Quack, Quack, Quack

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

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!!!!!!!!

(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!

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!

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

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

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