Alabama Thanksgiving

So, I know this post is out of order, but I wanted to share about my fun Thanksgiving that I spent in Alabama!

My whole family ended up making to Alabama and even Scott got to join us! We spent 5 days with MeeMaw's brother, Uncle Jimmy, and his wife, Betty. Scott and I flew in from New York where we had been visiting my friend Anna, and before that we were in Philly because Scott was a coach at the Cole Hamels' pitching camp! That's a story for another day though :) So, Scott and I drove to Demopolis/Linden (two small towns and they live right in between two) from the Jackson airport. By the time we got there everyone had already fed the cows for the first time and were busy fishing, shooting BB guns, and taking 4-wheeler rides! For the next few days we ate some of the best food ever made (Betty is the greatest cook! She worked so hard for us all week) and got to do all kinds of fun outdoors-ey stuff. We all ended up catching fish in Uncle Jimmy's two ponds, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner, rode 4-wheelers, shot BB guns and skeet with shotguns, rode horses, fed the cows, and had bonfires every night, s'mores included! Anyway, it was a wonderful trip and we are all so thankful to Jimmy and Betty for letting us come stay and take over their house for a few days!!!

Here are a ton of pics from the week:

Courtney and Jill getting ready to feed the cows.

Aaron 4-wheeling with the little boys

The cousins

Dad carving the turkey

How cute is Jill in her cold weather clothes???? (I just woke up in this pic)

Courtney and most of the little girls... they LOVED Courtney!

By the food as always! :)

Jake's 1st fish!

Anthony and Josh- Josh's first fish!

Scott feeding the cows, haha

My hand is in the cows tongue!!! This is Bully, she loved being hand-fed

Big family pic!

Uncle Jimmy by the fire with the boys

Fire's up and ready! Time to roast marshmellows!

Hangin' out by the fire- Dad, Scott, me, Jake, Owen

(This was our time for "ghost stories". The little boys used the code word "peaches" while telling stories to signal to each other to jump out and scare everyone. So cute!)

D-mop water tower (our hotel is in the back ground)

Owen and Paw Paw with Owen's fish!

JJ's HRUGE fish!!! She caught the biggest by far!

Their 3 beautiful horses!

Scott and me- just wanted to show the pretty scenery

Kiki was a good s'mores lady

Me and sweet Jakey

Mom with Josh, he's such a snuggler

My Mom, Dad, Courtney, Anthony, Scott and I made a trip to the University of Alabama to see the campus. It was BEAUTIFUL! This is in front of the football stadium.

Dreamland- they had AMAZING ribs and food in general! This was Scott's one request while in Alabama.

At the Bama baseball field

Scott gave Jake a pitching lesson... so cute!

Hahaha... we had all been trying to pet the cows but they got skittish when we'd get close! Scott finally got it!

Hahaha Kiki's fish was outta control

Church with Jimmy and Betty!

Annie Oakley- oh wait, that's me! Not gonna lie, I was pretty darn good.

My Mom was too short to climb up so we loaded her on from the back of the truck, haha

Aaron and Owen, so cute

Jill playing with MeeMaw :)

Somehow the trip home from the airport was overlooked- my family squeezed in to get to the airport which meant Scott and I had no ride, haha. This was the town car guy with a sign that had our names!

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Dinner at my little apartment in Switzerland!

Matching PJ's from last year

Wow, it's been awhile since I've been able to get on and update everyone! I promise that one of these days I will be able to a. stay up to date on my blogs and b. learn how to create albums so I can show all of my fun pictures instead of just a few!

Most importantly right now though.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just love this time of year for so many reasons! I think my favorite thing is all of the great memories and traditions I have with my family. On Christmas Eve my aunts, uncles and cousins would all come over and we'd hang out, sing songs, play games, and open presents from everyone but immediate family. Then, my sisters and I would open a present from my parents which was always matching PJ's (yes, we still get matching PJ's to this day, and sometimes they are footies, haha). We'd put our PJ's on, get all of our last minute presents wrapped and then it was time for the most important part of the night! We would all sit down to read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Usually Kiki or Courtney would read, and whoever didn't read would act it out for us, which was always comical! If you know Courtney and Kiki you'd understand! Jennifer and I would just sit and laugh. After that, we'd all pile into the same room and have a slumber party. About 20 minutes after we'd head up to bed, inevitably we would hear Santa's bells (yes, my mom would actually stand in the hallway and shake some bells to make us think Santa was close, haha). In the morning, we'd all have to sit at the top of the stairs until my parents got the camera and everything ready. Then, we'd run down the stairs and look through all of the stuff we got from Santa! I don't think anyone can forget that feeling of excitement going into see what Santa brought! We'd finish opening presents from each other and spend the rest of the day hanging out together and playing with our presents. Then, we'd all sit down for a nice Christmas Linner (Lunch/dinner).

We've kept our traditions through the years with little changes here and there. It's definitely sad in some ways that things have had to change, like the fact that this year will be the first year I have no sister's to have a slumber party with tonight!!! But the changes have come from wonderful things happening to our family.... like, nephews and nieces, and husbands that have married into the family! So, I can't really complain too much!!! :) Our family has grown a lot and we've had a ton of fun tweaking the traditions to fit our lives now!

I'm also hoping that one of these year's Scott will get to join in on the family fun! Hopefully we won't scare him away, haha.

Merry Christmas to you and your families! I hope you get to spend time with your loved ones and just enjoy the time you get together!

As another side note... Please take a second to say a little prayer for all of our soldiers who are over fighting in the war and their families. I can't imagine having to be without my loved ones at a time like this. And say a little prayer for my cousin Kelli and her husband Mark. Mark is over in Afghanistan fighting and I know he and Kelli wish they could be together and with their families!

Thanks soldiers for all that you do!!!!

Here are a couple pics from this time last year, crazy we were in Europe!

Courtney and I on the train

Skiing in Zermatt- AMAZING!

Matching PJ pic again :) With my cute little tree in the back ground

I'll put more pics of all of my family up as soon as my Mom sends me some!!! :)

HALLOWEEN!!!!

Happy incredibly late Halloween! :)

Sorry it's been awhile but I've been visiting my family in Houston/Austin and didn't really get on the computer at all! Anyway, I just wanted to post a picture or two of my fun Halloween outfit! Scott and I went as German people and got TONS of compliments. I found my costume at a Halloween store but Scott got real German leather lederhosen!!!

We spent Halloween in Boulder, CO for the University of Colorado homecoming game. Scott's brother and three best friends from Poway went to CU so Scott went and visited them a ton and considers himself an honorary Buff. Even though he got to visit quite a bit, he never made it out to homecoming weekend and we figured it would be a fun time this year since it fell on Halloween weekend!

I spent those three days meeting a lot of Scott's friends and getting to hang out with some of his best friends that I don't get to see much. We went to some of the classic Buff hang outs- Half-fast subs, K's China, the Foundry, the Walrus, the Sink, etc. We went to the football game on Saturday which was kind of rough. The Buffs, bless their hearts, just didn't play so well, so our whole group left at half time to go back to tailgating. That night we got to get all dressed up in our costumes and hang out with friends some more.

Overall, it was an awesome weekend!!

I'll update about my Houston trip as soon as I get some pics from my mom and sisters!

Outside the Sink (I couldn't bring myself to wear CU stuff, so I wore black trying to pretend!)

View from inside the stadium - rough place to play, huh?

Pretty scenery pic :)

Fort Hood

I just want to ask everyone to pray for the soldiers, fallen and wounded, and the families of those soldiers from Fort Hood. What happened there today was absolutely awful and unbelievable. How sad that our soldiers aren't even safe on their own bases now! The man who did this is, well, I can't even express in words how horrible I think he is. I don't care what was going on in his life there is nothing to justify something so terrible! It breaks my heart to think of the families who rejoiced that their loved ones deployment finally came to an end, only to have this horrible man take their lives on US soil.

Please keep praying for these families. I thank God that my family and friends are safe and that 99.999% of our soldiers are out there defending us, not attacking us.

USA Beach Needs Your Help!!!!

Hey everyone!!

I need your help with something!!!

So, beach volleyball doesn't really have any representation when it comes to USA Volleyball. There is going to be a meeting coming up soon (this Friday) and one of the topics should be USA Beach Volleyball getting some representation. We need to make sure that is a priority at the meeting!!!!

Here's where you can help! This is the email I received:

We need to rally together and get an email petition underway before the end of next week.
What am I talking about?
We need to petition to USA Volleyball to try to get some funding and a player run governing body for beach volleyball... Please forward this onto any player/supporter that you know! Lets get this petition going!
If you need more info read below, if you hate reading and are in to voice your opinion then edit copy and paste the statement below into an email with the subject reading: "I support Ryan Morgan's proposal for reform." Please address the email to the following three email addresses listed below:


“I’m in favor of the proposal being set forth by Ryan Morgan, because he not only represents Kerri, Todd and Phil, he also represents the opinions of every athlete on the beach. We all stand together and believe reform is necessary in order to improve the beach side of the sport within our current national governing body.”

Email addresses: newusav@gmail.com; Doug.Beal@usav.org; davidschreffusavolleyball@gmail.com

For those of you who like to read please read Hans's Blog, it is good stuff!


Read below from Hans Stolfus's blog for more info:
http://hansstolfus.com/?p=1652

Please send an email to these people and pass this around so that USA Beach can be on the same level as USA Indoor Volleyball!! Thanks for your help!!!!

Miss Michelle

First day of school!

"Miss Michelle, can I play with your hair?"

"Miss Michelle, can I sit on your lap?"

"Miss Michelle, Miss Michelle, Miss Michelle, can you tie my shoe?"

That's what I heard all day Monday, and I absolutely LOVED it!!! All of my paperwork finally got processed and I was able to start substitute teaching at the Montessori School of Manhattan Beach on Monday! It was my first day of actually being a teacher and I had an absolute blast! The kids are the sweetest things (minus one or two, haha just kidding, they were all great in their own ways) and I just loved getting to be around them. Circle time is where the guide (they are not called teachers in Montessori school) does most of her teaching and we also sing songs and read books. Well, I learned that during circle time my friends (the kids are referred to as friends) are allowed to sit on my lap and play with my hair. Ohhhh man! Every time I got anywhere near sitting down I already had like eight "friends" asking to sit on my lap and play with my hair. I LOVE when kids are cuddly so I loved this part of the day! The only time I didn't like it as much was when the girls (and boys) would give me a "pony tail" and proceed to wrap my hair in like sixteen knots, haha. Even that was still pretty funny! It was also funny when I would be reading a book during circle time and while I'm in the middle of reading a kid comes up to me and asks to sit on my lap, haha. It's like they have NO idea that anything else is going on in the room, all they know is that they'd like to sit on my lap, haha.

As most of you know, Kiki was a Montessori teacher for a lot of years, as well as my Mom and Courtney. That's how I decided I wanted to at least try that style of teaching for now and maybe go into a public school later (or maybe not). Anyway, the people at the school are all really nice and I think I am now number 1 on their subbing list so hopefully I'll be getting lots of work soon! They already called me back to work tomorrow, woohoo!

Happy Wednesday :) Wish me luck tomorrow!

Semi's!

Good news! I made it to the semi-finals of my last tournament! I played with Heather Hughes who was a friend of Pao's on the National (indoor) team. It was a ton of fun and a crazy long day! We got there to check-in at 8:15 because the website said if you weren't there by 8:30 you had a $10 late fee added onto the registration fee. Well, at 9:30 everyone had finally showed up and checked in, so we started playing around 9:45. We played three matches pretty much back to back. They were all great matches! Pretty good competition all day long. After our first three matches we had about a 2 hour break (we got the break since we were undefeated, woohoo!). While we were waiting around to play we noticed two pirate ships out in the water a little south of where we were (Redondo and we were in Manhattan Beach). We had also been hearing cannon type shots all morning! Well... apparently, the ships out in the water were the ships from Pirates of the Caribbean AND they were filming for movie number 4!!!! How cool is that??? We got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 4 being filmed!! Some of the other people at the tournament knew all of this because they had filmed parts of the first 3 in the South Bay as well and they keep the ships in the King Harbor marina which is in Redondo. So after our really exciting break, we started to warm up for our 4th and final match. As we began play I realized the net was 2 or 3 inches high but the sun was also setting so we had no time to fix it! Anyway, we ended up losing in two but it was still a fun day over all! And, we won $50 each for finishing 3rd! Haha, woohoo!

Hope you're all doing well! :)

Blast from the Past/Vote!!!

I thought I'd throw in some blast from the past shots - Go big 'ford! :) (aka Stratford)

A few months ago I got an email through the Texas Volleyball Alum network. It was a fellow former UT volleyball player saying that there is a vote going on for the Texas UIL All Century Team (this is a high school thing). Soo, being the good Longhorn that I am, I went to vote for the girl who sent out the email, only to find that my name was also on the ballot!!! If you guys don't mind, I'd really appreciate you going to http://uil100.org/vote-volleyball.php to vote for me! There are a bunch of other Longhorns on the list so if you want to vote for other people you can do that too :)

Thanks! And Hook'em!

Another vote that you can participate in is the vote for Scott's new companies logo! Scott and two of his best friends recently started a company and are trying to pick their logo. They want the opinions of lots of people because even though they have their own favorites, they want to know what appeals to everyone else! So, go to www.phantomweights.com and click on Logo Contest, then pick your fav!!

Thanks again!!

One last favor from everyone.... Cheer loud for the LONGHORNS tomorrow!!!! I have one more tournament this season and probably won't get to see much of the game so I need everyone else to cheer them on for me! Plus, we're playing OU, so you REALLY, REALLY have to cheer hard for me!

HOOK'EM HORNS!!!!!!!

Main Draw Players

Me, Cayley Thurlby, and Heather Hughes.

I just wanted to write and tell everyone about my exciting work out this morning! Not only have I been getting to work with Liz Masakayan, but this morning I actually got to practice with Brittany Hochevar and Jenny Kropp! They are two main draw players both ranked in the top 25 players! We just did some drill work but it was really fun to train alongside such great players and also get to talk to them. They are both really really nice people and were really fun to be on the court with!

I have been training with Cayley Thurlby, a good friend of mine out here, and Heather Hughes joined in with us a few times! The picture above is after we jumped in the ocean because we needed to cool off after a work out. You can't see them very well, but I am wearing bottoms that my mom wore after she had Jennifer and Kiki!!!! I found them last time I went home and told my mom I was stealing them. I've gotten so many compliments on them and everybody asks where I got them because they want them too!!! It's awesome!!! :) Thanks Momm!

Also, I'm going to start working on a portfolio soon so if anyone has any advice or knows someone that can help me put it together, I would love to hear from you!

Thanks!

Off Season ????

This is a pic from the US Open tournament I played in. It was a BEAUTIFUL day!

So, the AVP season has technically only been over for a week, but that's only for the top like 10 teams. All of the qualifier girls and the lower seeded Main Draw teams have been done with AVP tournaments for about a month now. One might think to themselves, "Hm, I bet these girls take a good month or two off before they start working out and training again," right? False, since my season has been "over" I have had just as many people, if not more, calling to train/practice/play/get lessons! I thought I would be ahead of the curve because I was going to work out all off season and not take any breaks, but now I know why these girls know so much about the game... they NEVER stop playing!

Anyway, it's been really awesome because I was afraid I'd have trouble finding people to train with, but it's actually been way easier! In all of the training that has come up recently I've met some new really good players, which is awesome! Another really great part of the "off season" training is that I got to work out with Liz Masakayan who coached Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh for the last year or so! Yes, that means she coached them during the Olympics! How cool is that? So, I got a lesson from her on Monday and I'll be going to another lesson tomorrow. Really exciting stuff!

I hope everything is going well for everyone! More updates soon!