Today was harder to get going. Although we didn’t have to leave quite as early, it was still hard. I think Alex ate a better breakfast today. Phoebe certainly did not. She ate a few bites of a cinnamon roll, a sip of hot chocolate, then laid her head on the table and went back to sleep.

After getting all fed and showered, we packed all of our stuff up and loaded it into the truck. If we got done early (aka, lost quickly), we planned to take the girls back so they could swim. Otherwise, we needed to be prepared to not go back.

We arrived at today’s tournament site, the field house at Aquinas College. It was not nearly as nice as yesterday’s facility. Not even close.

Today was bracket play. The girls did really, really well, despite forcing one of our girls to change her serve completely (and she did it, beautifully!). It disrupted the team as a whole though (because she was so rattled by it), throwing them off a bit.

Alex slammed up many great serves this weekend:

Despite the serving brouhaha, the girls took second place in the silver division. They were so happy and proud. As they should be. It was the best tournament they had all season. What an awesome way to end the season! Each girl received a medal which they plan to wear to school tomorrow:

Phoebe didn’t hang with the team quite as much as one of the little sisters of another player was there and they hung together all day long. (It was great!) Although, when the girls were warming up and getting ready to play their next game, she was right in there with them, stretching, passing, and having fun. She was doing awesome. We appear to have a budding volleyball player there (she’s even got the facial expressions down!):

We didn’t get out of there until 4:30 then had to drive home…almost two hours. It was so much fun though. We are all exhausted…even those of us that didn’t play! Although, I think that our team parents won the cheering section award…if there was one!

Personally, I’m looking forward to next year. I hope Alex continues to play. Her coach is hoping to coach then as well, in fact, she’s hoping to coach these girls all the way up. We hope so! Despite a bumpy start to this season, it ended up being a wonderful experience!