the mann family: wondrous weekend #2: charlotte

out of all the weekend trips we have planned this summer, this shaped up to potentially be the least fun. i mean, we were headed to charlotte for an outdoor soccer tournament in JUNE. it was sure to be hot, we were traveling with mostly people we've only known for a short period of time whose only true common link is eight-year old athletics, and only one member in our immediate family played a role in the purpose of the trip.

and yet, we had an incredibly awesome time. from petting exotic animals to the hotel pool and everything in between, it truly was a fantastic weekend. this team of boys -- who live all over the local map (seriously, we're talking chapel hill, durham, garner, clayton, apex, cary, wake forest, raleigh ...) and their parents and siblings have become like a second family to us over the past year. we are truly blessed!

and the cherry on top of an already delicious sundae? liam and his teammates being crowned the tournament champions! (proud momma here) woot woot!

in interest of fairness, i thought i'd start with a picture of the Trooper of the Weekend, susanna. she shares this award with one of her besties eliza, younger sister of one of liam's teammates. throughout the games, we'd periodically tear our eyes away from the field and do a quick search for the girls, who could always be found running in the grass nearby and flailing their arms as they pretended to be fairies of some sort

much to our dismay, liam wound up playing goalie for two halves. chris and i hate it when he offers to do this, knowing how terribly hard he is on himself. luckily he only allowed one goal to be scored under his watch, which happened to be a high shot and one he never could have stopped -- and yet, he still beat himself up over it. we much prefer him playing any other spot on the field

following saturday's games, we took a drive to the lazy 5 ranch in mooresville on the recommendation of friends. we spent an hour or so driving through this enormous park where all sorts of animals walked right up to us in search of a friendly snack

after hanging out in the way back for much of the drive, susanna finally warmed up to a llama

who would've thunk that a soccer tournament weekend would give us our first opportunity to feed giraffes? but by far the biggest hit were the ostriches ... chris says he has never laughed so hard as when the first one followed me halfway into the car ... i had no idea what to do and i was terrified he was going to peck my eyes out, and was almost on top of chris in the driver's seat

know who else were champions? we just so happened to win the trivia contest at dinner saturday night. i think i contributed one right answer (which was related to wine, natch)

the hammers, from left: coach jordan, jonah, tony, liam, sam, max, carter, bryson, braeden

and just two seconds later. boys will be boys

following the medal "ceremony", we drove to davidson for the kids' first visit. they were disappointed to find all the buildings locked, but we enjoyed walking around and seeing all of his old haunts, including his fraternity house ...