Michelle's Volleyball/Life Adventures

Farewell!

2010-07-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm on a camel... thanks Mom :)

Sooo I have some sad news, but it's not really so sad!

Now that my new website is up, I am able to post blogs directly to my website!!!! The sad news is, I will no longer use this blog, but the great news is, I will still be keeping everyone updated through blogs on my new site!!! www.michellemoriarty.com - It's super easy!

Thanks everybody who has been reading my blog! I hope you keep reading it (and commenting on it because I love reading comments) on my new site!!!

WOW, Sorry!!!

2010-07-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the incredibly long delay in posts! These last few weeks of my life have just FLOWN by and I am still just now trying to catch my breath!

Long Beach, NY was obviously a great trip! Taking a first place there helped my ranking out a ton and it's always fun to get a WIN!!!

Turkey (which we flew to straight from NY) was absolutely AMAZING!!! Everything about that trip made for an incredible experience. The volleyball was fun and challenging, hanging out with my USA teammates and coaches was a blast, and getting to experience a new culture was so fun! Overall, it was just an awesome trip. Emily and I finished 7th. In our pool, we had the teams that ended up finishing 2nd and 3rd in the tournament. We beat the Germans who finished 3rd, and lost to the Czech Republic team that finished 2nd. 7th was not a bad finish by any means but we were definitely good enough to medal! Oh well, now I just have to keep working hard for next year!

After Turkey I went to Milwaukee and spent some QT with my Dad's side of the family that lives in Wisconsin. It was so fun to see the Wisconsin Moriarty clan (Uncle Bruce and fam, and Grammy)! I always have so much fun when I'm with them. And, I just can't believe how grown up my little cousins are!! Tommy and AJ are college boys now and Pierce is starting high school! Craziness... The other reason I was out in Wisconsin was for another AVP U26 event. I played in this event with Dana Kabashima and we finished 3rd. It was tons of fun to play with her again!

Then, my sister Courtney and her husband Anthony came out to visit! It was SOOO wonderful to see them! Courtney is about 8 months pregnant so I'm lucky they were even able to make it out! I had so so so much fun and really appreciate them coming! We spent July 4th BBQing and watching the Astros play the Padres, then fireworks! Then, we got to hang out and enjoy the rest of the cloudy week together :)

This past weekend I played in a CBVA in Mission Beach (San Diego) with Diane Copenhagen. I grew up doing indoor USA Volleyball stuff with her so it was fun to be reunited! We played well together (especially since we never practice together) and finished 3rd! It was also a fun tournament because Scott was able to be there and his parents were in town so they got to see me play! It was so nice of them to come by!

Next up on the list is Hermosa Beach this weekend! I have the Hermosa Beach Qualifier on Friday, then the Hermosa U26 event on Sunday. Should be a fun weekend of volleyball, not to mention my sister Jennifer and her family are coming in, my Mom and Dad, and Avery (a girl I coached when I was in Austin) and her mom are coming in!

More exciting times to come!!! :) In the mean time, here are just a few pics... Also, my new website is up www.michellemoriarty.com and I will probably just start posting blogs on that site sometime soon!!!

AVP U26 Long Beach!!!!

2010-06-13T06:25:00.001-07:00

Kim DiCello and I won the AVP U26 in Long Beach this weekend!!!!! It was sooo exciting!!!

There were 4 USA teams (the teams going over to Turkey) entered in the tournament and we had a great showing! The two mens teams played each other in the finals with Stafford Slick and Mark Van Zwieten (the U26 team) beating Madison McKibbin and Tony Ciarelli (the U23 team) for first place! It was a really exciting match... three games, 15-13 in the third!

Kim and I played four matches yesterday and ended up 4-0! Our first match was against the other USA team (Jazmin Machado and Caitlin LeDoux) and we went 3. They played great and it was a really good match. Our second match was against Cayley Thurlby and Briana Hinga and we won that in two but the second game was super close! 24-22 was the final score of the second game and it was so fun to be in a situation like that! Our third match was against the first seeded team (Kim and I were 3rd) and we won in two games, 21-14ish in both games. We ended up playing Cayley and Briana again in the finals! It was super fun and both games were back and forth up until the 21 time out. When the total of my score and my opponents score equals 21 we take a technical time out. For example, the score could be 11-10. And then Kim and I were able to pull away at the end!

It was a really fun day and we ended up having a great time going out to dinner after and celebrating the two USA victories! It ended up that the USA Women finished 1st and 5th, and the men 1st and 2nd! Go USA!

And PS Thanks to my new apparel sponsor Rox Volleyball!!! They provided me with some awesome gear to play in!!!

Jaeger Bands

2010-06-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

Shoulder savers!! One of my good friends and sponsors is Alan Jaeger of Jaeger Sports. He is the guru of shoulders and arms, and is very well known in the baseball community. Recently he has decided that volleyball players need as much as help baseball players do when it comes to educating themselves about shoulder care. SO, we discussed the advantages and benefits to using Jaeger Bands, and he took me through the work out.

My shoulder feels way better than it ever has, and I noticed that my shoulder doesn't get nearly as sore anymore after tough practices and tournaments!

Here is a video of me doing my Jaeger Band routine! (minus the arm circles at the beginning)

Thanks Alan!

Santa Monica CBVA!!!

2010-06-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

Champions!!!!!!

Dana Kabashima and I played in the CBVA (AAA) in Santa Monica yesterday and won it all! We played about 6 games yesterday and had two really really tough ones against one of the Canadian National Teams! We played them our very first game and very last game of the day. The format was pool play, 1 game to 21 against each team, and then play offs, 1 game to 28.

We won the championship game 28-22!!! (I think)

Here are the videos from the tournament! Both matches are against Canada.

TURKEY, here I come!!!!

2010-06-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

TURKEY!!!!!!!!!!! Here I come!!!!
Here are links to the information I have on Turkey!

http://www.wubc2010.org/ - Tourney site - apparently it doesn't have a ton of info but it has cool pics!
http://www.fisu.net/en/Beach-Volleyball-2010-1700.html - FISU website, which is the World University Games organization.
I can't believe it's only a week away!

I am already in San Diego right now getting all ready to head to the Chula Vista OTC!!! We will be training Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and then heading back to LA to fly out to New York. We (meaning me and the other USA players- 2 girls teams and 2 boys teams) will play in the AVP U26 event in Long Beach, NY. After that we will fly to Turkey to train for a few days, then start playing!!!

I am so excited for the journey I'm going to be on the next few weeks! I can't believe how lucky I am to have these opportunities. I definitely thank God every day for what He has given me!

Huntington Qualifier Broadcast!!!

2010-06-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

My first match tomorrow will be broadcast live!!! The link is http://www.network1sports.com/stations/avp.asp

My partner is Tori Grafeman and one of her friends is a broadcaster. He wants to get into some AVP stuff so he got permission from the AVP to broadcast our game. How cool is that???

Anyway, if you have time tomorrow around 11am (west coast) listen in to hear my match! Tomorrow is the qualifier and Tori and I need to win 3 matches to get into the main draw. It's totally do-able so we need to get in there, take it one match a time and "get 'er done"! :)

Hope you get to enjoy the match! Hook'em!

Are you aware that Texas is a whacked out different country?

2010-06-02T01:25:00.001-07:00

Texas is the best country ever!!! :) And, if you doubt it, ask any Texan, they'll tell you! Haha (And yes, I said country on purpose!)

Ask me anything

Ellen's World Domination

2010-05-31T09:36:00.001-07:00

I have written into the Ellen show asking if she would be interested in sponsoring me/setting a match against each other/really just for fun :) (Thanks for the help Mom!)

Ellen has a quest for world domination in 2010 so my proposal is to help get her into the beach volleyball world. These are two pics to show ways we can get her into the volleyball world- temporary tattoos, Ellen headbands, etc.

Hope she likes it!!!

Chiapas- Dariam winning the gold!

2010-05-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Since I still haven't had a free 20 mins to sit down and write about Chiapas, here is at least the video of Dariam winning! It is a long video because I recorded the game from about 12-12 on. Her celebration with her partner is super cute, and if you can turn the volume up loud enough, the beginning of her speech is AWESOME! :)

Hopefully, I'll get the rest of the trip up here soon!

MEXICO, MEXICO

2010-05-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

There was a song that was played at least 1,000 times through out the weekend and it sounded a little like Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "MEHICO, MEHICO" and then some inaudible Spanish phrase. This song will now be stuck in my head for about a year!!! Haha, it's ok though because I had an absolutely amazing experience there!

I've got to come some sleep, but just wanted to post a short update. Dana and I went 1-2. We played Costa Rica first and lost in 3. Should have beat them, but it took us awhile to get into our rhythm. And we lost to Puerto Rico, the eventual champions, 18-20 in the 3rd!!! Yes, 3rd games are only supposed to go to 15. It was an incredible match to play in, but such a bummer we lost.

Anyway, Dana and I got to experience a really fun international tournament, got to experience some not so great living (which just made us more thankful for what we have), met some awesome people, and overall just had a blast! I will post a more thorough account of the trip when I have time to stop and think :)

In other good news... I MADE THE TEAM GOING TO TURKEY!!!!! YEA!!!!!

http://usavolleyball.org/news/article/36074

Chiapas!!!

2010-05-12T02:05:00.000-07:00

It's finally the day!! I leave for Chiapas, Mexico at 11:30 pm Wednesday and get in on Thursday. I don't have a ton of information about it but we play Friday for sure :) probably Saturday for sure and Sunday is probably the finals! You can go to bvbinfo.com to follow along!

Also, USA U26 stuff is starting to pick up which is great! Last week Tuesday's practice was cancelled because I was the only person able to go. Last Thursday there were only two of us. And today there were 9 people! Woohoo! By this Friday the teams will be picked that are going to Turkey in June! I'm really bummed I won't get practice in on Thursday but I hopefully I'll still get chosen to go!!

I'll try to update from Chiapas!

GO USA!!!

Birthday Basket!

2010-05-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

I have to mention on here really quick how great all of my co-workers are at the Montessori of Manhattan Beach :)

On Tuesday, I walked into the classroom I was told to go to for the day, and all of the kids screamed "Happy Birthday Miss Michelle!!!!!!!" (Or, Miss-ichelle as some of them say :) ) And, on the table in front of me was a BIG birthday basket full of goodies from the other teachers!! I wish I had taken a picture before I tore it apart, but that's not really where my mind was! I got all kinds of wonderful presents like beach towels, scratch offs, gift cards to PINK BERRY!!!!!!, gift cards to Target, yummy healthy snacks, Smart Water, gum, Zico, and all kinds of other great things. It was such an AWESOME gift!!! The teachers at the school really are such nice people and have been so welcoming to me. If any of you read my blog.... THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!! Veronica, one of the teachers I work with a lot, was the one who got it all together which was so nice of her. And, she told me that of all of the birthday baskets done lately, people were by far the most eager to participate in getting mine together. It made me happy to hear that because I don't get to spend a ton of time with my teacher friends outside of work but I think they are all so great! And, I'm glad my co-workers like me :) It's just always nice to hear!

Thanks again teacher friends!!! And thanks to everyone else I got cards and gifts from!!! My Mom sent me some cute new bathroom decorations which was nice. My house is FINALLY starting to come together :)

Believe In Yourself

2010-05-04T23:06:00.001-07:00

There are two things I wanted to share:

A. Number 1 (As Scott would say): I made the USA Under 26 training team!!! That means, it is me and about 5 or 6 other girls fighting for two spots to go to Turkey for the World University Championship!!! I'm so excited to have made the training team but I'm definitely not satisfied with just making the training team... I want to go to Turkey!!!!! So, I wanted to share the good news about completing the first step :)

B. Number 2: I was sent an email (from Scott's grandmother and then again from my Uncle J) and it had a lot of life advice with cute animal pictures to go along with each piece of advice. For some reason, the picture above with the advice "Believe In Yourself" stood out to me. I think it is the cutest thing ever, and is actually such good advice!! I feel like it's fitting in every aspect of life but definitely fitting for specifically sports as well. You're only going to be as successful as you believe you can be!! And, if God believes in you, then why shouldn't you believe in you???

Anyway, wanted to share those two fun things :) I'll keep updating on the USA training as things keep coming up!

PS Next tournament- NORCECA in Chiapas, Mexico, May 14, 15, and 16! Go USA!

Birthday Weekend!

2010-05-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well, my birthday was celebrated a little bit different than usual this year, but it still ended up being a good weekend!

I definitely missed getting to share my birthday with my family, and I missed getting to be there for my Mom's and Courtney's birthdays as well! Even if we didn't get to spend the actual day together we were usually able to have some sort of birthday dinner for the 3 of us, close to our birthdays! Usually we go to dinner (or my Dad or Mom fix it), have some cake, open some presents, you know the usual.

This year, I woke up at 4:45 am, picked up my partner Tori Grafeman and we drove up to Santa Barbara for the AVP Qualifier. My coach Nancy Mason drove up with Whitney Pavlick (another volleyball player/friend of mine) to help coach us, which was really awesome! Nancy brought me a little present to open too, which was super nice!

Anyway, we played our two matches which I already wrote about, the second was such a heartbreaker!!!! And, since we were super bummed we lost, I hung out and watched Cayley's match finish up (they won the match I watched!) and then we headed back to Hermosa as soon as possible. We got back and I pretty much laid on the couch all day not planning on doing anything at all because I played 2 matches and drove 5 1/2 hours that day and was totally exhausted. But, then my awesome roommates (Mitch, Taylor and Taylor's girlfriend Brittany) came home and all decided since it was my birthday we had to get out and do SOMETHING! We went and got a piece of pizza from Paisano's which is my FAVORITE pizza place in the area, and then we went to hang out at a place down the street where our friend works. We danced a little and hung out and then headed BACK to Paisano's for round 2 haha. Yes, we went to get pizza twice in one night, which, if you know me, is the best birthday dinner ever, haha. We were all pretty tired so we went back to the house and passed out. It wasn't the craziest birthday ever but I totally appreciated my friends helping me make the best out of my not so great day!

The next day Tori and I were supposed to fly to Ft. Lauderdale but since there were only 8 teams signed up and we needed 12 we decided not to take the risk and save the money. So, I drove up to San Diego so I could hang out with Scott and our friends down here. I got in Friday afternoon and Scott and I grabbed a bite to eat and then got ready for the baseball game. It was beerfest (don't worry MeeMaw, I didn't have any :) ) so Scott had a few friends meet up and we all went to the game together. It was my first Padres game this season so I was super excited to go! We hung out, watched the game and then went out for a little bit with everyone.

The rest of the weekend has consisted mostly of getting Scott and his roommate, Steve, moved into their new apartment which is just as awesome as the last one! It is super nice and is basically connected to the baseball field which is really cool! On the 7th floor of their building is a "party" area which is for everyone in the building to use and you can literally watch the baseball game from there! It looks over right field so it's a great view!

Anyway, I will head back early tomorrow morning to get another week of training started! My next tournament will be the NORCECA in Mexico that I qualified for with Dana and that is May 15th weekend. I am so excited for that! And, I will get to see my old UT teammate Dariam Acevedo there because she plays for the Puerto Rican beach national team!!

Have a great week! Happy Sunday!

AVP Santa Barbara/Ft. Lauderdale

2010-04-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the first AVP event of the season that I've attended! Today was the qualifier. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as I'd hoped :( I played with Tori Grafeman who is a year older than me and is kind of in the same place in her career as I am. We were excited to play together since we both want to be great beach players and we want to do it faster than the norm (which is about 3-4 years of playing before really getting into the main draw much)!

We won the first match pretty handily. It was super windy, but having Nancy Mason there to coach us helped a TON!!! She was able to give us great strategies and by listening to her we won pretty easily :) The second match was a much better match and way more fun to play, even though we lost. The first game was a little shakey because we were playing a pretty good team and that was our first test. The game was close but we lost. The second game was much better! We got a lot more fired up and confident in what we were doing which was so much fun! And the third game was back and forth the whole time but we just couldn't pull it out at the end.

So, yes it was a bummer, but I think Tori and I could be great partners with some more training together! We only practiced together twice this week before playing together, haha, oh beach volleyball!

Now, the back up plan is for us to fly to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow to play in the AVP U26 tournament. The problem is, there are only 9 teams signed up and we need 12 to make it an AVP sanctioned event. That means, if we don't have 12 teams, they still give prize money, but no AVP points are awarded. It seems like it would still be worth it to go, but the points are the more precious thing to us!! :)

I'll keep everyone updated on what happens! Hopefully I get good news tonight from my old boss Al Lau and I find out 12 teams are signed up and we're good to go! :)

Have a great night!!

Au Revoir Cote d'Azur!

2010-04-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

Nadal!!!

Prince Albert

(I actually took this picture!!!)

The Cascade on the Castle hill

Ahh, it looks like I might finally be heading back to the states! Although, I haven't actually gotten on the plane yet, so who knows what will happen?

This trip was amazing for so many different reason! I played my very FIRST international volleyball tournament!!! I met a lot of fantastic people, volleyball and otherwise. And, I saw by far some of the most beautiful places on earth! I really wish I could put into words, or even show you with pictures how gorgeous these spots are. Even the pictures don't do it justice! They really mean it when they say Cote d'Azure aka blue coast. The water is sooo blue, and so many different colors of blue!

For a short synopsis on the trip-

I flew into Nice and stayed my first night here. I didn't get in until late (missed my connecting flight) so I pretty much went to dinner, walked around some, and then went to bed. Next day I walked around a little, bought some strawberries and a croissant from the market (Cours Selayar) in Old Nice. The Cours Selayar is a very famous flower market/farmer's market in Vieux Nice (Old Nice). I went and met up with Cayley, and hopped on a bus to Monaco.

We made it into Monaco, checked in, and changed to go practice. We walk down to the beach and after many failed attempts to actually get down onto the beach (getting out of the hotel was tricky) we finally made it to the court. Remember, 99% of the beaches around here are rocky so we're walking down wondering how in the world this will work! We got to the court, only to find no net and no balls. No problem, sort of, at least we brought our own ball! However, we were only allowed to use the last 10 feet of the court, haha. It was a short practice to say the least. We showered and changed for the tourney dinner that night. First, we watched a sponsor tourney (the sponsors had a few representatives and they just goofed around playing matches), then they drew for positions in the pool. Only two teams were seeded to begin with, Latvia- the European Cup Champs, and France- won the tourney last year. They literally drew names out of a hat to seed the rest.

Anyway, we had dinner and went up to bed to rest for Friday. Friday we played Switzerland first. It wasn't a bad match for us, but it wasn't great either and we ended up losing to Switzerland, which proved to be a really bad loss :( considering that was the one we needed to stay in the tourney. We had a lot of time off so Cayley and I did a little site seeing in between matches. Then the next match was Denmark, who we beat in 2. Still wasn't an awesome match but we started finding a groove. They were just an interesting team to play because they were small and kind of unconventional aka they mis-hit the ball a lot and things like that. After that we had even more time off, so we went upstairs to the hotel room to relax. Before we went upstairs we asked the Swiss girls who they were playing next because we wanted to watch their match against France so we could scout France. They assured us that they were playing Denmark next so we went upstairs for a few hours, only to come back down and find out they either a. just didn't know what they were talking about or b. lied so we couldn't watch the match (we're still not sure which one it was!). After all that mess, we ended up losing to France. We actually played decently well but needed to execute our game plan just a little better. I'd say for having to 5'9" girls playing a 6'4" girl we did pretty well though! Haha

So, that was the end of the tourney for us, but after our last match an American, John, came over and introduced himself. He has lived in Monaco now for about 3 years so he invited us to come hang out with him and his friends. After a lot of chatting with tournament people, the cute little tournament helper boy Ludovic (who happened to be the President of the tourney's son and our BIGGEST fan there), and other random photographers and people, we made our way to hang out with the group. They ended up being great people and we sat and chatted for a few hours. We then went straight to dinner, still dirty, with some tournament people and players. While at dinner we ran into..... drum roll please..... Rafael Nadal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Soooooo cool!!! We finished up dinner, quick showered and changed, and then went out to meet up with the tourney people again. It was nice of them to set up a little get together at a club/bar type place, so we went and said hi. But we had arranged to meet up with our American friend and his friends so we left after a little bit and met up with them. We had a super fun night!!! The people we met were just such a great group of people that it really made the trip for us!

After a really late night, we hung out at the pool for awhile, and then, went to watch one semi-final game and the final match of the tournament. Finals were Italy vs. France. It was actually a very fun atmosphere and a pretty good crowd! Italy ended up winning it all which I was happy about because the girls couldn't have been any sweeter. Oh and we met the Prince of Monaco!!! Prince Albert!! Our group of friends from the night before had come back to hang out, so we sat with them and hung out for a few hours. Ended up going out with them again which was just so much fun, again! We went to the casino for a little bit, which was really really neat! Such a different feel than any casino I've been in. It was very serious and formal, and definitely not cheesy like Vegas!

Sunday, Cayley and I did our touristy thing a little and went to the palace and got some souvenirs! At one point, we were trying to get to the casino by bus (it's a 5-10 min walk, but we had our luggage and it's uphill) and we just missed the bus we wanted. We were thinking, no big deal, we'll just catch the next one, it shouldn't be more than 15 mins.... wrong!!! 40 mins later the next bus came and it was jam packed! Kind of a random story, but it was hilarious at the time. After that fiasco we finally hopped on a train to Cannes!

The train to Cannes was also packed because there was a train strike and lots of trains weren't running that day. Oh, not to mention no one in Europe could fly anywhere because of the dumb volcano!!!! That was another fiasco where Cayley and I literally just forced our way onto the train, stacking our luggage on other people's and getting tons of dirty looks along the way. Haha. We made it into Cannes late afternoon so we checked into our hotel (we got lost first, of course) and did some site seeing. We pretty much just walked around and took pics, and found a place to eat. We were so exhausted from the long weekend that we went back and passed out afterwards!

Next morning we got up right away and hopped on a train then bus to Saint Paul de Vence, a cute little artsy town built in an old castle area. It really was just adorable!! And, we found more souvenirs (mostly for ourselves :D ). The one thing we were told to do there was to eat at/look around Colombe d'Or- thanks Holly McPeak! Now, I didn't know much about it, and neither did Cayley but WOW! First of all, it was beautiful. Just a really old style restaurant/hotel with lots of greenery, cute tables, beautiful artwork, great view, etc. And, the food was awesome! Pricey, yes, but awesome. And the waiter we had was a character! He was an older man, and the first thing we said to him was, we'd like to eat at your restaurant, and can we leave our bags here? Which is funny to us now because we know how nice of a place it is and probably how big of a deal itw as for us to ask!! Haha. Anyway, the waiter looked a little suspicious of us, but we sweet-talked him and he ended up loving us by the end of lunch! So, lucky for us we got to leave our luggage there all day so we could tour with out, such a relief! A few hours later, we came back to get our stuff and head back to Nice. By the way, if it gives you any idea of how popular/exclusive this place is, we saw people turned away from going to look at the inside because they weren't patrons. So weird!

We had about a 40 min bus trip, where we both took power naps, and then we were in Nice. This is when craziness began! Long story short (too late, I know) we sat at a McDonald's for a good 7 hours! Why one might ask? Because that's the only place we could get internet!!! And, my computer didn't even work, only Cayley's so we had to take turns! We needed the internet because I found out my flight was cancelled and Cayley had no idea what was going on with hers! In the end, Cayley's flight went on schedule and I got rescheduled to leave Thursday! Which was actually super lucky because I got 2 extra days in an incredible place, but wasn't "stuck" here for a week and a half like some people.... oh and by the way, this is only true if my plane tomorrow actually takes off. I guess there is still a possibility I could be here for another week, haha, but I'm going to assume my flight will go as scheduled tomorrow.

So, did I pout and mope around because my flight was cancelled? Absolutely NOT! I checked into a new hostel close to Vieux Nice, and went site seeing on my own! I went to Cours Selayar and got cheese and apples, had a nice little snack on the beach, then walked up to the old castle area. WOW! You walk up quite a ways, to find yourself at a beautiful park (the castle is long gone) and overlooking all of Nice! Whenever I talk to people about my time in Switzerland I tell them how Interlaken is probably my favorite place in the entire world... and now I can tell them that the top of the castle in Nice is a close second, or maybe even tied for first. You can't even imagine the views! Not to mention the waterfall! Yeah, a waterfall on the side of this hill/mountain/castle thing... just incredible! After a great day, I came back to my hostel where I met my 3 American roommates whom I proceeded to go to dinner with. Super fun! I just love meeting people! We hung out in Vieux Nice after dinner then turned in for the night.

Today I was going to go to St. Tropez but it was a little expensive/hard to get to and around so I decided to save that for another time. Then, I was going to go to Eze ( a little midieval town just east of Nice), so I called my friend Yana that I met in Monaco and she met me at the train station there! (Side note, Yana is Russian so it made me think of Anna the whole time we hung out :) ) Apparently, Eze has two parts, Eze sur mer (by the sea) or Eze Village (up in the mountains) and we went to the boring one, boo. Yana had looked around already, so I literally got off the train to say hi to her, and then we hopped right back on the same one and went back to Monaco. We were going to get on the bus that went up to Eze Village but we couldn't figure out when it came and we knew it was only once every 2 hours or so. So, we walked around a few places I hadn't seen, and then had lunch and chatted. She's such a great girl!!

And after a bus ride, and a dinner and glass of wine by myself (I love being independent), I am back in the hostel catching up on internet-ing!

Hope I caught everyone up. I wish I could describe better how AMAZING this trip has been! I definitely recommend a vacation here to everyone! :D

And now, I'm finally going to get some sleep!

Goodnight y'all!

PS I'm going to have to figure out a way to post albums because I have a million pictures to share!

Nice!!!

2010-04-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm here! After a long day of travel, I finally made it :) I took off from LA at 12:30 yesterday afternoon, (which is 9:30 pm over here) and made it into my hostel around 7:30 pm! Surprisingly, I"m not as exhausted as I expected (probably because I slept almost the entire time on all 3 of my flights, haha).

My flight from LA to Houston was pretty easy, I just tried to stay awake as much as possible so I could get in sync with this time zone as quickly as possible. Hung out in Houston, got some food and a converter, and hopped on my flight to Frankfurt. The plane was a 2, 3, 2 and I ended up with two seats to myself so I curled up and slept as much as I could. Unfortunately, we got into Frankfurt like 15 minutes late, which was just late enough for me to miss my flight to Nice :( We had to get shuttled from the plane to the terminal, then wait in the customs line, and then I had to go back through security! By the time that was over, I got to my gate at exactly my departure time and the plane, of course, had already backed away from the gate. I was bummed because it cut out time from being a tourist today, but it wasn't that big of a deal. I hung out, had a German beer (sorry parents, but when you're here, you have to get it) and took advantage of the FREE cappuccinos. Yes, I said FREE! There was a machine at every Lufthansa gate, and it served any kind of coffee you wanted, and it cost nothing! How great is that?

I finally hopped on my flight to Nice and immediately passed out (which I was trying not to do). I ended up sleeping until the second we touched the ground. Once I got into Nice, everyone was super nice and helpful. The info guy at the airport helped me hop on a bus into "Old Nice" or "Vieux Nice". And then a nice man on the bus saw me looking at a map, and he ended up needing to get off at the same stop so he pointed me in the right direction. It still took me about 20 times of walking right past my hostel to figure out where it was. In my defense, there's no sign on the door, or anywhere for that matter. I was just supposed to know that it was number 20 and know that I was supposed to ring the doorbell, haha. I'll take pictures in the daylight tomorrow so you can see what I'm talking about! The guy working when I got here was American though, so that was helpful.

I finally got settled in, checked my email and headed out for dinner. It was pretty dark, and kind of late by the time I got on the road, so I just did a little bit of walking around and found a cute Italian place for dinner. It was really yummy and the people were soo nice! Now I'm back at the hostel and I'm probably going to hit the sack fairly soon!

I took a video because I've been promising to do that, but it's not that exciting :/ I'll get better as I get more experience, I promise!

Hope you enjoy it!

Au revoir :)

It's Here!!!

2010-04-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day, it has finally come... I leave for my Monte Carlo tournament!!!! Yea!!!! I can't wait to go represent the US in beach volleyball! I'm also super excited that I get to go and do it with my friend Cayley Thurlby!

So far, the plan is for me to leave tomorrow at 12:30 and get into Nice, France at 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon. I'm going to head straight to my hostel and put my things up, then do some touristy things! I figure it will be good to get my blood pumping so I get on the France/Monaco time zone quicker!! :) Plus, I just really want to use my time there to see EVERYTHING that I can!! It will be fun to walk around by myself some because I feel like it always ends up being a fun adventure doing stuff alone. Then, Thursday morning I'll hang around, do some more site seeing (or maybe just sitting on the beach) until I meet Cayley at the airport in the afternoon when she gets in. We're going to head to Monaco together as soon as she gets in! We'll meet up with the volleyball peeps and they'll take it from there.

Once we're doing volleyball stuff, I think they have some things they have planned. Thursday night there's a dinner or meet and greet type thing. And, obviously Friday is volleyball all day! As long as we finished 1st or 2nd in the pool (which we will!) we play Saturday as well. Saturday is semi-finals and finals! If we play on Saturday we get to stay at the hotel provided by the tournament people an extra night which would be nice!

After volleyball Cayley and I are going to do some traveling together! We'll do a day in Nice (probably Monday) and a day in Cannes, we think.

So, I absolutely cannot wait!!! I will be bringing my camera, computer, and Flip cam so hopefully I'm able to upload some pictures, write some stories, show some videos, etc. while it's going on!

Back to Europe I go! :)

Flip cam!!!!

2010-04-06T22:07:00.001-07:00

Get ready for some video blogging!!! I just received my new Flip cam in the mail!! Courtesy of Scott (early birthday gift, kind of thing). Thanks :)

Anyway, sorry if the title got you all excited for a video. I know, y'all can barely contain yourself waiting for the first video... I promise, there will be one soon!!

On another note, I'm getting closer and closer every day to figuring out who my partner will be for the season!!! Yea! Finally!

Also, I'm trying to work my magic with potential sponsors as well! Wish me luck and say a little prayer or two if you don't mind :)

Video is soon to come!!

The Easter Bunny

2010-04-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Easter Bunny still comes even when you're 26! :)

This is what he left for Scott. And, he told Scott he was supposed to share it with me, so don't worry, I wasn't left out!

When you were younger and your older sister's friends were babysitting you, what helped you sleep better? a. soothing jungle noises b. sticking your hand in a bowl of warm water

2010-04-02T10:57:00.001-07:00

Haha well, since both have actually been done to me, I can answer honestly that the answer is c. all of the above.... Oh wait... Haha :) Man, I remember being so mad at the time when I woke up with my hand in the water, but now I can't stop laughing thinking about it!!!

Ask me anything

Beautiful San Diego!

2010-04-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

Well, since I'm on Spring Break I made a trip down to San Diego to hang out with Scott for a few days! He and his roommate and friend from high school are living for a month in a penthouse apartment overlooking Petco Park and because they are so high up, it over looks A LOT of other pretty parts of San Diego! Long story short, Scott and Steve were supposed to move into an apartment across the street from Petco but the guy bailed on them with 2 days left before they moved in!!!! Yeah, so rude... I couldn't believe it!!! But, Steve is a property manager and was able to find a great deal for the place they are staying now for a month, and already has a new place lined up for move-in in a month! They are both great locations and about a great a price as you can find around here :)

I set up a few work outs while I was down here (so that I didn't have to drive back and forth a million times to play volleyball) and I had my first one this morning! I got to play with Kim McGiven, who went to Santa Clara, her partner Julianna, Beth VanFleet and Heather Lowe in Mission Bay. It was a great day on the beach, besides the fact that it rained this morning (YES, it does rain in San Diego!!!!) so the ground was super hard. It was sunny and the temperature was great for playing! All in all, I would call it a successful day!

Now, I get to relax for awhile until Scott gets off work and enjoy the view and weather from the balcony! :) Yea for Spring Break!!!!!!

Volleyball, Dodgeball and Strength Training!

2010-03-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

I finally got on board with Level 10 Fitness! Level 10 Fitness is a gym in Manhattan Beach, but every time you go in you have a small group or personal training session. I am joining the group of volleyball girls that already go there so I will mostly be going in a small group setting. I'm pretty excited because I can't wait to get my leg strength back to what it used to be but I'm a little nervous considering the trainer there is nicknamed "Mere-death", haha. I've heard nothing but good things about her though and she was really nice when I met her the other day! It was also a good sign that when I walked in Misty May and her dad were in there working out! If the best beach volleyball player ever works out there... I guess it's good enough for me too!! :)

My first session which includes testing so that they can see where I am and "base work" is tomorrow at 8 am. Wish me luck!!!

Also, I have my last night of dodgeball tonight! It is the semi-finals and finals of play offs. Theme this week is white trash... should be fun!!!

Oh, and I have my second week of Tuesday night 4's volleyball league :) Staying busy as always!!

USA IDQ #2

2010-03-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we came out 5th overall, which was kind of disappointing, but at the same time, still a great finish! After a second place finish in the first International Development Qualifier (IDQ), Dana and I were really hoping to finish top 3 to clinch another spot in a NORCECA event where we would represent the USA. Unfortunately, we came up short of that goal, but we learned a lot over the weekend!

The main thing I learned??? Quit going to 3 games so that I'm not so tired on the second day of a tournament!!!!! :) On Saturday, we had pool play, so we played 3 matches. Two of which, we went to the 3 games, and most of those games were close ones! It took a lot of energy, but it was good to know that we could find a way to win even when we weren't playing our very best volleyball. The one match that we won in 2 games was still tough because the wind was pretty strong so it took a lot of concentration not to mention a lot of extra work physically to make sure we were taking care of the ball. We went 3-0 the first day, so, it was a good day at the office!

Sunday was a shorter day however. We won our first match (in 3 again!!!!). And, we could tell we were both a little tired after that match. We had a little bit of time to rest though, and we ate a little to get some fuel. The next team we played were the eventual champions! They were a great team all around and made us work for every single point we got! There were at least 20 rallies during the match that went back and forth over the net 5-6 times. (A normal rally may last 2-3 times over the net... maybe) Anyway, the problem was they ended up winning all of the long rallies, and the match...

My coach, Nancy Mason, was there though and was able to give me some good insight on what to work on! It was so great having her there because not only was she able to give me tips in between matches, but she is now able to build practice around specific things for me to work on!!

Next step in my volleyball life.... A STRENGTH COACH!! I went in and talked to the Level 10 Fitness people today... I should be starting in the next few days. Wish me luck!!!! :)

Did I mention the trainer at Level 10's nickname is "Mere-death" - haha

Monte Carlo!!!!!!!

2010-03-23T23:43:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note until I have more details and more time to write it all out, but.....

I'M GOING TO MONTE CARLO!!!! My friend Cayley Thurlby and I will be representing the USA at tournament in Monte Carlo mid-April!!! I cannot wait to go!!!!

As I get more details I will write more about the event!!

How are you so good at recognizing shapes and colors?

2010-03-18T21:44:00.003-07:00

My 4 and 5 year olds at school have been teaching me :) I think I've got most of them down now!

Ask me anything

What ultimately led you to choose to pursue beach volleyball professionally over continuing to play indoor overseas (Puerto Rico, Europe or wherever else)?

2010-03-18T21:44:00.001-07:00

I still haven't given up on indoor volleyball, but I have just fallen in love with the beach game! I can't think of a better office than the beach :) But, if a great opportunity came up for me to play indoor, I would probably take it. I'll always love indoor volleyball as well!

Ask me anything

Pledge of Allegiance

2010-03-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share this awesome video with everyone. Scott's Grandma sent it to me and I feel like it's so important! I think it's crazy that Red Skelton talked about the "Under God" part of the pledge of allegiance and how sad it would be if it were ever to be removed as if the idea were far fetched. And yet, there's actually been discussion within the last few years about removing it. So sad! Or as I would say to my kids at school "How very sad!"

http://media.causes.com/604250?p_id=42563578*

When our little lone star (that would be you) first moved to So. Cal, did you experience any degree of culture shock?

2010-03-16T20:09:00.001-07:00

Getting adjusted is an ongoing process ;)

Ask me anything

Since you're a UT-Austin alum, is there a memorial for the victims of the l966 massacre or is it something that the college wants to forget about?

2010-03-16T20:07:00.001-07:00

Yes, there is a Memorial garden on the UT campus for the victims. I'm sure UT wishes they could forget about the incident but they will never, ever want to forget about the people who died that day.

Ask me anything

l noticed that you didn't participate in last year's Coney lsland AVP tournament. Have you ever been to NYC? Do you plan on coming east for either the Belmar AVP tourn. or the Long lsland AVP Qualifier?

2010-03-16T20:04:00.001-07:00

I actually have been to New York City and I love it! My best friend from back home lives there now so she gave me a great tour last time I was there! And, hopefully, I will be at at least one if not both of those tournaments!

Ask me anything

What do you like most about where you live now?

2010-03-15T23:07:00.001-07:00

I like that when I wake up and walk into my living room, I see the sand and waves. And, I like even more that when I walk out my front door I'm standing on the sand :) You can't beat being at the beach. I've always been a beach girl at heart! (I still LOVE Texas too, of course!)

Ask me anything

Ask Me Questions!!!!

2010-03-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

What is my favorite Pink Berry flavor?

Who is my all time biggest sports hero?

What have I been up to today?

Is there anything you've desperately been wanting to ask me?? Go to http://www.formspring.me/michmoriarty and type in a question, any question and I can answer you!!! It comes up through twitter so you should definitely follow me - michmoriarty is my twittername, and you can also see the answers at that same website once I've answered it!

And, let's be honest, I don't think anyone actually needs to ask who my sports hero is, but it was just a question that popped in my mind :)

USA Try Out... Number 1 of 2????

2010-03-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Picture from the IDQ two weekends ago!

Today was the first High Performance try out of the "summer" for USA Volleyball. Apparently, I was one of the only people that got that memo, haha. There were about 30 people total, 20-ish guys and 10 girls. I was the only U26 participant, there was one U21 participant and the rest were between the ages of 15 and 18. So, it made for an interesting try out!! The girls were all super nice and worked hard but it was weird trying to make things work with such a different level of player. And, I am not at all saying they were bad, because they definitely weren't, but 95% percent of the girls had no beach experience so it was just a little different :)

Anyway, the try out went alright and I am supposed to hear back in about a week or so if I make the team! The problem is, they want me to try to come to another try out so they can see me with people my age, which is kind of a bummer, but if I make the team it's worth it!!!

If I make the U26 team (it consists of 8 girls) then I will get to train from April to August, twice a week for free! And, then they pick two teams I believe at the end of the summer to represent the USA in Turkey for the World University Games! Send positive vibes and say a few little prayers if you think of it! :)

USA IDQ Finale!

2010-03-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

Today was the play off day of the USA IDQ. Dana and I ended up playing 4 matches (obviously a good sign!) and are now both completely exhausted!

The GREAT news is.... we finished 2nd in the tournament!!!! We qualified to play in a NORCECA event and represent the USA!!!! We will get to play in one of three events - Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala or Mexico! USAV gives us some money for travel and the tournament pays for hotel and transportation and all that good stuff once we're there. Very, very exciting news!!!

I am COMPLETELY exhausted, so I will give details on today's matches tomorrow hopefully! And Mom, don't worry, Scott filmed 95% of all of my playing done today :)

USA IDQ Day 1!

2010-03-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of the USA IDQ is done! I won my two pool play matches in three games each. The first match I played was against the number one seeded team in the tournament!! My partner, Dana Kabashima, and I played GREAT the first game! I think the score was about 21-15. The other team changed their strategy a bit the second game and it was close, but we lost. The third game was close the entire way but we pulled it out at the end and won 15-12!!

The next match was against the 13 ranked team (we are 12) and that match also went to three games. We lost the first game, mainly because it was a completely different style of playing. The first match was against two taller girls who were more aggressive hitting and offensively, whereas, the second match was against two shorter girls who had better ball control. Once Dana and I figured out how to play this team, we won the second 21-16 and the third game 15-10.

It was a really fun day (after the rain stopped this morning)!!! Pretty windy, but some good volleyball was being played! I'll update again tomorrow after play-offs! They should start around 9:30.

Mrs. Lippy's Class!!!

2010-03-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

Now you're all in big, BIG trouble! Here are the official team pics for Mrs. Lippy's Class (my dodgeball team).

This is not all of our team, but it was most of us! We are still undefeated heading into the home stretch of the season. Next week we play the next best team and we will be dressed as Ninjas! Look out!

AdvoCare!

2010-03-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

I just recently rediscovered my favorite energy drink/supplements and am sooo happy that I did! All through high school and college I drank Spark which is an AdvoCare product and took a few other AdvoCare supplements. I guess after 8 years of taking it, I decided to take a little break, but I am full swing back into my AdvoCare stage and I don't think it will fade again!

Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know that:

A. AdvoCare is really awesome stuff (I'm not just being cheesy, it really is GREAT stuff)

B. I am now an AdvoCare Distributor (I get a discount and I can use this as a second source of income)

C. www.AdvoCare.com/10027793 - This is my website, so if you ever want to order anything, this is the place to go!

If you have any questions, I am always here to give you more info about products! But, I'm super excited to have these products again just in time for season!

Speaking of volleyball season - I have a tournament this weekend in Long Beach. It is the USA IDQ and my partner is Dana Kabashima. I'll definitely post results!! :)

Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive, and Dodge

2010-03-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

MRS. LIPPY'S CLASS - Part of us anyway

The long awaited Dodgeball pictures are finally here!!!

Tonight's theme was Superhero and it was awesome! I had no plans of what to wear until about an hour before the game and the costumes ended up working out great (thanks to my friend Brittany who picked everything up)! The game tonight was intense, but not in the usual way. We pretty much dominated the entire night, BUT there was one guy on the other team who couldn't have been more annoying!! He's the reason it got intense. As you may be able to tell from the pictures, dodgeball is totally for fun for most of the people who are in the league. Of course, it gets competitive, but in the end we're all there to have a good time. Well, there was one guy on the other team tonight who was way too serious about it. He had his head phones in the entire time, and crouched in the corner holding a ball the ENTIRE game! He literally got up to throw the ball maybe 10 times in 45 mins. SOOOO frustrating... It may seem silly that it was frustrating, but I'll explain why it makes sense.

Our games are timed for 45 minutes total. In that 45 minutes you play multiple little games. So, it's like volleyball in that the match is the entire thing, and there are games that make up the match. Anyway, you play as many little games as you can get in in 45 minutes. WELL, usually we get in about 15 little games (it goes quick because the gym is tiny so people get out fast). Tonight, the final score was Mrs. Lippy's Class (my team) 7, other team 3. We only played 10 games because this guy would sit in the corner for 10 minutes hiding behind a ball while about 5 people from our team threw at him. It was SOOO boring for everyone else involved because we literally sat on the sidelines forever!!!

Anyway, that didn't really take away from the fact that it was super fun once again! And, my arm feels like it might fall off, once again :)

Enjoy the pics and thanks for letting me vent!!!

Nanananananananananan BATMAN!!! Yes, I'm wearing little boy cartoon underwear :) Thanks Britt!

My underwear says "WHAK" and her's says "IRON MAN". I liked my WHAK haha.

Two teammates - Zoro and the Burger King

More awesome teammates!

Our team captain- Amy Dittoe and Batman of course.

That's one of my roommates, Mitch, on the right, haha. They were Clark Kent and Superman.

Pro-Am Champs!

2010-03-01T23:47:00.001-08:00

I won a flat screen TV this weekend!!! Yes, that's right, besides all of the other highlights of my weekend, I actually won a flat screen TV! So awesome!

This weekend was the Huntington Beach Pro-Am. Huntington Beach is about a 45 minute drive south of me (for those that might not know southern California very well). Anyway, the tournament was scheduled for Saturday, and Nancy Mason (my awesome coach) was supposed to play with the daughter of a really good friend of hers. Well, as you all might have heard, there was lots of rain and more importantly, tsunami warnings for California beaches, so people were not even allowed on the sand Saturday. Here's where things get really exciting for me...

Nancy's partner couldn't play Sunday, so Nancy had already asked if I could play Sunday if the tournament got rescheduled. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity! Not only do I get to play with someone as good as Nancy, I also got to play with my coach (an invaluable experience). And, it's just another excuse to be out on the beach all day long playing volleyball, which will never get old to me! Anyway, Sunday morning rolls around and we head down to Huntington about 7 am for a 7:45 start time. I'm going to throw Scott under the bus really quick and mention that on the way down to the tournament we got pulled over :/ Definitely not a fun way to start the day! Not that getting a ticket is funny in any way, but the "funniest" part about him getting pulled over was that about 5 minutes before he got pulled over he said "The flow of traffic right now is 80, I'm lovin' this!" Haha, oops! Anyway, we were a little worried we might be late, but still weren't too stressed. Little did we know, we would show up about 8 and not start until 10:30! Gotta love beach volleyball!

The tournament schedule was a little chaotic because there were some drop outs due to the switch from Saturday to Sunday, so Nancy, Scott and I went and grabbed a nice little breakfast and hung out for awhile. We strolled back down to the beach around 9:00 and there still wasn't much happening. Anyway, our first match was pretty close, but we were just getting warmed up. Plus, even though Nancy trains me 3 times a week, we have never played together before so we worked through getting used to that. In the first match, we lost the first game, then dominated the second and won a close 3rd game. We played back to back so we started our next match almost right away. The second match was against Heather Hughes and Alicia Zamparelli. I played/trained with Heather a bit over the past few months and knew she was a great player so it wasn't going to be easy! And, Alicia has been around the game awhile and makes a decent amount of main draws every summer so she's good too! Anyway, we lost our second match 22-20 both games. Such a bummer, but Nancy and I both hate losing so I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen again!

Those two matches concluded pool play so we started with play-offs. Play-offs were supposed to be one game to 21, but Nancy decided she wanted to play 2 games out of 3, so she told the tournament director that and he changed it (gotta love being an AVP star, haha). Our first play off match was against my really good friend Cayley Thurlby, and Olivia Waldowski. Once again, both really great players! It was a close match, but Nancy and I ended up coming on strong at the end and pulling it out. (Keep in mind that even though I'm exhausted, I've already improved exponentially throughout the day just playing with Nancy and getting all of her advice!) The second play off match we played against Heather and Alicia again! This match was a better outcome for us though and we pulled it out in two games. Nancy and I were just getting going, haha, but really we were both exhausted but 100 percent determined to win. After that, the sun was starting to set so we had to go back to one game to 21. We played two girls about my age who I've played with and practice with before and it was a close game through about half way and then we started playing really well and took it and ran with it.

So, that puts us into the finals!!! I'm so pumped at this point! And, if you know Nancy at all, you know she is seriously getting into it and is demanding that we will win this game! They went up at the beginning of the game, but about halfway through Nancy and I tied it up, and then pulled through at the end with a few runs of points!! It was SOOO awesome!!!

At this point, the sun was basically setting so we gathered up our things, grabbed our flat screens and said thanks to the tournament people, snapped a picture and left! It was such a fun experience and such an incredible learning experience! I will definitely never forget it.

I need to say a special thanks to Scott for being such a trooper and driving us out there, sitting there all day, helping shag, filming for my Mom, getting us food, and all kinds of other really nice things :) Thanks!!

February Fun

2010-02-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

At Kalyra in Santa Barbara (One of our favorite spots!)

Once again, I know it has been awhile but I've been so busy enjoying my new busy life that I barely have time to even check my email!!

For the last two months I have been working out in the mornings (usually 4-5 times a week) on the beach and in the gym, then going to work at the Montessori School of Manhattan Beach from 12-6. Then, if I'm feeling up to it I hit the gym again. I've also started playing on a Dodge Ball team and going to a small group from my church (Hilltop Church of Christ).

It has been an absolutely wonderful last two months! I'm definitely improving volleyball wise and getting in better and better shape every day! Starting in February, I have been training three times a week with Nancy Mason who is "officially" my coach. There's nothing official about it really, except that I asked her to train as much as possible! She's been so great to work with and has helped me SOOO much! Also, the AVP calendar finally came out which is great news! Check it out on www.avp.com - I can finally start planning my summer, and hopefully my fam and friends can start planning to come see me too. :)

My job is so so fun! The kids are the cutest things ever. I am a floater so I get to work with pretty much every single kid at school and I can't tell you how happy it makes me when I walk into a classroom and hear "MISS MICHELLE!!!!" and then get lots of HUGE hugs! I also really enjoy all of the back rubs/scratches, hair playing and even kisses I've gotten lately, haha. It's also fun to work with kids who are just learning their letters all the way up to kids who are starting to read chapter books. It's just so neat to see their growth! As a side note, one of the kids in one of my favorite classes to work in is Eric Fonoimoana's son. That name might not sound familiar to a lot of people, but is he is a beach volleyball legend! He won the gold medal in Sydney and dominated the AVP for quite a few years. Anyway, his son is super cute and fun to work with, and it's always exciting when Eric comes to pick Tucker up because I get to pretend like he and I have something in common (even though he has no clue I play beach, haha).

The dodge ball team I joined is named Mrs. Lippy's Class (from Billy Madison, in case you've never seen that classic), and we pretty much dominate! It's a bunch of my friend's from around the area and every week we dress up with a new theme (we were the first team to do that and now almost every team does the same). The first week we were team USA, second week we did Jersey Shore, last week was Mardi Gras, and this week was nerds! We are one of only two undefeated teams left. I'll keep you posted on how the season plays out.

The church I go to has been absolutely awesome! I've met some really wonderful people from the area, including the people I now am doing a small group with. There is also a young adults small group that I might start attending as well, which will be nice so that I can meet even more people my age!

Other than that, Scott got an awesome job with the San Diego Padres as Advanced Scouting Director. Basically, he scouts the team that the Padres will play next and gives the manager and players a binder full of information on them. So, obviously he just recently moved from Hermosa Beach down to San Diego. That part is a bummer for me :( but I'm super happy for him and I will still get to see him on most weekends. He is loving it so far and gets to go to Spring Training soon which will be really fun! Hopefully, I'll get to go visit him there!

Also, Scott and I had fun in Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day. We drove up for a nice dinner and some wine tasting which was super fun! We also drove up to Palo Alto to watch the Rice baseball team play Stanford. The trip itself was fun but unfortunately, the Owls didn't do so hot. They went 0-3, but they still have a great team and will end up doing really well this season!

Talk again soon! I Promise!!!

Courtney is Pregnant!!!!

2010-01-31T22:16:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on my family...

My sister Courtney is pregnant!! I am so happy for her and Anthony, but it's sooooo weird to me that someone will be calling her Mom! You might think, "Michelle, you already have two sisters that are Mom's, why is it so weird?" And, my answer is, it was weird when Jennifer got pregnant the first time, weird when Kiki got pregnant, and it's now still weird that Courtney is pregnant! I just know that her life will be so different now (in a fantastic way) and so thinking of her in such a different role is just hard to picture!!!

But anyway, I'm very happy for Courtney and Anthony! Congrats to them! Love you guys and your baby kumquat!

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-10T20:24:00.001-08:00

Tacky Christmas Sweater Party (Thanks for the sweater Mom :) )

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year break! Mine was absolutely awesome! I got to spend a ton of time with my family and see lots of friends that I haven't seen in a long time.

I went to a Tacky Christmas sweater party and saw friends, made Christmas cookies with the little boys and sisters (minus Courtney who we missed a lot!!), opened presents and read books on Christmas Eve, opened Santa presents Christmas morning with Owen, then later on in the day saw Jake, Josh and Jill's presents from Santa, opened the rest of our presents, and helped cook/ate Christmas dinner.

And that's only part of the trip!!! I'll write about the rest as soon as I get more pics :)

Here are some Christmas pics from this year:

This was for the tacky Christmas sweater party that my friends have every year. Thank you Mom for supplying the sweater :)

My mom and I at the movie premiere for our neighbors movie!

Making Christmas cookies! Yea!

Grandeb made a "scavenger hunt" Christmas Eve game. This was team Peaches (that's the word the little boys yelled during ghost stories in Alabama)

Team "You just got poned by the cauliflower Spartans" - Everybody contributed to the name which is why it was so long. And, poned is something Jake and his friends say, kind of like you got owned.

The boys and Jill in their Christmas PJ's... the girls got some too but not everyone was there to take pictures (Courtney was snowed in in Iowa, yikes!)

Reading T'was the Night Before Christmas

My Christmas Eve sleeping buddy and me ready to go down and get our presents Santa left!

My sweet dog Sunny with her pink nose and white face! Apparently, the pink nose makes her "less desirable" but I think it's super cute! Plus, she's the sweetest dog ever!!!

Aaron and Owen opening presents Christmas morning

Owen and me saying Thank You to Santa for all of our presents! Haha

Grandebb trying to wrap while Courtney and Anthony's sweet dog Tex "helps".

Jake and PawPaw hard at work with a new Xmas present

Jill and me in her new playhouse!

Just a really cute picture of Jill

My awesome MeeMaw opening a present!

I know it's hard to see but I'm wearing oven mits because it's FREEZING and I had no gloves!

Jake with his karate Christmas bow headband

Owen showing off his karate moves

Josh showing off his karate moves

Jill is 100% convinced she's playing the Wii

Kiki and Jennifer doing their Wii fit karate moves, haha. Jennifer is really just moral support for Kiki who's on the board.

Family Christmas card pic. Finally we have a pic with everyone in it!!

Alabama Thanksgiving

2009-12-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2009-12-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2009-11-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2009-10-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

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 ????

2009-10-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

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!

US Open of Volleyball

2009-09-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to write a quick FYI:

I'm playing in a qualifying tournament tomorrow for the US Open of Beach Volleyball! It's an event that goes along with Karch Kiraly's tour (Corona Wide Open) which is a competing tour with the AVP. It's going to be held in Manhattan Beach and play starts at 9 am. I believe it's a single elimination qualifier and somewhere between 4 and 8 teams will qualify.

Here's the link:

http://www.usopenbeachvolleyball.com/

There will probably be a way to follow the matches tomorrow on the site somewhere. It's not up yet, but I'm sure results will be posted!

Wish me luck! :)

Laguna Beach

2009-09-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

Scott, Tacker and I recently went down to Laguna with a new friend we all made, Anthony. Anthony lives down in Laguna Beach and wanted us to come down and hang out, so we drove down to Irvine for a business meeting that the three boys set up and headed over to Laguna after. Here are some of the great pictures we got. It really was beautiful!

The beginning of our walk/hike around the coves.

Tacker and I hangin out.

A really cool house and view.

Really pretty little cove area.

We decided to have a goofy photo shoot. Scott is doing his Baywatch run, haha.

Tacker getting ready to dive in.

Scott and I takin' a walk :)

Someone (probably Tacker) told us to turn around for a cheesy photo shoot.

One of our cheesy shots :)

Scott was working on his photography skills.

More Scott photography skills.

About to jump down.

Really cool lighting pic.

The area we hung out the most. It was GORGEOUS!

The vball court, it was busy the whole time!

Sunset in Laguna, that also was beautiful!

H-town!

2009-09-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a really great trip to Houston! Yea for seeing the fam!! Scott even got to come down with me because he had a bunch of business to take care of (and it all went really well!). Anyway, I had lots of good meals (Taste of Texas, Chuy's, Houston's, bbq with the fam, hmm I'm sure I'm missing some others) which is one of my favorite parts of Houston! And, of course the best part was getting to actually hang out with my fam! It was kind of a quick trip but I still got to see all of the immediate fam at least a little, which was nice.

We ended up with some pretty great pics from the weekend so I wanted to share those...

I really miss my animals out in Cali! Snoop is awesome, but not so cuddly!

I got to go up to Jake, Josh, and Courtney's school two days. The first day, I went with Jenn and Jill and we had lunch with Jake. Then, I went to Mrs. Squillante's classroom and met her kids. They were all awesome! This is me and the girls from Courtney's class.

Scott came with me the second day and we ate lunch with Josh, then went to Courtney's classroom again. This is Scott with the boys, haha. In case you are wondering why two of the boys have their fingers under their noses and one of those two boys has his on his chin as well - Courtney, Scott and I drew mustaches on their fingers and a goatee on the one boy's fore finger and thumb.

Here's a close up. Haha :) Yeah, we did that, not the kids!

This was at Marble Slab after our yummy dinner at Chuy's. I LOVE their creamy jalapeno sauce! Thanks for taking the pic Mom.

Silly boys with Grandebs glasses on (Josh, Owen)

This is the first picture of a hilarious photo shoot! Imagine trying to get an 8, 5, and 3 year old, and a 10 month old to all stand still, look up and smile... at the same time haha

Another try... Owen looks like he wants to attack Jill haha

I think this was actually supposed to be a silly pic... maybe not haha

Different line up... almost got it

I love Josh in this one, haha, who knows where Owen is going, and poor Jakey is trying to be such a good big brother but looks like he's getting tired of it all!

Haha weird, Owen's being goofy :)

So close!

We give up, just be goofy!

Owen's individual silly pic

Jakey's silly pic... we couldn't seem to track Josh down

"Adult" group pic. We had to change locations due to GINORMOUS spiders in the lawn.

Apparently it's difficult for the "adults" to pose nicely too :)

Normal pic, yea :)

Kiki and Courtney being goofy! No way! :)

I think this is one of Jill's possible Halloween costumes...SOO cute!!

Jill's individual shot :)

Getting Owen to take silly pics didn't prove to be much of a problem, haha

Jill's CUTE lady bug costume!!

Owen walked into the living room with this on...hahaha

Jake and Josh with random mustaches :)

Thanks for a fun time fam! I miss you guys a TON!!!

9/11

2009-09-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

I know I didn't get to post on the actual day (9/11), but I want to make sure I mention it because I do still believe it's INCREDIBLY important! I just want to say thank you to all of our troops out there for sacrificing the comfortable lives they led in the US to go overseas and fight for our freedom. I have always appreciated the job that our military does but it really didn't sink in until my cousin Kelli's husband, Mark, was deployed. I have realized so much more what these service men and women, and their families, are actually sacrificing! So, I'd like to say thank you, and also ask everyone to say a little prayer for the men and women fighting today, our fallen soldiers, and victims of 9/11. And, another special prayer just for Mark and Kelli! :)

Utah Golf

2009-09-08T01:09:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures of my 18 holes in St. George, Utah. The pictures really don't do the course justice, but you'll get the idea! It was funny driving up to the golf course because St. George is desert, plain and simple, it's super dry, no plants anywhere, so you can see the golf course from a million miles away because the green looks so out of place! All this orangey desert and then a huge patch of bright green grass, haha. Anyway, I pretty much dominated Scott and his baseball friend/teammate Josh Womack :) Don't tell Scott I said that, he might try to argue, but whatever he says, I totally won! Haha

Josh, me, and Scott

Scenery

Action shot!

Pretty background

Josh in action

Time out to pose... the scenery was AMAZING!

Awesome view from/of one of the holes

That's me putting... I'm sure you can't see the ball because it went in the hole, of course :)

Took a time out for a photo shoot!

This might have been my favorite view!

Kind of intimidating, huh?

Ok, maybe this is my fav... That's a view from one of the tee boxes.

That's me putting waaaay in the distance, haha

The end! :)

I Can't Believe It's Over!

2009-08-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

So, now that I am back in Hermosa after a couple crazy weeks of traveling, I have some time to update everyone on volleyball news...

Two weekends ago in Muskegon my partner and I came up one match short of qualifying for the main draw! The weather forecast said rain and wind for Thursday and Friday and unfortunately, the weather people were actually right. My first match on Thursday started around 9 while it was drizzling. I kind of felt like a little kid again getting to go out and play in the rain! It was a different feeling playing while it was raining but it was actually really fun! My partner Lynnsy Jones and I played really well together and won the match pretty easily. The other team's scores were somewhere around 16 or 17 in the first and about 15 in the second. At the end of the second game it started pouring! That definitely made it harder! The ball got really heavy so you totally had to change the way you served, passed, set and hit. It was just a different game all around. Luckily, we finished it off pretty quickly! We sat underneath the check-in tent for a couple of hours waiting for our next match because it rained steadily for the next 2 hours! It also got super windy so then it was cold too! By the time we played again the rain had stopped which we thought was a good thing! Unfortunately, the rain clouds left because the wind blew them away! I don't know if you've ever tried playing beach volleyball in the wind, but it is really hard! I wish I knew the exact MPH of the wind, but all I know is we weren't even playing real volleyball because the wind blew the ball around so much. We were lucky to even get our serves over! Before the second match, the girls we were playing (and their coach... most people don't travel with a coach, but there are a few teams out there that do) asked us if we wanted to play with fresh balls they brought instead of the heavy balls that had been in the rain all day. This is where our huge mistake was!!! After warming up with both balls, we decided we'd play with the lighter, more fresh balls. Logically, this made sense to me... we are used to playing with balls that are fresh and light, so that's how we'd play our best right? Man was I wrong! The lighter ball moved so much more in the wind than the heavy balls we'd played with in the morning! Looking back, Lynnsy and I realized we should have played with the heavy balls because the other team had a bye in the first round and wouldn't have been used to the heavy balls! Such a bummer, but I guess it was a lesson learned. Anyway, we lost the second match and it wasn't pretty.

I took this picture right after my first match - it's POURING!

This is underneath one of the tents, there were tons of people huddled together and you can see the rain dripping in between the two tents

This was taken in the morning...

This is the SAME view a few hours later! Did you notice that you can't see ANY scenery in the first picture????

I was trying to take a picture of the little red flag to show hard hard the wind was blowing. It's tough to see, but it's blowing straight out!

I flew back and spent the rest of the weekend in St. George, Utah watching Scott's baseball team play! Unfortunately, I got into St. George right after Scott's first game was over and I missed him pitching. The real bummer was that he hurt his arm really bad... he was only able to pitch an inning and a third that night. Now, he's just waiting to go to the doctor to get an MRI and see what's really wrong with it. He wasn't able to finish out the last week and half of his season so he was pretty bummed. Everyone please say a little prayer for him because he'll be figuring out what to do with his life for the next couple of months. He's got a few job interviews set up which is really exciting!

After St. George, I was back in Hermosa practicing and then headed out to Chicago! I love the Chicago AVP event because Chicago is such a fun place to get to visit! I flew in on Wednesday and ended up just hanging out around the city for awhile before meeting up with Scott's friend Matt who lives in Chicago. He let me stay at his house while I was there so that I didn't have to pay for a hotel... very nice of him! Thursday morning we played our first match in some pretty dreary weather again! It barely sprinkled but was a little windy and overcast. I played with Jessica Veris again in this tournament (she was my Hermosa Beach AVP partner) and we played pretty well in the first match! The team we played was super scrappy so it was a fun match with lots of long points! The scores were somewhere around 21-18ish in both games. We had some time off in between matches and during my break Grammy, Tommy, and Aunt Jacque showed up! It was so fun getting to hang out and talk to them! It rained for a little while after they got there so we all sat under a tent watching some of my friends play. Then we got to grab some lunch around the corner at Einstein's before I had to start my second match. The team Jess and I played in the second match has qualified for the main draw a ton but we knew they were totally beatable so we were excited for the match! Well, it ended up being very close and we put up a good fight but we lost in two. We definitely shouldn't have lost but just made a few mistakes here and there. We played well but just needed an extra ace or kill here or there! And that's where my 2009 AVP season came to an end. It was a bummer because we had a very good chance of qualifying and fell just a few points short. But, it just leaves me with an even greater desire to work hard this off season and be ready to start in 2010! The rest of my Chicago trip was really fun! I got to hang out with Matt and grab some amazing deep dish pizza! And I got to spend some time with Cayley Thurlby's family (she's originally from Chicago) and she showed me around Chicago! One of the fun things we did was going to this place called the Weiner Circle. It's a famous hot dog place in Chicago that's known for it's GREAT food and service. The famous part about it's service is that they're REALLY rude to you! While we were there they definitely came through, haha we got yelled at a few times. :)

Stay posted on my blog because I'll still write about fun life things and I'll be playing in plenty of local tournaments still! Also, feel free to let me know if there is anything you'd like to hear about that I don't write about!

I forgot to mention.... The first night I was in Muskegon I went and grabbed dinner from this little tavern place. I talked to the cute old man next to me and he ended up telling my waitress who told the manager that I was in town for the volleyball tournament. Well, the manager came over and gave me some coupons so that I would bring some volleyball people back with me sometime during the weekend. So, Thursday after my matches were over I brought my partner, her boyfriend, his partner and another girl I had just met back to the restaurant with me! On the menu, they have a deep fried hamburger... yikes, right? Well, our table was having debates about how they actually deep fry the burger - do they do it all together? Do they do it a piece at a time? How long do they keep in the frier for? Etc. Someone in the group asked the waitress about it and after a couple different conversations, she ended up taking us to the back so we could see how they do it!!! It was so fun! We got to go into the kitchen and one of the cooks did a demonstration for us! I got a bunch of pictures on my iPhone...

Putting the hamburger together

He said it was very easy... dry, wet, dry wet... this was the first dry

Wet number 1

Dry number 2

Wet number 2

The cook and Lynnsy's bf and partner hanging out while it fries!

In the frier

Taking it out

Finished product! They fry a pickle to go on top and stick a knife through it!

(PS Don't ever order anything like this... the waitress and the cooks said it tastes terrible! Haha)

WONDERLOVE!

2009-08-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Wonderlove! - Bryan is on the left and Chris Paul Overall the lead singer is in the middle (he has an awesome voice!)

I promise I do actually play volleyball out here in California, however, I get a lot more pictures of the other things I do because I can actually take pictures of the other stuff :)

Scott and I were lucky enough to catch one of the last few shows that Wonderlove is going to play for awhile! In case you don't know who Wonderlove is, they are one of the best bands EVER! The guitar player (guitarist ?) is Bryan McIntyre, one of Aaron's (Kiki's husband) very best friends! Obviously, he is one of Kiki's good friends too, along with the other members of the band. Anyway, Scott and I drove to watch them play after his game in Orange County one night. We walked in right in time and got to hear all of their awesome songs! We also caught Bryan's eye during the concert and got to chat with him after. Such a fun night! If you haven't heard them, you should go to their myspace site because they really are awesome! I think they also have music on iTunes that you can check out!

The whole band except for Chris left the stage and he was supposed to play by himself for a song or two, but the crowd wanted the whole band there (and so did Chris) so they came back out and sang with him!

Shaquille O'neal is GINORMOUS!!!

2009-08-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Shaq - the close up - he was like 5 feet away!

I tried to show how GINORMOUS he was compared to the other peeps around! So crazy!

So, I forgot to mention another fun thing from Hermosa Beach weekend... Shaq VS. In case you haven't heard of this, Shaq has a reality tv show called Shaq Versus, and basically, each episode he takes on the best athletes from a different sport. So, he's going to swim against Michael Phelps, do some quarterbacking against Ben Roethlisberger (I think), and play beach volleyball against Misty May and Kerri Walsh. Here's where the really fun part comes in! After the men's finals of the AVP Hermosa Beach Open, they filmed the episode of Shaq VS where he plays Kerri and Misty! Basically, Cayley and I showed up for the last point of the men's finals and got a front row seat to watch the show! I didn't have my camera so I wasn't able to get that great of pictures but I did manage to snap a few on my iPhone.

For the filming, they did introductions twice, just to make sure they got a good one, and then finished the rest of the match. They had a helicopter helping film for the introductions so I think that's why they only had 2 tries. Shaq got to play with Todd Rodgers against Misty and Kerri which might make you think he had a good shot at playing a competitive match... Don't let the fact that Todd Rodgers is amazing fool you though, Shaq was TERRIBLE!!!! Haha, it was one of the funniest things to see that big guy try and move on the sand! Plus, I'm pretty sure he's never touched a volleyball in his life and his hands engulf the ball so watching him set was pretty hilarious! All in all, it looked like he could have been decent if he practiced ever, but I don't think he'll ever be able to catch up to Phil Dalhausser. Speaking of Phil, before the taping started, Shaq and Phil were talking and goofing around and Shaq kept putting him in bear hugs! It was strange to see someone actually dwarf Phil Dalhausser! Anyway, keep your eye out for the episode of Shaq VS and the volleyball girls! It was pretty awesome to watch even though Shaq kinda gets dominated!

Hermosa Family Fun

2009-08-18T16:22:00.001-07:00

Hello again!

I am taking off tomorrow morning for the Muskegon, Michigan AVP event so I figured it was time I posted Hermosa AVP stuff!

On Wednesday morning, my mom and dad flew in to hang out, see my life here, and watch me play! My mom has been out here already but it was the first time my dad has gotten to see me out in California so I was super excited to pick them up! My dad actually spent lots of summers during college out in Manhattan Beach with his friend Scott Fisher, so it's not like he doesn't know the area, but I was excited for him to see it all from my perspective! Anyway, Scott and I picked them up from the airport (after making them wait like 15 mins, oops! Sorry!) and then we headed back to Manhattan Beach for a yummy breakfast at the North End. I'm so glad Scott's friend Justin introduced us to that place because it is such good food with an amazing view!! After breakfast I showed them my apartment and then checked them into their hotel. My parents and Scott were nice enough to accompany me down to the playing site so that I could get in a serve and pass the day before I played. Scott served at me and set me some balls while my parents shagged - just like the good ole club days :) Then Scott had to head out for his baseball game. My mom was exhausted so she took a nap and my dad took me to get groceries! Woohoo! He filled my fridge and cabinets for me which I was super grateful for! Thanks dad (and mom for the instructions)! We then tried to grab some dinner at the Bottle Inn but it didn't open in time for us to eat and make it to Scott's game so we grabbed some dinner at Fonz's. I've been wanting to try it so I was excited we had the chance. It was excellent! After that we headed to Scott's game in Orange County. We ended up leaving Scott's game early to go pick Courtney and Anthony up!! It's been awhile since I've seen them so I was soooo glad they got to come visit!! After we got them we all chatted for a bit but I had to turn in because I was playing the next day.

Thursday morning I woke up early to check in and met everyone over at my parent's hotel room. I had quite a bit of time off so we all got to hang out and relax for awhile. After a pretty long wait it was finally time to head back to the tournament site and get ready! My partner, Jessica Veris, and I played the Machado sisters. These girls are both pretty young (young by beach vb standards - like 20 and 22) and are both short. So, one might think, that must have been an easy first match, right? However... the Machado sisters are know for their great defense and marathon points! They dig everything and the rallies are usually 4 to 5 times over the net! We lost the first game 21-18ish but felt pretty good still. We won the second game, I think 23-21, and then ended up winning the third game like 15-9! I had a bunch of aces in the third game which came as a nice surprise because we were all EXHAUSTED by the third game. Anyway, it was a really good win for us because those girls are great players. Our second match didn't go quite as well... we lost in two games, 21-15, 21-16 ish. The ladies we played were a little older but still knew how to play the game. It was a bummer but I did get to see Pao and Jaimie Hosfeld (Brian, my assistant coach from Texas, his wife) and their daughter Ella! It's always fun to have Pao around, especially when I'm playing with her haha hint hint... and it was great to see Ella and Jaimie because I never get to see them!

So anyway, we hung out and watched some matches, and then had to leave because Courtney got hungry... and we all know what that means :) Haha, I'm totally kidding... It had been a long day and everyone really had only eaten breakfast so by 5 o'clock we were all starving and so tired! So we ate Paisano's pizza on the pier and it was delicious! It is definitely some of the best pizza you'll ever have! We relaxed for awhile because everyone needed a little rest, and then went to Scott's game again. It was really fun going Thursday night because Scott was in the stands "charting" - basically he was taking stats for his team - so we got to sit with him for awhile and talk to him! After the game we were hungry again, mainly just me and Scott, so we tried to eat at Koji's, this shabu shabu place in Orange County where we went when Kiki and fam were in town. Unfortunately, they were closed, even though the website said they shouldn't have been! So, we headed back to Hermosa and just ate left over pizza.

Friday morning Scott had to leave for a road trip so it was just me and the fam. We pretty much hung out at the AVP all day and watched matches. Courtney and Anthony took a short break to visit with Anthony's Aunt Thelma and her husband who live in Manhattan Beach. It was a super fun day though and we got to see lots of good volleyball. We also got to sit in the VIP tent next to Misty May!!! That night we went to the Bottle Inn which is an authentic Italian restaurant in Hermosa. They seated us in the wine cellar which was really cool! And really, it was chilly too.

Saturday morning, my parents had to leave. It was sad because it was such a short trip, but maybe I can convince them to come back and visit me again!!! :) After Courtney, Anthony and I dropped my parents off at the airport we went back to North End because they missed it the first day. They also LOVED it and took some pretty pictures when we were done. I really wanted to show Courtney and Anthony some of my favorite houses on the strand, so after breakfast we parked by the Manhattan Pier and walked up and down the strand for awhile. They got to see Holly McPeak's house and my very favorite house ever. It is huge and beautiful and in my dreams I'd love to own it one day :) And we finally got to do what Courtney was MOST excited for.... Hollywood!!! Haha, we actually went into the city of LA, it was my first time since I've been out here. We saw the Walk of Fame and looked at every star, walked up and down Rodeo Drive, and then went to Robertson street. Courtney definitely knew the good places to find stars. We were a little disappointed because we hadn't seen any stars and needed some refreshments. We got some Pink Berry and sat down to eat it when Anthony says, "Isn't that the doctor from ER?" Courtney and I both whipped around and we figured out it was the doctor from Grey's Anatomy!!!! At least we thought it was Dr. Burke! We all wanted to be 100% sure so Courtney had me follow him down the street. He turned into Subway and I didn't want to be too stalkerish, so I just looked in the window discretely. I was convinced, but we ended up making Anthony go in the Subway to ask for Dr. Pepper and make sure it was him. He did and he said it was him. While we sat outside the Subway finishing our Pink Berry, Dr. Burke came back out with his cute little girl and there was no doubt left, it was him! We saw a celebrity!!! Woohoo, haha. After that we ate at the Ivy but didn't get to see anymore celebs, just lots of really, incredibly rich people. After a long day of star searching we headed back to Hermosa to clean up and relax. We went out on the pier for dinner and then just to hang out for our last night which was super fun.

I am so so so glad everyone got to come out and visit! I miss my fam a lot and LOVE getting to see them whenever I can! Thanks again for the visits!

Love you guys!

Me, Snoop Fish, and the awesome sign Jakey made for me!!!!

Walking to the AVP site for practice

Practicing the day before the tournament

At Hennessey's for lunch

Me with the AVP sign at Hennessey's

During our first match

Me and Jaimie
Serving
Me, Courtney, Ella and Pao playing in the sand :)
After our attempt to go to Koji's failed :(

The AVP Site from the VIP tent

Manhattan Beach Pier

The Bottle Inn! Yum!
I'm next to Chuck Norris' star, haha

At the Ivy, we were doing our cool famous thing keeping our sunglasses on

6-Man Sailors

2009-08-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

6-man Sailors!!!!

Hey everyone! I'm finally putting up another over-due post! So, two weekends ago, I played in a tournament called 6-man! Pretty much everyone that lives in southern California knows about it (well at least everyone in the LA/south bay area). It doesn't matter if you're a volleyball player or not, 6-man is a fun time!

This year I played on a team with Alyson Jennings, Lauren Paolini, and Juliann Faucette! It was a nice little UT reunion :) The other girls on the team were Alyson's friends from out here. The point of 6-man is mostly just to have fun but it's also to dress up in costumes (yes, I played in a costume tournament again) and play volleyball! This tournament is a little different from others because you actually play with 6 people on the court, just like indoor. The court is also a little bigger than the courts I play in during real competition. On the women's side of the tournament, there are usually about 12 girls on a team. The better men's teams usually have about 40 guys!!!! Usually there are about 10 guys that play and the rest just cheer and have fun.

So, the tournament format is pool play on Saturday and you have to finish first or second in your pool to make it to the play offs on Sunday. We played 4 matches on Saturday... some of the other teams in our pool were dressed up as Santa's, bay watch girls, and the Oakley sponsored team just had on really bright weird neon clothes! I was jealous of the pink Oakley's they all got though! We ended up going 3-1, we lost to Oakley in our last match. Pao and I left the tournament after that to grab some food at La Penita, and rest for a bit. After that, we met up with our team to hang out and go see all the other 6-man people out. It's funny because it's the only time people are really allowed to go into bars or places like that in swim suits! My team didn't, but a lot of girls just stayed in their swim suits the whole time!

We lost our first game on Sunday but Pao and I stayed to watch until the finals. It ended up being a long day but it was actually really fun because the volleyball is really good on Sunday! We cheered on some of our guy friends that played and also cheered on our team from last year who ended up winning it all!

Overall, it was a super fun weekend! And even though we didn't win it, everyone at the tournament said we were definitely the cutest dressed team!!! That's gotta count for something, right? :)

I've got lots of pics for this post!! Woo hoo :)

Hook'em! Pao, me, and Juliann

Hook'em again! Pao, me, Al

Our outfits once we took the warm ups off. Captain's hats, bright red lipstick, pig tails, rope necklace, blue tops, and white bottoms with Dragon (our sponsor) on our behinds!

The TEXAS team!!!! I made sure to find them, which wasn't tough!

Texas team again, Lukas (a guy Kiki was friend's with in high school) is the closest one in the shot.

Pao was trying to get action shots! You might be able to see the Dragon on the top of my swim suit bottoms.

Action shot, apparently Pao had her hands full (notice her squirt gun in the pic)

Men's Baywatch team
This is the Ditka team's scoreboard

Team Bridezillas

The sea of people that attended!!!! Crazy!
My new friend Mitch, me, Pao, and Taylor Bukolt (another UT alum!)

Taylor and Mitch's team was "More cowbell" - they took time outs so that they could have dance parties on the court :)

Erika Lott (my roommate for my first year of USA Vball!), me, Pao, Al

Wrestler team - notice the "wrestling ring" around their court, haha

Men dressed up as old ladies, haha
Pao, Geeter (the AVP announcer), me. Geeter's team, Team Fletch, is one of the better known teams, they didn't make it to the second day :/

The Magnum P.I. team. They all grow mustaches for at least 2 weeks before 6-man. They also wear really short shorts! But, they usually have at least a couple AVP men and some professional indoor players so they're really good!

Tough Decision

2009-08-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

I got a facebook message yesterday from a friend, the subject was 'You're Famous!' So, I opened the message and he had sent me a link to an article. Here's the article - http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2256

Here's the story behind it - Cayley Thurlby, my good friend out here who always plays on the AVP and set at the University of Hawaii, called me one day and asked if I wanted to go take some pictures. She said she has a photographer friend who wanted to do some test shots and that he'd give us all the pictures he took for free! So, my thought was, why not?? The photographer, Robert Hanashiro, was super nice! He took some great pictures, gave us his card, and said to email him our address so he could send us CD's of all the pictures. So, apparently Robert liked the pictures he took of me because he used them in an article he wrote! Pretty cool, huh?

So, here comes my tough decision... Volleyball? Or modeling? Haha jk, there's really no decision there! However, if I could make some money or just help out a friend and get some pictures on things, I'd be ok with that :)

PS I almost didn't even go to the photo shoot but my mom, Scott, Jennifer and I came to the conclusion that I should because, "Who knew what could come of it?" Good thinking everyone!

Quack, Quack, Quack

2009-07-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello again everyone!

Sorry it's been so long! I just wanted to post an update on some fun things (mainly one) that have been going on! Not only have I been working on finding sponsors for myself (obviously the most important thing besides playing that's going on in my life!) but I have found some time for fun stuff!

Last weekend, I played in a fun tournament called Smackfest. It's a 4 on 4 tournament and there were 165 teams! We finished 5th!!!! Woohoo! The really fun part about this tournament is that you and your team are supposed to pick a theme and dress up in costumes!!! We were the Mighty Ducks! Yep, that's right, we were the Ducks and were by far the coolest team out there! We also had tons of random fans! The other really awesome thing about the tournament is that Scott got to play in it!!! He was basically in town for about a month so he got lucky and was able to play in a volleyball tournament! It made it a lot more fun for me and I know he had a blast!

Here are some pics!!

Loading the truck - that's Scott in the short purple shorts, Goldberg jersey, helmet and shin guards! Haha

Our teammate Mitch is hitting "pucks" at Scott, our goalie. The goal wasn't exactly the greatest ever and it fell down after one shot. This was our warm up while the other team was peppering!

Me, in action

Scott hitting - those are some tan thighs :) Haha

Mitch holding our American flag - we are America's team ya know!

More Fam/Vball Pics

2009-07-21T14:37:00.001-07:00

Here are some more pics of all the family and vball fun! Some are duplicates of the ones on Jenn's site, so, sorry if you're seeing doubles!

My name on the main draw board!!! Woo hoo!!!

Strategizing :)

Serving

Digging

My name on the scoreboard!!!

Warm ups

AVP Site and Manhattan Pier

Dinner at Mama D's

Sweet little Jill and me

Medieval Times!

More Medieval Times!

Hermosa Beach Pier, so cute!

We "buried" Scott. Josh could not wait for Scott to get to the beach so we could do this!

Yea for family fun!!!!

Main Draw in Manhattan!!!!!!!!

2009-07-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

(If you look really close my name is about 3/4 of the way down)

Ok, so I realize this is incredibly late but I made it to the Main Draw in the AVP Manhattan Beach Open!!!! This is one of the two biggest AVP events every season and such an honor to make it into the Main Draw of this tournament! My partner Sydney Donahue and I had a bye for the first match of the qualifier on Thursday which was nice because that meant we only had to win one match to qualify! The first game of our qualifier match was a little shakey, but still a close one. In the second game we were down 20-16 (beach volleyball games are played to 21). And we came back and ended up winning like 25-23!!!!! Then we came out and pretty much dominated the third game and won 15-6!!! It was sooo exciting! Especially since we were so close to being done after the second game!!!

The matches in the main draw didn't exactly go our way but it was a great experience! Our first match was against "Team Gorgeous". These are two girls who dubbed themselves Team Gorgeous a few years ago and it just ended up catching on somehow. Anyway, they have been playing in the main draw for a few years so they are pretty decent, but some day soon I'll be able to beat them! And the second match on Friday was definitely a match we could have won but sadly, we came up short. The people we played were crafty, older ladies and they are usually the hardest to play! They just know so much about the game that they're always one step ahead. Sooo frustrating!

All in all, it was a great day and experience! One of the coolest parts was that Scott and some of my fam were here to see it all! Jennifer, Jake, Josh, Jill and my mom got to catch me playing at the end of their trip out. And Kiki, Aaron, and Owen flew in Wednesday night and got to watch me!

Some other fun things I've gotten to do are go to Medieval Times! That was awesome! I think Scott and I had more fun than the little boys haha. Also, I gave Jose Lima a Texas Volleyball shirt with Moriarty 4 on the back and he wore it to the game the next day! I mean, how cool is that? Jose Lima is wearing my jersey!!!! And he asked for my autograph :) And I had tons and tons of fun with all of my fam that got to come visit. The little boys absolutely loved the beach and did tons of boogie boarding and "surfing". We also played in the sand a ton building castles and burying each other. On Sunday, Scott and I drove out to hang out with Kiki and fam and we got to go on a hot air balloon ride! The balloon stayed tied up but we got to go pretty high! It was so fun!

I'm sad everyone is gone already but thanks so much for coming out fam! And yea for Courtney and Anthony and my dad coming out soon!

Anyway, sorry for the late update but I'll be better, I promise!

Just some random pics of the past week! Most of the pics were taken on other people's cameras!

Jake, Josh and Jose Lima

Scott and little Jilly!

Jill and Lima Time, haha she was not happy.

Hot air-ballooning

Scott, me, Kiki, Aaron, Owen, Mike, and Jaque

Owen and Pao watching fireworks at downtown Disney

I'll post more pics of last week as I get them from mom, Kiki and other photogs!

Hook'em Lima Time!

2009-07-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

I knew I liked Jose Lima!!!! I found out recently that Jose Lima is a huge UT fan! He says he owns all kinds of UT gear and is in his own words "the biggest fan"! How cool is that? So, I was waiting for Scott after one of his games the other day, and Jose Lima comes out wearing his UT basketball gear! He says it's a legit UT basketball jersey. Anyway, I was excited so I made him take a picture with me doing our Hook'ems :)

Ball bag, lines and antennas!

2009-07-07T15:56:00.001-07:00

On a more fun note than my last post... I went last week and bought lines, antennas an a bigger ball bag! This is a huge deal because now I don't have to rely on other people to go out and play. What I've been doing is either a. only training with people who have lines and antennas or b. just drawing lines with my foot in the sand, haha. That works ok, but I'm never really sure if I draw the court the size it's supposed to be! In the picture you can see the stuff I take to the beach with me when I go practice. Lines are on the left (I accidently put the thing that holds it together in the bag first under all the balls haha), my new ball bag (with the 18 balls I own!), the antennas in the bag, and my towel!

Also, I got two work outs in this week with Nancy Mason which is awesome! I always do a work out with her on Tuesdays but we set up practices Monday and Tuesday and it was so great to get to work with her twice! Her practices are pretty intense and I learn so much every time I go! A normal practice with her is some ball control stuff at the beginning, so like passing, digging and setting practice. As the practice goes on, we start doing controlled playing type things, so like pass, set, hit. And by the end of practice we're doing some type of scrimmage drill. She incorporates really good drills and game type situations so every time I go I feel like I get a ton better!

Partner Search

2009-07-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

So far, the toughest thing for me this summer has been finding a partner! While it's been pretty difficult and a lot of work, in many ways it has been a blessing in disguise! I've met a lot of girls and made tons of contacts through out the process of trying to find a partner for every tournament. It gets pretty frustrating because there have been some big tournaments I've missed out on, however, now, when I am looking for people to practice with or to play a pick up game with, I have tons more options.

At the moment, I'm working on finding a partner for the Manhattan Beach AVP. I've gotten some suggestions from other volleyball friends of mine and have a few options. I practiced with some girls today who are looking for partners and I have another practice tomorrow morning to see how I play with a different girl! It's a really weird process and definitely not comfortable, but it's good for me to have to break out of my shell some!

Anyway, wish me luck! Hopefully, I will have an update by tomorrow on who I will be playing with in Manhattan!

Also, you can help me talk Pao into playing beach with me and then all my problems would be solved!!!! :D

Quote of the Day

2009-07-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here is the quote of the day at the bottom of my blog:

The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, thats the day you start to the top.-OJ Simpson

Kind of ironic that OJ Simpson is talking about taking responsibility, huh? Haha

New Addition to 620 Hermosa Ave!

2009-06-30T16:43:00.001-07:00

Jaws aka lots of other names (He was not happy about me taking pictures of him!)

What do you call a fish with no i's? Fsh!! (It's not a very funny joke written down, so tell it to someone else - like Kiki - and it will be a lot better!)

As another anniversary present to each other, Scott and I went and bought a fish today!!!!!! Haha yes, I am actually that excited about getting a fish! The apartment gets kind of lonely sometimes and it's nice to have some company :) Scott and I have gone through some names but haven't officially decided on one. Here are some of what we've come up with (just fyi, Scott would really like to use a gangsta name, and I would prefer something ferocious sounding! You'll see that pretty clearly when you see the choices we've come up with.) Jaws, Snoop Fish, Notorious F.I.S.H., Masta F, Killer. Let me know if you've got some suggestions! Anyway, we'll call him Jaws for now because it's the easiest to type. Jaws, is a male beta fish. He has a pink body and blue-ish, purple-ish fins. He obviously already knows that I'm his mom because he stares at me from his tank and follows me around when I'm walking around near his bowl. He also really enjoys watching ESPN.

Haha, yes, I know I am a total dork, but Scott and I were excited to get a pet and that's all we can afford/all that's allowed in the apartment. I know everyone is very excited to meet him!!!! He is also excited to meet the fam, especially his sisters Sunny and Maya :) - Hopefully, he and Maya get along ok!

Also, Scott has already taught him some tricks. Stay, dance, give the rock, noggin, etc. :)

Getting ready to put him into his new home!

Pouring - I had to really concentrate!

Scott with his new buddy!

Me and my new friend

Some Wins, Finally!

2009-06-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I played in a USA qualifier tournament with Lauren Paolini, one of my best friends from UT! Not only was it super fun to play with her but we ended up finishing 9th in the tournament! Just 2 wins away from qualifying to play in some international tournaments! On Saturday, it was pool play so we played 3 matches. We lost the first two, barely! And finally won the last match of the day! Pao and I hadn't even practiced together before this tournament so the fact that we went to 3 games in our first match and almost won, and played a tough second match (it was the number 1 team in our pool) was pretty great for us.

Sunday morning, we played an older craftier tea

m (I actually played against one of the women in my previous tournament). They were a great team but Pao and I were able to win the first game and make a late comeback in the second game to win our first match. In our second match, we played two women who have been playing in the AVP main draw for awhile. The first game was 25-23 and the second game was 24-22!!! It was such a bummer that we lost but it was nice to know that I'm on the right path and not crazy for chasing after my beach volleyball dream!

My mom was able to fly in for the tournament and some hang out time and Scott was also able to come and watch! It was so fun to have people there! Poor Scott had to sit out in the sun all day Saturday before he pitched Saturday night, but he ended up pitching great! Thank goodness! On Sunday, we all got smart and Scott went and bought an umbrella so that he and my mom could enjoy it while Pao and I played. A

nd we got to join them in the shade during our breaks!

Another side note... My friend Cayley ended up playing the same team that I did (if Pao and I had won we would have played each other!). She and her partner Christal Morrison ended up losing a heart breaker in the 3rd game, 16-14. And, Pao's friend from the Indoor National team and a girl I played with in USA volleyball, Ale

xis Crimes, came to watch us! It was fun to see her! And last side note, a bunch of Scott's teammates also came out to watch! Tacker, who I've talked about in a previous blog, came and brought the good luck to this tournament. Jose Lima was supposed to stop by but didn't, so I let him know he was in big trouble for skipping! He said he'd make it up to me!

Enjoy a couple pics!

Pao and I on the court.

Me, Alexis and Pao

Scott and I :)

Angels vs. Dodgers

2009-06-20T23:29:00.001-07:00

In front of Angel Stadium of Anaheim. There are two of these ginormous hats, one on the left of the main entrance and one on the right.

Tonight was my first game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim! Yeah, it's kind of a weird name, but it was a fun time! I went with my new friend Caitlin (girlfriend of Scott's teammate, Justin Segal). Her family shares season tickets for both the Angels and the Dodgers, and tonight just happened to be the Dodgers at the Angels. I actually really liked the Dodgers growing up, thanks to Mike Piazza and Eric Karros, so it was fun to get to see them in person again! I love the Stros first and foremost, but I like to cheer for the Dodgers too! Anyway, we had a great time and it was cool to visit a new stadium! One might think I'd get tired of watching baseball, however, I am a dedicated baseball watcher and always love to go to games! :)

Our seats at the game! (Sorry for the random head in the way!) I took this right after the Angels hit a home run so the fans were going crazy!

Plumbing and Egg Shells

2009-06-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Sooo.... I could have sworn that my mom told me about 4 or 5 years ago that egg shells were good for the garbage disposal. It sounds like it makes sense, right? Crushed up egg shells seem like they'd help cut up any other food that might be going down with it, right?

False. Egg shells are terrible for the garbage disposal (and I must have made up that my mom told me they were good for it because my mom knew they weren't good for it so why would she tell me that?). And you know what's worse than 2 or 3 egg shells in a garbage disposal? 24 egg shells in a garbage disposal! Yep, that's right, Scott and I managed to put 24 egg shells in the garbage disposal all at the same time. Haha whoops! In case you were wondering how it's even possible to have 24 egg shells at once, Scott fixed eggs for he and I, and some friends. At the same time, I was making breakfast casserole. All of this ended up requiring 2 dozen eggs.

So anyway, my sink got clogged up and stayed clogged up for 2 and a half days until the plumber came. It smelled terrible and I had a lot of dirty dishes for those 2 and a half days, so needless to say, I learned my lesson!!!

Hermosa Days

2009-06-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

So, Sunday after my tournament was a fun, relaxed day. I made some breakfast casserole (thank you Courtney for the yummy recipe) Saturday night so Sunday morning I had some friends over to share it with me! After that, Scott and I had a fun time just hanging out and relaxing until he had to leave for baseball. That afternoon I ended up going to Yorba Linda to see Ashley Engle, my friend and old teammate at UT. Her family had me and some of her other friends over for some really awesome bbq!!! It was great to catch up and see her family as well.

Monday was another relaxed day. It had kind of been a busy weekend so I slept in and just hung out with Scott. That afternoon I got to go to lunch with Al Lau, my boss from my AVP internship last summer! It was so fun to catch up with him and just see what's going on in the volleyball world from his point of view! After that, I picked Mr. Lonergan up at the airport and we headed down to Long Beach to watch Scott pitch. It was fun to catch up with Mr. Lonergan and it's always exciting when Scott gets to pitch! The game was entertaining and the 3 of us went and ate a 24 hour diner because everything is always closed by the time their games end!

Tuesday morning I had an early practice with Nancy Mason and two other girls. Normally, we have 4 girls there to work out but we only had 3 on Monday so it was a gnarly (I'm trying to use some California lingo, I still think it sounds weird coming from me haha) work out! In all seriousness though, it was a really intense work out and it felt really good! Scott joined me at my practice and got to join in for our warm up. After we finished playing our warm up game, Nancy said, "Ok, everybody warm?" and the 3 girls reply with an out of breath "yes", and Scott replies with an "I'm done!" Haha, at least he appreciates that my job is hard! :) After the practice we went for breakfast at Uncle Bill's. Uncle Bill's is a famous breakfast place in the area that has been around for about 50 years! If you come to Hermosa/Manhattan area, you definitely need to grab breakfast there one day!

One of Scott's teammates lives in Manhattan Beach and recommended another great breakfast place, the North End Cafe. Scott and I and his teammate, Justin Segal, all met at the North End. Segal gave us some good recommendations and Scott and I enjoyed doing our favorite thing together, yes, eating. Wednesday evening, I met up with Segal's girlfriend, Caitlin, and we carpooled down to the baseball game. I figured it might be nice if I showed up since they are out of town for the next week! After the game we got to go out and meet up with some of the guys which was fun!

And today, I've spent some quality time watching 24, cleaning up the apartment, running errands and working out! Tonight, I went to my friend Adrianna's going away dinner. She is going back home to Dallas for the rest of the summer. It was very sad because I've had a lot of fun hanging out with her but I'm pretty jealous she'll be in Texas :)

Bye for now!!

Second Tournament

2009-06-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Well... I had my second tournament today! It was a little rough but it was good practice and I had fun playing with my partner Adrianna! We lost two matches today, the first to 2 older ladies (not old, just older than us) and the second to 2 girls my age. Adrianna and I played pretty well for the most part, the bummer is we're both short! So, we try to block but it's not always as successful as we'd like it to be :) The rest of the tournament was a fun experience though! Scott came and cheered us on for both matches and his friend Tacker and his host brother Spencer came to watch the second match also. It was great having some fans!

Other notes... I joined Courtney's Fafarazzi league! In case you don't know what that is, it's like fantasy football or baseball, except, you draft celebrities!! Yes, celebrities, and however many times the people on your "team" of celebrities get mentioned in a magazine, news article, etc., you get points for it. It's pretty awesome! I'm in last place right now but I've got some good celebrities so I'm feeling a comeback in the next 3 weeks!

Also, Scott's team played their first home game last night and Jose Lima pitched! Lauren Paolini (my friend and teammate from UT) came with me and watched. Lima Time is always entertaining and I love hanging out with Pao so it was a good time!!

The Crazy Life of a Beach Volleyball Player

2009-06-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

( I realize these pictures have nothing to do with my blog post but I don't have any to go with it, so here are pictures from the Padres games I've been to!)

Haha alright, so my life might not be that crazy, but I feel like I find a way to stay really busy with out having what some might call a "real job". I, of course, consider volleyball a "real job", but some people might not see it that way since I don't have to wear "nice clothes", or work in an "office", and maybe I'm not "the norm" because I don't actually get a "pay check", but I still think volleyball is a real job. (If you didn't get it this joke, and don't worry, most people probably didn't, go to http://www.truveo.com/Saturday-Night-Live-Update-Bennett-Brauer/id/1115877386. Yes, surprise everyone, I was pretending to be/quoting Chris Farley again.)

Ok, so onto my update of this week for me so far! Monday, I went up to 24 Hour Fitness and signed up for a membership there. I feel so grown up joining a gym! Too bad it costs money to feel grown up haha. It didn't make sense to me to actually stay and work out after signing up for a 24 Hour Fitness membership so I left to run more errands and have yet to go back and work out there. But, I'm still really glad I signed up so that next week I can actually use my membership! Haha. Just when I was about to leave to take advantage of my new membership, Scott called and said that he and Tacker (Ryne Tacker, one of his best friends from the Rice baseball team, who is also playing for the Long Beach Armada this summer) were on their way to the apartment and wanted to do a work out with me. So, instead of going up to 24 Hour Fitness (I know you all believe that was actually my plan :) ), I waited for them so that we could all go down and do a beach work out together. We did a pretty good little work out, and then another teammate of their's, Justin Segal, met us to play some beach volleyball. We played 4 or 5 games which was awesome for me because the more I can play the better! I think the guys were a little wiped out after though! I'm glad they can now appreciate how hard my "real job" actually is though. :) And, for the record, I was still going strong when we finished!

Tuesday, I got to practice with Nancy Mason and the usual group of girls I work out with. For about a month now I've been working out every Tuesday morning from 8-10 with a group of 4 or 5 girls. There are about 6 girls that are in our group but usually only 4 show up each Tuesday. Tuesday evening I joined Taylor Bukolt and his team in a league match. They play every Tuesday night and they needed another girl (it's a 4 on 4 co-ed league so there always have to be two guys and two girls on the court). We ended up winning, of course! And then Scott and I joined Taylor and his team at Sharkeez to watch the end of the Lakers game. We also went to Sharkeez because in the league Taylor plays in, the winning team wins a free pitcher (of orange juice of course!). In all seriousness though, it was really fun to play and meet more people out here so I'm really glad Taylor's letting Scott and I hang out with him some!

Wednesday was a really, really cool day for me! I got to practice with Carrie Dodd and Diane DeNecochea!!! Now, for those of you who don't know much about beach volleyball, this is a partnership who is always in the final four of tournaments and made it to the championship match last AVP event!! I mean, they are two of the top players on the beach! How did I get this opportunity you might ask? Well, Carrie Dodd (formerly Busch), was an All-American at the University of Texas. She actually took the team all the way to the NCAA Finals. You can read about her here... http://www.avp.com/The-Players/Females/D/Carrie-Dodd.aspx. So, through UT connections I met her last summer. Well, when I got out here this summer, I wanted to actually be serious and figure out a way to really get my career going. I wrote Carrie an email and asked for advice and whatever else she might have to offer. Well, along with a bunch of other stuff, she gave me an opportunity to come practice against her and her partner! So, I drove over to Carrie's house at 6:40 (yes, a.m.) and we left to practice. It was awesome!!!! For the first part of it I just got to play defense against Carrie and Diane and try to touch or dig as many balls as I could. Then, the guy who became my partner for the day showed up and we did more game like situations. I was actually able to hold my own for the most part which boosted my confidence quite considerably! Carrie and Diane were both super nice about me being there too which made it even more fun! On the drive back Carrie and I had fun telling stories about UT. Some of the same people still work there (Randa Ryan who was the saving grace for both of us!) and we knew some of the same people anyway so we just told stories back and forth which was hilarious. Oh, and the reason I even mentioned the drive back is because we drove down to San Diego for the practice. Carrie's partner lives down there so they trade off going to practice where the other one lives. Pretty crazy, huh?

On Wednesday night Scott and I headed down the street like 4 blocks to the Comedy and Magic Club. The guy I am renting my apartment from left me a free voucher for tickets to the club and it was about to expire so we decided to finally try it out. We got there about an hour and a half early to have dinner and get a good spot. There were about 5 comedians that performed and they were all absolutely hysterical! As all of you know, I'm very easily entertained, so I laughed literally the entire time, but Scott laughed most of the time too so I think it was legitimately funny!

Thursday morning I somehow talked Carrie into being the 4th girl to practice with myself, Erin Aldrich (another UT volleyball and also track alum) and Adrianna Stasiuk, who will be my partner tomorrow. We had planned to just scrimmage from about 7-9 (yes, a.m., y'all should be very impressed!) but since we pretty much got dominated in the first game (Carrie is just so good it's ridiculous) we did some game-like drills for a bit and then played two more games at the end. Adrianna and I almost won the last game so it was good we ended on a high note! After practice I drove to Long Beach to meet up with Scott and Tacker. The 3 of us headed down to San Diego so they could meet with Scott's agent, high school pitching coach, pick some of his stuff up and go to dinner with Mrs. Lonergan. We got some In-N-Out on the way down to San Diego which was amazing! I don't actually have it that much (because it's not all that great for you haha) but I do give in every once in awhile because it just tastes so good! And then after all of the errands we needed to run, Scott and I went to dinner with his mom to their favorite restaurant, Cafe Japengo. It's sushi, and it's probably the best sushi you will ever eat in your life! I definitely recommend you go there if you're ever in SD.

So far today, I practiced with Adrianna this morning. Scott came and served to us for a bit and then Adrianna's friend Jarren came and also helped us get a good practice in. We just went light today since we have our tournament in Manhattan Beach tomorrow! Scott and I hung out the rest of the day and just relaxed. He left for his game a few hours ago and I'm headed down to Long Beach soon to cheer on the Long Beach Armada in their home opener! Jose Lima will be pitching tonight so it should be quite entertaining!

I'll write again soon!

My Offices

2009-06-07T00:52:00.001-07:00

I have the best office in the world! Yep, that's right, my office is the beach! I just thought I'd share with everyone what I HAVE to go out to on a daily basis. It's pretty rough!

In all reality, I know how extremely lucky I am! God has blessed me in a huge way to be able to play volleyball for a living and do it in such beautiful places!

Also, just so you guys can see... this used to be my

office :) Kind of a big change, huh?

I did it!

2009-06-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I finally started a blog! I should have started this about 8 months ago so I could keep everyone updated on all my Europe adventures but as you all know, I sometimes work a little slow. :) I'll put a couple of my Europe stories up soon though, just so everyone can hear some more details about my trips!

Since I've been back from Europe I've kept myself pretty busy! I flew back to Houston and spent a few days there with the fam before Scott flew in. Then he stayed with me there for about a week (thanks again Scott for letting me keep you there a few days extra!). We did tons of family stuff and got to see pretty much all of the fam that lives in the area so that was fun! And we even got to stay long enough for Scott to meet Jill and see JJ, Justin and the little boys (they were at Disney World when Scott first flew in)! Scott also got to meet Grammy for the first time! After that Scott helped me drive my car out to California which I'm so grateful for! We were going to stop somewhere just past El Paso but once we got there decided just to drive through the night. It was rough, but I'm glad we did! Then he and I hung out in San Diego for about a week before he had to report to Long Beach for his spring training with the Armada. I got to temporarily move into my apartment for the next couple months, so it was nice to get all set up. After about a week in my apartment I headed back to Houston to see the fam again. A week and a half was just not enough after being gone for 7 months!!!! I had another fun week with the fam. I helped a little bit with house remodeling stuff, got to go to the lake house and got to go up to Austin again to see Kiki, Aaron and Owen. I love seeing all my nephews and my niece (and of course my parents and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandmas too)!!! I'm sure no one could have guessed that. :)

Now I'm back out in California and I'm really starting to get into the swing of things. I've met some really fun people that I'm excited to get to know and hang out with! And I've gotten some good volleyball training in! I'm excited for my next tournament (which should be June 13)! I'll definitely post how everything goes!

As for now, I'm headed to bed, but I'll have another post up soon!

Goodnight!