If I didn't have bad luck . . . .

There is an old saying that seems to apply all too often.  If I did not have bad luck, I would not have any at all.  A rather bleak way to start of a post, but it seems to apply.  After spending 27 hours in a car driving down here, we got in late.  We ate dinner. We unloaded the car.  We went to sleep.  We got up the next morning and while getting a cup of coffee at the the hotel breakfast, I somehow pulled a muscle in my back.  I could feel my back getting tighter and tighter as we traveled.  Twenty seven hours in a car, sleep on bad hotel matresses, and lifting suitcases into the luggage carrier on top of the car did me in.  So, I spent the first day of vacation laying flat on my back all day.  One heck of a way to start vacation.

We made it through team check in without any major incidents.  The check in was well conceived and very organized.  It went off without a hitch.  My back was feeling alot better on day two. We went to a water park after check in.  While I skipped the water slides, I spent the better part of an hour in the lazy river with my younger kids.  Somehow it fixed my back.  I don't know if it was the warm water or stretching my back out over the tube, but it work.

Day 3 did not go nearly as well.  The team had AYSO National Games Opening Ceremonies at 5 PM on day three.  What should have been a fun event for the kids, turned out to be a cluster.  It was poorly conceived and the execution of a bad plan was even worse.  Allow me to summarize... several thousand kids herded into a fenced in tennis court made of asphalt, at 5pm (the hottest part of the day), in Southern Florida in July, without enough water, and without enough space for the kids to spread out so what breeze there was could do any good.  Did I mention, there was NO shade and they delayed the start of the event for thirty minutes?  I had the pleasure of watching two girls pass out from the excessive heat and helping them with the little water that was available.  AYSO touts itself as a child first organization.  After what I experienced on Tuesday night, I would have to say that notion is laughable.  You may think I am being harsh.  Would you still think that if you knew they delayed the start of at least the last National Games (2008) and yet they still planned on herding the kids onto asphalt courts with no shade and not enough water?

Not the greatest beginning to one's vacation.