This past weekend was the North American Sand Soccer Championships down at the oceanfront, a yearly tournament that many of the local soccer teams compete in.

FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
"This "Grand Prix" of international amateur beach soccer events is hard to miss and attracts teams from all over, including nearly 20 states and as far away as Africa, Germany, Brazil, Norway’s rocky seacoasts and the wilds of Canada's Northwest Territories. The Championships are staged over 22 full City blocks of prime oceanfront real estate, on over mile and a half of white sand - against a backdrop of diving gulls, banners waving in stiff ocean breezes, thousands of Boardwalk bedazzled spectators, live music and great food. Meanwhile, surf’s up just a few steps from the soccer action and, when day is done, most participants and fans head out to the area’s unbelievable lineup of region entertainment."

Our team was the bulk of our travel team from last year and since our coach had two daughters of his own that he was already supporting with their sand soccer teams, one of our girl's older brothers and his two friends (all three being phenominal soccer players in the area) stepped up to coach the girls for sand soccer.  They did an AMAZING job.  They held multiple practices down on the beach to get the girls ready for playing in the sand and to go over all the rules.  Once at the tournament, I had a really hard time deciding what I enjoyed more... watching how AWESOME this group of girls played soccer in the sand, or watching the three guys coaching for their first time and how proud they were of "their girls."  They came to each game with their notes jotted down, rosters, etc. and were completely prepared.  This was serious business for them.  The girls gave them each nicknames and immediately loved playing for them. Each time one of the girls scored, they were on the side line giving each other chest bumps. If they did something good, like make a break away, or some other great move, you could hear them yell "THAT'S HOW WE DO GIRLS!" - It was hilarious!  Ali's brother Josh wore his backpack the entire time... at one point he got hot and took it off. The other team scored, so we screamed at him to put the backpack back on! He did and our streak continued!

Our team ended up winning the whole thing, going undefeated the entire weekend.  Our awesome coaches handed out "Champion" t-shirts and medals to all the girls and told them how fantastic they played!  They immediately came around to all of the parents asking if we were a yes for next year. They wanted committments from us now that they could have our girls again next year for Sand Soccer.  So funny.  We of course said "absolutely!"  How could we not commit to play for these guys?

It was such a great weekend.  We did not leave the beach until almost 7pm on Sunday and when we finally got in the car, the smile Kaiden had been displaying melted off her face and tears started rolling down her face.  She was exhausted to the point of physically shutting down. So many games, out in the sun and heat all weekend, plus a sleepover with teammates had taken it's toll.  It took everything in her to shower, shove some food in her mouth, drink some water and climb into bed. I don't think I even finished pulling the covers over her and she was snoring.  All of the girl's eyes were completely bloodshot and hurting from a mix of having sand kicked in their eyes all weekend and the saltwater from swimming in between games.

When Kaiden woke up this morning, I asked her if she still wanted to do it again next year, knowing how hard last night was and her immediate response was "HECK YES!"  Below is some video footage from one of her games this weekend.