Phew. Monday Morning crapfest, complete.

Traveling with a hockey team is NOT for the faint of heart. A IV drip of alcohol is actually the remedy most commonly suggested by other, more experienced, parents. Friday we left at the crack of dawn. Which seemed to come even earlier because all night I was woken up by an eight year old boy running downstairs to go to the bathroom/get a drink of water/double check the time (only 12:30/1:15/3:30 am????)

The team was beaten handily by a elite traveling team. ooof. It was a blow but more interesting was the fact that after the game some of our players were chatting up their players and we found out that *surprise* their goalie was 11 years old. um, nice. Bet it felt good to beat a team with 5-8 year olds on it. And then we had breakfast at a local diner. Chet's. Where Nancy, the owner and cook, couldn't have been a day under 75. Twenty five of us had breakfast there in under an hour. Why does a simple trip to Friendly's with a family of four take so much longer?



But the hotel...it had a pool...and what would the kids want with thinking about a hockey tournament when they could swim. and swim. and swim. The pool, it never closes and after dinner at a pizza place

where we horrified the locals it was time to swim some more. And some more. The next morning, another loss. Funny that this huge sports complex would have some of the crappiest ice the kids have skated on all year.

Anyway, the idea of spending another day breathing in that humid chlorinated air had me hiding up in the room reading vanity fair and cranking the ipod. In order to preserve my sanity we headed up to Nashoba for some snow tubing. Perfect. Although watching my son's tube fall off the lift/puller and watching him start to slide back down the hill, that was a bit of a heart stopper.

Another dinner out, reservations for 40 please?. Where the boy actually ate french fries and declared it the best dinner out EVAH. And then...you guessed it
...swimming. A few hours of that and I was all pooled out. I took the kids up, put them in bed and watched Walk the Line. I love me some Joaquin.

The next morning the kids are running on fumes. They play the game of their lives. And win. A parent from another team asked me how we did...I tell him our new training philosophy of chlorine, sleep depravation and sugar has worked wonders.