24 hours of SOCCER !

This past weekend Aidan and Maura participated in a 24 hour marathon soccer tournament!

It is a unique soccer tournament held in memory of a former member of their soccer club...

a young girl who died of ovarian cancer when she was just 12 years old.

 

This tournament is a massive fundraiser for The Sarah Parvin Foundation,

and the goal is not to win and be the champion...there are no medals or trophies. 

The purpose of the tournament, besides raising money for an important cause, is to improve skills, strengthen partnerships and have fun!

There were over 200 teams with participants of all ages and the games ran non-stop for 24 hours straight...all through the night!  Nearly 1000 soccer games were played in those 24 hours.

Both Maura and Aidan's travel soccer teams participated this year.  Each team set up camp and luckily Aidan and Maura's teams were right near each other. 

Canopies, chairs, coolers, food, snacks, drinks...

There was a designated area for RV's and campers, and then the rest of the perimeter of the club was "tent city"...tents of all shapes, sizes and colors.  And thousands of them!

 

It was a very hot day...the hottest day of the year so far!

We bought a few "chilly towels" and they worked great at helping to keep us cool.

 

Aidan's tent:



 

Maura in goal at sunset...

 

 For fun they had some inflatable water slides for the kids,

which worked really well for cooling down in between games.

And Maura volunteered herself for the dunk tank!

 

(Aidan on the left)

 

Aidan took a rough hit in one of the games, and since this tournament is such a big event there were medics and ambulances on site.  And well, of course they thought he needed to be checked out, so off to the ER Aidan and I went in an ambulance.  I really thought it was unnecessary but you never want to be that parent who denies medical care in from of hundreds of people! 

In the ER he checked out fine and was discharged quickly, problem was...

There was NO way Sean was giving up the great parking spot he got early that morning to come pick us up.  Can't blame him.  Parking for this mega-tournament is tricky. 

{Buy mid morning they were directing people to park in the Walmart parking lot down the street and used school buses to shuttle them to the soccer club fields} 

So, Aidan threw on a pair of hospital socks and we walked the one mile from the hospital back to the soccer fields. 

 

It really wasn't too bad.  And we made it back just in time to watch his team play their next game.  Aidan sat out that game and since he was feeling fine he resumed playing in the following game.

 

While Aidan and some of his teammates slept in our tent,

Maura slept in the back of the van with daddy.

He took out all the backseats and put a twin mattress in.

It probably would have been as cozy as home,

if it wasn't so dang hot!!

 

By the next morning Aidan was pretty tired.  His middle of the night game was at 3:00am and I'm thinking he didn't get too much sleep in the tent with his friends in between games.

Here he is after his 6:00am game, waiting for Maura's 8:30am game to start and END!

 

At 10:00am the games were done. 

Sean and two tired kiddos made their way home to finally get some good sleep.

Riley and Audra have been busy playing soccer too.  The soccer club has a special  needs division which is quite large.  Riley has played since he was about six years old, and this is Audra's 3rd year playing.