Jacob had lacrosse practice on Thursday, so Carter and I ran a bunch of errands, including a haircut for him and an impromptu stop at Wegmans (I wasn't planning on going that day but we had prescriptions ready, and fortunately I remembered everything I had to get for the trip!). Soccer got rained out on Wednesday, so it was rescheduled for Friday, which was finally a beautiful day! Carter played so hard! He was super sweaty, but he ended up with a nice assist and at least "half" of his first goal--a couple players were kicking it in and he was part of that! He's so good about getting back defensively, and he just loves to run. We had fun watching him, and he really did great!
Friday night was spent watching the Raptors and packing, and Saturday morning I crammed in dropping the van off for an oil change, a run, more packing, and a trip to Kohl's. They boys had eaten lunch when I got home from Kohl's, so I just had to eat and finish all the last minute packing (mostly food) so we could leave for Syracuse. It seems silly every year to get a hotel in Syracuse, but when the team plays at 8am the next morning (which would usually mean we'd have to leave shortly after 5am to get to the field 45-60 minutes early as requested), the 4am wakeup call never sounds good...or really, doable. The first year we did the lantern festival on Friday night, and last year it was just Jacob and me but I got a deal on a cheap hotel so I justified it that way. This year a bunch of teammates were staying at a certain hotel, and of course when Craig looked at it and found out that it had a basketball court, Jacob was sold. I relented to the peer pressure despite it being sort of pricey for Syracuse (although we only needed one night this year) in hopes that Jacob would get bonding time with his teammates.
We got on the road by mid-afternoon so we could get there before dinner time. The hotel turned out to be pretty impressive. Well, maybe not our view...
The boys were calling it the "IKEA Hotel" because it was very sleek and modern. Hardwood floors in the room, modern headboards and platform beds, unique storage options throughout the room, and generally very minimalist furnishings and decor. The lobby, on the other hand, had everything--little work pods, a mini food market built into the reverse of the check-in desk "island", tons of movable lounge seating options, foosball, board games, a tiny basketball hoop shooting game, and even speed-charging self-service safes for electronics. Oh, and the breakfast area was there, too, but it was almost completely hidden. It was cool but I honestly found the room not quite as cozy as most! But it was fun to pretend to be fancy for a bit!
But the real selling point was this:
Talk about heaven for Jacob! He loved it! He played a bit with one of his teammates before we went to dinner, and Carter had a net to kick his soccer ball into.
Even I got into it! Pardon the unflattering picture, but trying to do Jacob's version of the NBA three-point contest is hard! I didn't make any, but I did hit the rim a bunch of times!
We headed out to dinner at Red Robin around the corner. As we were looking through the menu, Craig showed us that he now had pink streaks running down his hand to his wrist, coming from the infected finger that had been bothering him for a couple days. He figures it started with a hangnail, and my guess is that he picked up something in the cesspool that is our pool right now. It swelled up a bit and he tried to drain out some pus Friday night. He did get some out, which helped, but it didn't really improve. As we were packing up on Saturday I momentarily thought that maybe he should go to urgent care, but it hadn't really gotten worse so maybe it would be okay. But when he showed us the streaks, I knew that was a bad sign. We spent most of dinner Googling things, from infections to urgent cares. Jacob started to panic and was basically forcing everyone to inhale their food. We did get a bit more urgent when we realized there was really only one more open urgent care and it was closing soon. We managed to get there with about 15 minutes to spare.
They took Craig in quickly and he was back out pretty quickly as well. They ended up freezing it and slicing it open to clear out the pus. They gave him a prescription for antibiotics, and we figured we'd run over to the nearby Wegmans to fill it. Well, it was 8pm on Saturday and guess what apparently doesn't stay open that late anywhere? We couldn't find an open pharmacy for anything. Finally Walgreens told Craig where the only 24-hour pharmacy was, so he dropped us off at the hotel and headed there himself. Jacob went back to the gym, Carter and I watched some TV, and eventually went down to the gym ourselves before bedtime, just before Craig got back. It certainly wasn't quite the evening of teammate bonding or hotel enjoyment we had been hoping for. We had an early wakeup call, however, so bedtime came pretty early!
When we got up the next morning, the pink streaks were gone from Craig's hand, which was a good sign the antibiotics were working. We had to rush through breakfast at the hotel, but what a breakfast it was! It had yogurt and oatmeal with every sort of topping you could imagine. They had waffle boats and all sorts of sauces and syrups to top them. They had eggs and sausage, donuts, muffins, bagels and anything you could think of to top them. There was fruit and many different types of cereal. I had a hard time deciding what to have, so I mostly had as much as I could since eating is always a challenge at tournaments! Aside from the lack of my beloved Holiday Inn Express cinnamon rolls, it was the most impressive breakfast I've ever seen.
We've been to this tournament twice before, so at least we knew what to expect. It was a beautiful morning and we settled in for game #1, this year on the big fields! The fun ended pretty quickly, though, as it became apparent that they were overmatched. Granted, it was their first real game together and we weren't expecting greatness, but we at least expected a goal. Which didn't actually happen until game #3. We lost by a lot in game one, a few less in game two, and then finally scored a few in the third game, which we only lost by six. The final game was actually competitive. We actually had a 2-0 lead, but ended up losing 4-3 late. It was disappointing, but the coach was just happy to see improvement each game. They definitely have a lot to work on--loose balls, backing each other up, actually taking a shot when they have one. Much to Jacob's dismay he did not score, but he did help set up a goal, which was nice to see. It clearly wasn't the day we were hoping for.
The thing is, it was the complete opposite of what we experienced with our old team. We were the ones blowing out other teams by double digits and winning all the games. I always sort of wondered what days were like for those losing teams, and I guess now I know. It's not fun but mostly about clinging to the small victories. Hopefully by the time we get to our next tournament in a month, they'll have had plenty of time to get better. Without game action it'll be tough, but I'm sure this experience helped the coaches moving forward.
Ironically, our old team didn't win their tournament either, losing by one goal to the same team we lost to last year at that tournament. I can't say we didn't feel a tiny bit of satisfaction with that news. It stunk not having our whole same crew to hang out with between games, but we did at least have our friends from church/school/town lacrosse, so that helped. That's who's spotting Carter in the picture below. And yes, he was hanging himself on that pole.
It was definitely a typical long, hot tournament day, though better than we had most of last year. It was disappointing on the field, but at least Jacob got more playing time than he used to. I was really hoping for a better outcome so Jacob might reconsider his decision to quit. We know it's the beginning of the end, which is sad, but I guess we just have to look forward to new friendships and experiences through basketball. Hopefully we can regain what we had in lacrosse in a different sport, but I have no idea how indoor sports tournaments differ to know what that looks like. But first, a few weeks of practice and one more tournament to go.
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