Founder's Cup 2010

Today was Day 2 of the Founders Cup. Gary woke up and took Loren to the hotel breakfast and to his warm-ups at the Central Park Soccer Complex in Fremont. I headed to breakfast with Landon, Liam and my parents and then met up in time for the game at 10:30. We were playing the best team in Northern California...The Storm from Clovis. Our boys played their hearts out, and again, I had a hard time not being the screaming soccer mom on the sidelines. The Thunderbirds had their first loss of the season....0-2....to the Storm. They are an amazing team and our kids were getting hurt right and left from their kids. Our goalie even got kicked in the neck by their player, with still no yellow cards on their team and instead 5 called on ours. The poor calls from the refs and drama from the opposing players was so frustrating, but they held up so well against them. This team is used to beating teams by at least 8 goals in many cases...so we were so very proud of our boys for holding their own!

In between games we switched ourselves (chairs and such) to another field and fed the kiddos snacks mainly from the snack bar while Gary headed back to the hotel to pack our stuff in time for check-out. I took the boys to a nice park next to the fields and they played, played, played while Loren rested with Nana and Papa. Liam and Landon had a blast on a merry go round with ropes that you could climb on that ended up the shape of a cone. They played on that thing for a good hour. Landon jumping off many times to push a load of kids. It looked funny to see a little guy pushing that heavy contraption round and round. Poor Liam got called a not-so-nice name by a kid on the playground that day....so THIS mama bear had to step in. There were several other play structures there that kept them busy, but then.........

it was the start of the 2:00 game. We watched and the boys enjoyed playing this team so much more than the last. They were from Piedmont/Oakland area and played alot cleaner as well as drama-free. We could chat with the parents from the other team and it was a much nicer vibe. We won this game 3-0!!!!!!!!!!! Off to the semi-finals and hopefully finals next weekend! Woot woot!

Once we found our cars and piled in, we headed back home. We made a stop for dinner at Fuddruckers in Dublin on the way back. Growing up in Florida, that was always the treat to drive the 45 min. to Miami to go to Fuddruckers. We were glad when they were built out here in California! I carried a sleeping Landon into Fuddruckers, but Loren and Liam were happy to order what they wanted. Sweet potato fries were at the top of my list :p Landon woke up in time to have some of his dinner and to relieve my back.

What a weekend this has been! Our first experience with traveling for sports....in our first year of soccer.