The Girls' Trip to Vegas

While Ben was in Florida with the boys, I was in Vegas with the girls.  Cat had a tournament there, part of the national league her team joined this year.  We were excited to get away for a few days and enjoy some warmer weather.  Cat's team tied the first game and lost the second.  (And lost the third, which was played on Sunday after we left.)

At this level of competition it's so hard to get goals that catching one on film seems impossible.  Cat didn't score during her two games, but I made a few videos and got some decent footage of her in action.  When I looked back through the clips, I noticed that several of them include a push or fall of some kind, sometimes Cat being the aggressor, and other times she's on the receiving end.  Pay special attention to the last two clips on the video.

We'd driven down with one of Cat's teammates and her mother and 10-year-old sister on Thursday afternoon/evening.  Eliza and the little sister soon became best friends and had an absolute blast the entire time they were together.  When I was buying new shoes for Eliza at the outlet mall on Friday, she refused to make a final decison until her new friend could offer her opinion.

After the Friday morning game, we went back to the hotel so the soccer players could shower, then we drove out toward the Vegas temple.  We made a stop for lunch, then I took the older girls in to do baptisms for the dead while the other mother stayed on the temple grounds with the younger girls.  It was a lovely experience to be in the temple with Cat again.  I really like this tradition we've started!

When we went into the temple we saw a pretty little courtyard behind some windows.  When we asked how to get to the courtyard, a worker showed us the door and said that anyone is welcome to go out there as it's considered an extension of the grounds.  So when we were finished in the baptistry, we went to get the rest of the group to show them this lovely feature.  We stayed for a few minutes to enjoy the fountains and flowers.  We also let the younger sisters try an echo chamber in the lobby of the temple, which a worker had told us about.

From there we went to one of the big outlet malls in Vegas, largely so that we could find some new tennis shoes for Eliza.  It was time.

That evening there was a team party by the hotel pool where most of the families were staying.  We ate pizza and talked and the soccer girls did facial masks.  I helped paint the black goopy mask on some of the girls and had extra goop on my hand so I gave myself a partial mask too.  Some of the younger siblings swam in the heated pool, including Eliza and her new friend.  That night the other pair of sisters came up to our room to watch "Napoleon Dynamite."  They loved it.

  

We were able to take it easy the next morning, with a late check-out and an afternoon game.  We slept in a little, the girls watched some TV (including trying to find Dad, et al. in the stands at the FSU basketball game) and I ran on the hotel fitness center treadmill.  Then we got ready to go, had a late breakfast out, and made a very quick stop at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign before going to the next game.

The game started out windy and chilly, and ended up windy, rainy, and even a little snowy.  We were all cold and ready to get on the road as soon as the game was over.  We drove through a lot of rain and snow that afternoon/evening but were thankful to get home safely at about 10:00pm.  I enjoyed having some out-of-town time with my girls!