Chapter 4
The Little Moments Become the Big Memories
This fall break Texas soccer trip taught us something we’ve learned over years of traveling: the best vacations rarely go exactly as planned.
Sure, it’s exciting to visit famous landmarks and check destinations off your bucket list. However, when we look back at our favorite trips, it usually isn’t the attractions we remember most.
It’s the ordinary moments.
The laughter around a dinner table.
Watching children play.
An afternoon with nowhere important to be.
This trip to New Braunfels was full of those moments.
An Afternoon Through a Child’s Eyes
One afternoon we promised the girls a trip to Peter Piper Pizza before soccer practice.
Anyone with young children knows that pizza is only part of the attraction.
The arcade games.
The flashing lights.
The excitement of collecting tickets.
The impossible decision of which prize to choose.
Eventually, Lilah and Norah raced from game to game with enough energy to power the entire building while the adults enjoyed a chance to slow down over a surprisingly good pizza.
What impressed me most wasn’t the games or the food.
It was how well the girls handled themselves when it was finally time to leave.
No meltdowns.
No negotiations.
Just smiles, prizes in hand, and excitement for what came next.
Sometimes kids surprise you.
Fall Break Texas Soccer: Meet the Little Mermaids
From Peter Piper Pizza we headed straight to soccer practice.
Naturally, watching four-year-olds learn soccer may be one of the greatest forms of entertainment ever invented.
We affectionately called their team The Little Mermaids, and it fit them perfectly.
The field was still damp from recent rain, leaving puddles scattered across the grass.
The girls did their best to avoid the wet spots while trying to remember which direction to kick the ball.
Some were chasing the soccer ball.
Some were chasing each other.
And a few seemed perfectly content just running because…well…running is fun when you’re four years old.
Every few minutes the coach would call out,
“Water break!”
The girls sprinted toward the sideline as if they were competing in the Olympics.
I’m still not convinced they ran that fast during the actual drills.
A Splash Worth Remembering
During one exercise, the parents joined the girls on the field to help with passing drills.
As everyone worked together, Norah suddenly lost her footing and landed squarely in one of the muddy puddles.
Mud soaked her shorts.
Her smile never disappeared.
She popped right back up as though nothing had happened and went right back to playing.
Still, kids have an amazing ability to move on from life’s little mishaps far quicker than adults do.
I leaned over to Tracey and whispered,
“The only thing funnier would have been if Rachel had been the one who fell in.”
He laughed.
I’m not entirely sure Rachel would have found it quite as amusing.
The Joy of Simply Being Together
Not every afternoon overflowed with activities.
Meanwhile, some of our favorite memories happened back at the house.
The girls played with the dogs in the backyard.
Papa chased them through the grass until everyone was laughing too hard to keep running.
Ki’Oni, on his very first road trip, quickly decided he had discovered puppy paradise.
Everything fascinated him.
Every leaf….Every stick….Every new smell.
Watching him explore the world for the first time brought smiles to all of us.
Afterward, inside the house, evenings were wonderfully simple.
We shared bowls of popcorn while watching television.
The girls talked about school.
The adults caught up on life.
There was no schedule to keep.
No alarm clock to worry about.
Just quality time with the people we had driven nearly a thousand miles to see.
Why We Travel
People often ask why we’re willing to spend so many hours on the road.
The answer is simple.
Because memories like these don’t happen by accident.
You create them when you make the time to be together.
As much as we love discovering new places, New Braunfels reminded us that the greatest destinations aren’t always the ones you’ll find on a map.
Instead, you’ll find them in a backyard filled with laughter…
…around a family dinner table…
…or on the sidelines of a youth soccer field where a little girl covered in mud simply stands up, smiles, and keeps playing.
Those are the moments we’ll remember long after we’ve forgotten how many miles we drove to get there.
And our favorite evening of the trip was still waiting for us.