal!), and Hank's team won their last game, which was quite a victory since they were playing up to the Silver division.  We were fortunate to have Aunt Emma and Uncle Aaron there for parts of the weekend too.

Now, the crazy story from the trip.  Saturday after Hank's second game (it ended close to 8pm and had been SLEETING during the game!) we discovered that my van had a HUGE screw in one of the tires.  No big deal, right? Wrong!  Well, it turns out every tire place in Lake Tahoe was closed on Sunday, so there was nowhere to get it fixed.  Dustin made a plan to drive to a town on the border of Nevada the next morning to fix the tire while I stayed with the kids and got everyone where they needed to go.  We make it downstairs to breakfast and Hank starts throwing up.  I hand Lyla off to a teammate's family to make sure she gets where she needs to go on time, then Cecilie helps out with Hank.  We get him fixed up (we think he was exhausted) and I leave Jack and Hank with Cecilie and drive to Lyla's semi-final game.  Aunt Emma calls to say her flight was cancelled, which I can't help with but still a bummer.  Dustin calls to say they don't have the tire, and he needs to drive to Carson City to get the tire fixed.  A mile before he gets there, the tire blows out on the interstate, so he's on the side of the road trying to get the lugnuts off - and they won't budge!  He finally gets them off, the spare put on, and gets to the tire shop.  Hooray!  Lyla wins her game and I'm going to grab food for her and meet back up with the boys.  We grab some food, then camp out at a spot to wait for our friends, and my pants split right out.  Like, completely split.  Dustin had all our clothes in his van, which is now in Nevada.  I saw there was a Marshall's nearby so I tied my jacket around my waist and drove there to find a passable  replacement.  Success!  We met up with the boys and finally sat down for lunch.  Jack walks over and says he feels like he needs to throw up. Dustin also calls to say that the tire place is taking forever and he won't be back in time for Hank's team's warm up.  I was on the verge at that point, as was Dustin.  Jack ends up keeping all his food down, and Dustin makes it back five minutes before the game starts!  The boys win that game, and I run to go to Lyla's finals match (another mom came to get her so I wouldn't have to leave Hank alone).  They lost their finals game, and I was ready to get out of town before anything else could turn sour on this crazy day.   Since Aunt Emma is still in Sacramento, we stopped off to visit her and all of Uncle Aaron's family for dinner and dessert before making the rest of the trip home.  We made it back in one piece and needed about a week to catch up from our crazy weekend!