Last Time

This past year has been filled with a gabazillion first times: first time in South America; first time traveling with an infant on 24 hours of flights/layovers; first time eating empanadas, tartas, and noquis; and, most recently, first time ordering ice cream in Spanish to be delivered to the apartment (a personal highlight of mine).

But as the school year begins to wind down (the students have two more weeks of classes, then a week of finals), there are some things that we are beginning to do for the LAST time, especially with Brandon leaving Asuncion Christian Academy to teach at a neighboring school (American School of Asuncion, P.E.).

This past weekend, it was soccer. The girls and boys' teams played in their last intercolegial (a.k.a. multi-sport tournament sponsored by a local school).

They boys had their final game on Friday night. After a bye in the first round, it was a win-or-go-home situation for the "second" game. Though they played hard and were first to score, they lost 2-1 in part because of some one-sided calls by the ref (and I'm not one to jump on the ref-bashing wagon, but it was pretty bad).

The tournament continued into the weekend and the girls played their game on Sunday morning (after a bye for Saturday's game). Now, as a reminder, the girls team is made up of mostly junior high students with only one junior and a handful of frosh/soph players. And most have never played before.

Despite their youth and inexperience, they won! A few key players came to life in what they thought would be their final game and it made all the difference for the team. They advanced in the tournament and played in another game that evening. Similar to the morning game, the defense was (nearly) impenetrable. The opponents, however, used their size and experience to completely shut down the offense (made up of petite little junior high girls you'd like to fold up and tote around in your pocket, just because you can). They lost.

And that was the end of the season . . .

We thought . . .

Yesterday the girls got news that - even though the lost - they advanced in the tournament and will be playing again this weekend.

So much for last time . . .