Beijing Soccer Tournament

Up, ready, and off to breakfast at 7:30. At 8:30 we were in the van and headed to Cameron's soccer tournament. He had to be there by 9:30. Mr. Xue said it would take an hour to get there. We found the area but we went right when we should have went left. We only went a couple blocks out of our way when Todd told him to turn around. We arrived at the fields. Holy cow there were a lot of teams and people. The bus from TEDA was already there. It was 9:00. It took us 25 minutes and got a little lost so not sure why he thought it would take an hour.

They had a "good" team and a "bad" team from TEDA plus a girl team. Cameron was on the "bad" team. They named themselves this after the coach was trying to be tactful about saying they weren't the top players. The kids thought it was funny and they were just there to play and have fun.

All the kids from TEDA.

Getting a pep talk from Mr. Li.

They played 5 games. They lost 4 and tied 1. In one of the games Cameron was running and slid.  He accidentally knocked a kid over. When Cameron stood up the referee put a yellow card in front of his face. Cameron had a huge smile on his face. We think he was in shock. When he came over he said "did you see I got a yellow card?". Then he laughed and said "I slipped. I didn't mean to knock that kid over."

At the start of one of the games Cameron and a kid on the other team had to do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would get the ball first. Cameron threw out the gun sign (thanks Sharla for teaching him that) instead of scissors. He said the other kid said "what's that?" We could see the two kids and the ref laughing but didn't know why. Obviously, they had to do another round and rock smashed scissors so we got the ball.

He looks like he is ready to stop some balls.

Exhausted and wet.

Even the kids were getting cold.

It was cold, rainy, and wet. Most of the kids didn't seem to care but the parents were ready to go home. The boys had an hour break between game 4 and 5 so Todd jumped in the van and ran to Jenny Lou's to get some groceries so that we wouldn't have to do that after the game. He made it back in plenty of time. Before the last game Mr. Li (the coach) decided he wanted to get towels for all the kids for the ride home on the bus since they would be wet and cold. He asked Peter to coach while he ran to a store and asked if he could use Peter's driver and van. Of course Peter said yes. When Mr. Li arrived back the game had only been going on for about 5 minutes so he took over coaching again. Todd looked at the towels and told me to look. He bought 24 "towels". They maybe were the size of a hand towel if they were lucky. We chuckled about that. A funny visual of the kids trying to dry off or keep warm with those on the bus. Thank goodness Cameron rode home with us. And thank goodness he had dry clothes to change into. We even had enough to give dry clothes to Alfredo.

Here are the towels.

On the road to TEDA. Traffic was terrible. It was also very foggy. It took forever to get to the first toll booth and the interstate. Traffic was gone but it was pouring and foggy. You couldn't see anything. I was a nervous wreck. I can't stand driving in that kind of weather.

We stopped at the bathroom and continued on. I received a text on the way that said "boys won the sportsmanship award today. Cameron improved a lot in soccer in my eyes. Thanks for coming today". I responded even though I wasn't sure who it was from. I was guessing Mr. Li. I received another text..."have a safe way home and see you on Monday. Don't forget to talk to him about swim please". Yep, it's from Mr. Li. He has been trying to get Cameron on the swim team but he just won't do it.

Finally home around 6:00. So glad to be home. Hot showers, warm sweats and sweatshirt, and hot chocolate. That's what went on with Me and Cameron. We also started Cameron on his breathing treatments because he was starting to cough. Some tv and off to bed.