Ashton's Sparta team signed up to play in Utah's Presidents Cup. It was held in St. George over President's Day weekend. All the kids were excited to go. In the past we've only stopped for gas in St. George on our way to Disneyland, never stayed.
We left Thursday right after school. Ashton had two games on Friday, one on Saturday. If they won then we would play on Monday also. We knew about the tournament for months, so I had plenty of time to book a hotel room. But in typical Jerusha fashion I left it until a month before. I searched for hours online for hotels, condos or homes for rent - nothing was available. I was starting to look in Cedar City, Mesquite, etc., although the idea of having to drive so far for the games was not appealing. Jamie had told me that her parents would probably let us stay in their St. George home (they don't usually "share it", as LuAnn put it), but Jared said at the time that he wouldn't feel comfortable imposing on them like that, and Jason described the house as "a museum", which also made Jared nervous. But I was getting pretty desperate. So I asked Jamie and she asked LuAnn and she said, "For Jerush, anything!" Sweeeeet! It was such a relief! I convinced Jamie to come down, and our good friends Seth & Monica. Monica's grandma lives there, so they had somewhere to stay also. We all drove down together, stopped in Cedar City for dinner, and got to St. George around 8:00.
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| The courtyard of Spier's home, and the door there in the middle of the screen is to the "casita", where Jared, Ashton, Conner, Sophie and I slept. It had a bedroom and bathroom, which was so nice! |
The kids were all glad to be out of the car & running around
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| In the morning we were able to enjoy the beautiful view they have from their home. |
I couldn't use my flash for this picture, but it is Whitney & Mallory asleep. They were little mirror images of each other and it was SO cute. They slept together every night.
There was an indoor & outdoor pool that was part of the shared community clubhouse. We took advantage of that on the ONE day that Ashton was allowed to swim (coach's orders).
Then we had lots and lots of soccer. The kids played pretty well, and our friends were so supportive to come to all the games. Ashton had quite the cheering section.
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| Whit & Mal |
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| Emma & Rylee |
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| Sophie loves Seth, and wanted to play with him all by herself. Conner tried to join in & she told him 'No!', and pushed him away. |
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| Monica on the left, Jared on the right - both on their phones. But not with each other.....I think. |
On Sunday we drove to Zion's. We've never taken the kids there, and Jared was really looking forward to getting some great pictures. It snowed a little the night before, so it was cold, but there was plenty of sun! The kids favorite part was the mile long tunnel.
Saturday morning we took the kids to Brigham Young's winter home in St. George. Sophie was not a fan of the tour of the home, so I took her back to the car. She kept trying to get into the areas where visitors weren't allowed.....little stinker.
Saturday night we went out as adults, Jared, me, Jamie, Seth & Monica (Jason had to stay home for this trip). Ken and LuAnn arrived on Friday afternoon, so between them & Kelsey the little ones had plenty of eyes watching them. Sunday, after Zion's, Jared cooked dinner for everyone (except Bergman's - they had to head back to SLC). Then we all watched a movie LuAnn had recorded on her DVR called, "Head of the Class", a true story about a teacher with Tourette's. It was a perfect Sunday movie.
Ashton's team won their two games Friday, then tied on Saturday. This put them in 1st place in their bracket, which means we were going to play on Monday! They had an early game Monday morning, and won that one, so we had another game that afternoon. Between games we packed up our stuff (we had to head straight home after this last game), grabbed some lunch at The Pizza Factory, and headed back to the fields for the last game.
I have more pictures of the games than I know what to do with!
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| Ashton just kicked that ball into that net. Where the heck is the goalie? Ashton probably scared him off. =] |
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| Head Coach Jay on the left, Assistant Coach Brent on the right, then from L-R: Daxton, Max, Kessler, Kaelan, Will, Brandon, Niklas, Mason, Ashton & Christian. |
ALL DONE! The last game went into overtime, we should have won! In the last couple minutes of "regulation" time, Ashton kicked the ball in making the score 4-3. Everyone on our team was jumping up and down screaming. We were so excited, we didn't hear the ref's whistle, calling a foul on one of our other players, saying he pushed someone on the other team. None of us saw it, and of course I think it was a crap call. In my mind, my son scored the winning goal. ;]
