Smile for the Camera

A couple of weekends ago it was finally time for us to take our team pictures! I was super excited because these are the pictures that will be going on our official team website when the get around to posting them here. I was very excited. We took them at a small beach in Newport. The actual taking of taking pictures turned out to be very anti-climatic.. so the freshman girls hung around a little bit and took some pictures of our own. Afterwards we all ventured to the Sprinkles Bakery for the famous red velvet cupcake. They were delicious and the next time anyone visits me, we are going there. Here are some of the pictures from the day :

Look at those vertical jumps!

Me Kelsey and Layne

The place where we took the pictures. So pretty!

Travel Trip!

Well on our team we have a full roster of about 21 girls. This is a great number to practice and scrimmage against but when it comes to traveling.. not so much. Only 16 girls are allowed to travel, for cost and space reasons. This means that 2 goalies and 14 field players pack up and leave to wherever the game is that weekend to play. When every travel game weekend rolls around nerves and anxiety runs high. The competition increases and practices are very stressful. The first travel trip was in the beginning of February to San Diego. I did not make this first trip. I was so upset that I had a scheduled meeting with Dan to ask him what I needed to work on to change my chances of traveling to the next trip the following month.

In the beginning of March there was trip to northern California to play San Jose and Standford. We would be flying and I desperately wanted to go. I remember when our family flew to Nebraska for Aunt Caren's wedding we sat next to a group of waterpolo girls traveling from ohio to california to play in a tournament. I thought they were the coolest people in the whole and viewed them like celebrities . I was determined to make that be me on this trip!

Two nights before we were scheduled to leave Dan sent out the traveling roster. The roster only had 15 names on it and he said they would announce who the last player would be the next day after practice. My name was not one of the original 15 so I knew I had to have a great practice. So the next morning before practice, I came to the pool early to talk to Dan. I walked into his office and said " Dan.. I want that spot. I am going to work as hard as I can today to prove to you that I am not okay with being left behind." And walked out. I was so nervous my voice was shaking but I figured what could it hurt? Anyways I had a great practice and was told that I would be leaving the next day with the team. I was ecstatic!

Anyways so I traveled with the team up to Northern California. It was so fun to walk through the airpot dressed in matching sweatsuits. I really had fun and it was such a good experience to motivate me through other practices to make sure I travel to other games. We lost to Stanford and San Jose, but we played really well and like I said.. It was an amazing experience. We stayed in a fancy hotel with one roommate. We had every day completely booked. We would meet early to watch video and stay up late preparing for the next day's game. I loved it.

Me, Trudy, and Taylor on the plane.

( I wanted proof that I went!)

This is what Dan did on the plane ride...

Fold dollar bills intoanimals. He was very unsuccessful.

The San Jose Pool

The Stanford Stadium ( So PRETTY!)

On Saturday after our game against Stanford, we were all completely exhausted. Dan called all of us in our rooms and told us to meet in the conference room in 15 minutes because we had A LOT to work on. So we all slowly worked our way to the conference room to prepare ourselves for a lonngg meeting. Instead he handed all of us 3D glasses and said " You're gonna want these". We were sooo excited! We piled into our red, white, and blue mini vans and headed across the street to he IMAX movie theater to watch this:

It was pretty interesting and fun to watch. Good team bonding :)

Well Hello! Remember me?

I am so sorry for the lack of postings recently. I have been completely swamped with school and waterpolo. It has easily been the busiest couple of months of my life. But I am finally at a point where I can catch my breath and update... so thats what I'm doing.

School has been easily the most difficult and stressful time of my college career so far. It has been exhausting. I have studied harder, cried more, and slept then I ever have. But it is finally over! I finished finals last friday and could not be more excited to have a break from school. Next quarter I am taking more units but less intense classes and I am looking forward to no chemistry!! ( my achilles heel in this whole process). I am looking into switching majors into more of a biology focused major instead of physical sciences. I am excited to jump into biology.

Water polo has been extremely time consuming and intense. We have are in the exact middle of our season and Dan will not let us forget that. We have been training for about four hours a day complete with weights, dry land training, and weight training. I feel like I am getting in really good shape but it is still exhausting. We just ended a mini streak of difficult games which consisted of USC, Standford, San Jose State, Hawaii, and UCLA. We played well and learned how to play against tough teams. It was very emotionally and physically trying but it was good for us. Now when we enter our conference games against teams that are not as good we will be ready! Next weekend we are playing in Santa Barbara. This will bring some good match ups and some exciting games our way. I am very excited for it!

I am very sorry for the drought of posts over these past few months but I will work hard to catch everybody up! Miss you guys!