I can't believe I did not find time to blog this past week. Between all the soccer games, keeping Cassie entertained, driving all over the place, working out.....oh and NOT having free Wi-Fi in the hotel.....it just didn't happen. I could have blogged from my iPhone but it takes too long and I would make too many mistakes. I arrived in Dallas with a cold that just never went away, or at least worked into allergies from all the wind and pollen, so I felt crappy most of the time. Even today, Monday, I am still stuffy and coughing.
We arrived late Saturday night and were picked up by a coach that arrived earlier in the day, in 2 large passenger vans. By the time we got a bite to eat for the team and arrived at the hotel, it was close to 1 am. The descent on the plane was quick and as a result, I experienced the WORST head popping, ear plugging pain I have ever had. I had tears running down my face as we landed. Usually, Alexander is the worst but I was right there with him. It was so bad that I still could not hear well the next day. It felt like I was underwater. Sunday was an off day, the team was just holding practice but of course wanted to go watch some games. Cassie and I were picked up by my niece Karyna and her husband Jorge and went to eatZi's, this great little deli with fresh salads, sandwiches, cheeses, breads, pastries....and picked up salami, cheese, bread and a salad and went to downtown Dallas and went to a park and had a picnic. Then we went to the book depository where Oswald shot Kennedy. There is actually an X on the street on the spot where he was shot. Kinda morbid, but a part of history. My parents were actually in bed, on their honeymoon in Reno, watching the coverage on tv when he was shot. Dad would have gotten a kick out of us being there if he were still alive. So many businesses close on Sunday and it was odd to walk around downtown in a major city and see only some restaurants open.
Monday, the team played Chivas from Mexico and we won 3-1. That afternoon, I had the opportunity and extreme pleasure to drive to Fort Worth to take classes at Fit for Life. Alex had introduced me on Face Book to a couple of instructors, one who teaches at this small club that is just teeming with Les Mills programs. Chris is a National Presenter for BodyStep. I have never taken a step class so I was thrilled to take it from such a great instructor, plus it was the launch of the new BS. Cynthia, the 18 year old daughter of one of the coaches, came with me (she had come to one of my BP classes back home and joined 24Hr after, and had just arrived on a plane that day and wanted to come work out with me). What struck me the most was how friendly these people are - one of the instructors, Nicole, came up to us and introduced herself, found out we were new to step, remembered our names afterward...very warm welcome. Step was way more fun than I expected. I didn't fall on my face like I feared, just tripped once and kept up! Great cardio workout and my legs were toast for BodyPump, which was right after. Sherry and Christy were the instructors for BP. I spent time after talking with them. What I love about LM and BP is that during the class, it was consistent, familiar, and strangely validating for me as an instructor. Christy sounded like me! What I mean is, the cueing, the coaching, it was so strange and comforting to know that I was doing alright. That I sound like another instructor. They have both been instructors about 6 months longer than I have. Such nice people!
Tuesday, we played a team from DC and won 4-0. One of the dads on the team went to the hospital in the middle of the night with severe throat pain and they admitted him. Gave antibiotics and cleaned out the tonsils. The entire team converged on the hospital room after the game with a card and balloons, visited and then went back to the hotel. The boys have been so good, respectful and not crazy teens. I took a video of them all squeezing into the elevator at the hospital. They found ways to entertain themselves. That night, the team went to the mall and went ice skating, and Franklin, Cassie and I went with Noe, Erica, Cynthia and Emma to the movies to celebrate Emma's 9th birthday. The movie theatre had tables at every seat with full food service. We had already eaten dinner but ordered popcorn and water and they served us at our seats. Pretty cool. They don't have theaters like that out here.
On Wednesday, Cynthia (my new workout buddy!) and I went to a 24Hour Sport in Irving to take BP from Amy. This place was SO nice, it was like the Super Sport in California! Amy was great fun and totally excited to see me. She even asked me to shadow so of course I moved my equipment to the front and shadowed with her. I had been going up on my weights because these Texan women can LIFT! Puts me to shame. I definitely have to step up my game. Amy was fun and we chatted for awhile after class also.
Wednesday evening we played a Dallas team and beat them 5-1. This win meant that we made it into the quarter finals on Friday!
Thursday was an off day for the team. I got up super early and drove out to Fort Worth again to meet Carol and take BodyVive. This is another LM class I have yet to try, and it was fun but overall not one of my favorites. Carol was so sweet and excited to see me, introduced me to so many instructors, including Pinky, who owns FitMarc, which is LM South Central. Nice, nice lady. When I returned to Dallas, the boys were off to practice, and I played chauffeur to Franklin and took him to see a game that one of our players was in. Cassie and I killed some time by shopping at Target. We ended the day swimming while the boys went off to Hooters for dinner, ordered room service and relaxed.
Friday morning I got up at the UNGODLY hour of 5:15 and went to a 6:00 am BP class. I knew I probably wouldn't get any more workouts in on this trip so I wanted one more shot at BP and the 24Hr Active was just 4 miles away so I couldn't resist. I was amazed that even though I arrived 5 minutes early, I almost didn't get in because there was a sign up sheet and the woman in front of me was the last one! I told the guy at the front desk that I was an instructor from California and he told me I could ask the instructor, so I went into the class and introduced myself. She was happy to have me join the class. I found, though, that early morning BP and I do not like each other! It was SO much harder than I expected. I had been increasing my weights all week to try to catch up to these strong Texan women and it was a struggle in this class! I hadn't eaten anything either, so I was famished at the end. We chatted afterward, again, very hospitable.
Friday our game was at 11am, the quarter finals. We had to win each game now to move on. We won this one as well! The boys are playing SO amazing. The bummer is that since Alexander is a guest player (5 of our Juventus players were here as guests) he didn't get to play each game, and if he did, it was only 15 minutes or so, but the experience of being out here, with a team this talented, he is really enjoying it and learning alot. It is just hard as a parent to see your kid sitting on the bench when you know he is a great player - but some of these boys, WOW. Really talented. Alex has to step up his game to really be at this level. He has so much potential and can definitely get there, with hard work. He is ready.
That night, we headed to Denton to visit Karyna and Jorge. A little tour around Denton, dinner at their favorite restaurant, then Karyna was singing at a local coffee house. Cassie was excited to see her again. We have been able to visit twice this week. We ate dinner at a little English pub that served great food and is a favorite of theirs. We treated them and their friend to dinner, much to the chagrin of Jorge, who had wanted to pay. I told him that we have become the old aunt and uncle that will not let the young kids pay - I remember my own aunts and uncles doing that for us and since we really didn't spend much on this trip because it was all wrapped up with the team costs that we had already contributed to, we were able to do it. I felt old, though!
Karyna has been singing for years now, but I was literally brought to tears listening to her because now she is writing her own songs and composing her own music and she has grown incredibly since the last time I saw her perform, as a musician, a vocalist, and in general, as a woman. She is 28 years old and this is the perfect place for her at this time. Denton is a very supportive community, especially for musicians like Karyna. I am excited to see where she goes from here, as she is getting ready to record her first studio album with a producer she met here.
Saturday was our semi-final game. The winds here - unreal. So strong, and warm. They have made it difficult to play in all week, but today they proved to be detrimental. We were playing another team from Mexico, Estudiantes Techos. Honestly, they were not better than us. I don't say that because they beat us. I say that because it's true. The winds did not work in our favor, but we did not take some opportunities early on to score and that was our downfall. We lost the semi-finals 3-2. The team sat and were silent for 20 minutes after the game. Kids were crying, dads were crying. It was so hard to watch because it was SO close. One game away from the finals. We were the ONLY United States team to make it that far, the only non-school team (all the others were Academy teams). So close, yet so far. Out of 24 teams, to come in 3rd. Ouch. Yes, they should be proud of how far they made it. But we really should have been playing in the stadium for the final game. It ended up being 2 teams from Mexico in the finals, and Techos won the whole thing. Crap. Oh well. It's a good experience, a hard lesson for them. It literally took several hours for them to cheer up and shake it off.
Since it was our last night in Dallas, we wanted to go downtown. The boys all wanted to stay together and hit the mall, so we went with the Garcias and went back to eatZi's, got some food and sat outside and watched an incredible lightning storm. The weather here is just crazy. The weather was so warm, but the lightning so intense - not only was it sharp and intense, but the lighting went horizontal at times! It was quite the show. Later we walked around downtown, the Garcia's wanted to see the book depository but walking around outside while the lightning was hitting was pretty scary and we hightailed it back to the car. The boys were ice skating at the mall for the second time this week so we went to watch them for a bit before going back to the hotel.
The running joke of the week was how much I would get lost. The first day driving around was really scary - the freeways are so different, with access roads, quick merging, one way streets that I swear are not well marked, and people that drive so far up your butt and change lanes so fast it's unnerving! I had my iPhone GPS but I would still get lost. Alex then let me know about Mapquest, which gives voice directions and was so much better to use. However, I still got lost. By Friday, though, I had found my bearings and didn't get lost! For two days. I ended up getting turned around on Sunday. Oh well. Just when I was comfortable driving around Texas, it was time to go home!
Sunday we had the headache of checking out of the hotel, getting all the boys in the vans (it's amazing how much more stuff we had leaving than coming!) Part of the problem was that we didn't eat out alot so with cooking several meals came all the stuff that we had for that. Three of the dads on the team were amazing - they did the cooking (barbeque one day, homemade chicken veggie soup made on the bbq, then ceviche on Good Friday for the ones that weren't eating meat) plus they did the laundry one day. Their ability to put together a meal for 28 people was astounding. They purchased a barbeque, pots, and drinks, etc. all which had to go somewhere when we left. Sergio, the coach, had a friend that lived nearby so on Sunday after checkout we drove to Flower Mound, close to the airport, and he opened his house to all of us and had meat, chicken and sausages barbequing when we arrived. The three dads got to work making rice, beans, salad, salsa, etc. for everyone. The boys lounged around watching movies, Cassie and Emma played dolls outside and Erica and I went to the store for more food (which is when I got lost!) This friend then got to keep the coolers, the barbeque, all the extra water and gatorade and food that we didn't finish. Good deal for him and he was an amazing host. The neighborhood where he lived looked like Atherton - huge, beautiful homes, but he lived in an old little home around the corner that he bought for $80,000. These huge mansions, he said, sold for $400,000. Unbelievable. Around here, that little house he lived in would have been more just because of the location!
All in all, a great week. A good balance of soccer time, family time (minus Alexander since he did everything with the team) and ME time. Got in 5 LM classes, some pool time, some reading, but not one nap. Got to explore Texas a bit, and really enjoyed my time there. Except for the weather!
The airport was not a fun time. We had three boys who were not on our flight. The goalie was flying back to Idaho, where he lived, so he had to be first driven to Love Field, a different airport than ours. Once that was done, we had brothers who were flying to Reno, and we ended up unloading all the boys and luggage at the wrong gate and the brothers were actually in the wrong terminal. I ended up staying behind with another dad trying to get them to the right place while the men all returned the two vans and two rental cars. We finally figured out how to get them to the right terminal, then we had to walk with all our luggage to the correct gate. I had checked my family in online so I just had to drop our checked in luggage, then get all the boys checked in and ready to go. Then we found out our flight was delayed an hour due to fog in SF. At least we had some extra time. Little did I know.... While we were waiting, the boys occupied themselves by playing soccer (surprise) and trying to fool people into taking a $5 bill attached to a string. The girls ran around with another little girl, playing tag, hide and seek. All the food places were closed, as it was after 7 pm on Easter, but luckily some of the boys got food before they closed. Me? Nope. After that BBQ I wasn't hungry but I wish I had picked up something before everything closed. If only I had had a crystal ball...
We were treated to a huge lightning storm show while waiting. This meant our incoming plane was in a holding pattern, waiting to come in. Delay. Then it landed, but couldn't come to the gate because the runways were closed because the lightning was too close to the ground. Delay. Then it arrived at the gate, unloaded, we were about to board, then the runways were closed again. Delay. The captain kept coming out and kept us informed ( I have to say, that even as a sometime traveler, I was very impressed with Virgin) and told us to be ready because we would board, then as soon as they were given the go ahead, we would take off in between two storms and we didn't want to miss the narrow window. OH FREAKING GREAT. I was not looking forward to this because I knew we would hit turbulence and I HATE turbulence.
Once we boarded, and took off, immediately we hit pretty strong turbulence. I was gripping the arms, digging my nails into Franklin, then at one point had to put my hands over my face. Ricky was sitting in front of me and kept turning around everytime I gasped and he would laugh at me. I was happy to be such a source of entertainment for him! Cassie, the love, was next to me comforting me. "Don't worry Mom, it's going to be okay!" Sigh. At least it only lasted around 30 minutes, then after a snack, I blissfully fell asleep. All those delays got us to SFO at about 1:30 am. Home around 2:15 and fell into bed around 3:00am.
Thank goodness I took today off. Have I unpacked? No. Only the necessities. Franklin and I went out to lunch and then napped. Did a couple loads of laundry but this means that tomorrow, after getting home from teaching my first BP class in 12 days, the work continues.
It's good to be home.
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