Wassell Family Pool Tourney

Every year Chris' family gets together for holiday's, vacation, and a pool tournement. We have such a good time every year at the pool tournement, and I think it is the most anticipated family event. Winner gets bragging rights, and their name put on a plaque, but really its all about being together, having fun, and hanging out as family.

The tournement is a best 2 out of 3, double elimination game. I am in last place, which I am totally ok with, and usually the tournement comes down to Kevin Sr. against Kevin Jr. This year was a very exciting year as Jared, the youngest player, was the winner of the winners brackett, and was up against Kevin Jr. for the championship match. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we were all holding our breaths to see how this was going to turn out.
Jared gave Kevin quite the match, but with only a few balls left on the table... Kevin Jr. once again won! We were all very proud of our Jared for kicking it up this year and pleasently surprising everyone with new face in the final game.

Check out my pictures of the tournement! (click the link)

Now that you know how great the tournement was, let me tell you how fun it was to even get to the Quad Cities that day. We live just under 2 hrs from the QC near Chicago. Its a straight shot off of I-80 and is a very easy, boring drive to get home. NOT THIS TIME !
We left at about noon, as we wanted plenty of time to get there, visit with my family, and shower and get ready. We proceeded to get onto the interstate and went 1 mile and then sat, and sat, and sat for an hour. We finally start creeping along just to find out there was a 20+ car pile up on the interstate because of the winter storm that had come in, and we were being turned around in the median and sent back the other direction. Oh NO ! how to get home now?
As I said before, this is the most anticipated family event of the year and Chris would do anything to get there. So we get on our GPS and look up a alternate route. We get on US30 and start our slow slippery drive towards the QC. Once we get past the bridge we decide to try the interstate again and we had luckily past the point of the accident. We are now about 2 hours into the trip and have gone about 8 exits from our home... UGH !
So we are on our way, on a fairly empty interstate doing about 40 mph, very slow, but on our way none the less. We get about half way home and this car in front of us starts to swirve into the other lane and brake. We are not sure if this guy is sliding, spining, or what the heck he is doing so chris tries to slow down without causing us to slide.... all of a sudden there is a goose in the middle of the road and nothing we can do to avoid hitting him. It was so fast, and so sad.

We finally get to the QC at it is now 4:30... I couldnt belive our trip had taken almost 5 hrs. We scramble to get changed, bring in the suitcases and kids, and dog and get ready. The pool tourney starts in half an hour. Luckily the first hour is just practice so we are good. We are all ready to go, kiss the kids goodbye and WHAM !!! Power goes out. CRAP!
We scramble to find all the candles and flashlights and get them lit so we can jet. Papa gets back with KFC and the kids eat by candle light. Now we head out and on the way a transformer blows right in front of us, and I scream. The whole ride over was one after another transformers blowing and lighting up the sky. Ice was covering everything!

Alex decided to go pick up the kids and take them to BARBIE'S house. SHE was out of power too, but SHE had a generator and that way they could watch tv with Timmy and Maddie and have portable heaters to keep warm. I still can not believe how terrible the weather was, and had it not been for the tourney there would have been no way we would have headed home.
(Please note that Barbie noticed and corrected my mistakes, Thats why they are in green! Love you girl, that was so funny)

It was worth the trip, but maybe next year we can move the tourney into better weather season for the out of towners...
Thats all for now....

Lots of Love,
Shel