Easter Turnament

This Easter weekend, I had another volleyball tournament! It was a 3 day one, so I was very tired after we finished this week!

                It started on Friday, and I had to be at the gym at 7 o’clock, that meant waking up at 5:30 am! The good thing is I’m use to waking up that early! So when I got to the gym was very excited because we had to play 3 teams that day! Some of my team mates were still tired so the ones that were awake and I sang “Pretty Boy Swag” really loud, and all the other teams gave us weird looks; but the girls tat were tired woke up after that!

                Our first team was a really easy team! We beat them really fast in 2 games. The team after that was a much harder team. We took them to 3 games, but won that match! By then my team was really up and moving, because the next team we got to play was MAVA 13 Blue! (Blue is the team ranked higher than us at our club, the number 2 team.) My team and I had played them once before, and took them to 3 games also. But we lost, but by only 2 points! So we were really ready to beat them this time. The first game was pretty close but we won that game by 5 points! On the 2^nd game, my team just couldn’t seem to get a pass or set, so we lost that game. So then because they won one, and we won one, we had to go to a 3^rd game. We started off slow, but then picked it up at the end, but it was to late and Blue beat us by 5 points. I was VERY mad. I wasn’t mad at my team, but mad at myself, because I  felt like I could have done better.

                But when the game was over, I had tons of parents come over to me and tell me how good I did. Also my dad said people keep coming up to him and complementing me. The best thing was, lots of the parents said I should have definitely made the Blue team! So at the end of the 1^st day I was pretty mad and tired.

                The 2^nd day we had to wake up at the same time again! It was pretty hard to get going in our 1^st game. That match had to go to 3 games, so it was a long game. Then after that we had to ref, and then we got to play again. We wanted to beat the other 2 teams, because if we did, we had a very good chance of playing Blue again. Both teams were much harder, we had to take both teams to 3 games, so it lasted a long time. After winning we were excited because we got to play Blue Sunday morning!

                Turns out Sunday when we got to the gym, that we didn’t play Blue unless we beat the team that Blue was beaten by. That team was called Mawaki. Mawaki was a really good team. WE won the 1^st, but then they won the 2^nd, so we had to play another game. Sadly they won, so we didn’t get to play Blue. I was VERY mad when we lost to Mawaki. I knew we could of beat them, but we just had an off day.

                Once again as I was leaving, my dad said that parents were coming over and telling him how good I was doing, and that I should of made Blue. The owner of MAVA came over to me and was telling me that I am doing great with my hitting and blocking! One of the parents even told my dad that I would have been a good choice of right side for Elite!!!! Those comments made me feel good!

Atlanta

A couple of weeks ago I went to Atlanta, Georgia for a volleyball tournament! It was the Big South Junoir Qualifiers! I had tons of fun there!

                This was a 3 day tournament so I got to leave Thursday night to head up to Atlanta for the start on Friday! I was very happy with the hotel because all of the MAVA teams got to stay in the same hotel! It was fun to go in the lobby and talk to your other friends on the other team, and to gossip about the players! My room was really small, especially because I was sharing it with my mom and dad, but the beds were really cozy! Also my best friend on the team was in the room right beside me!

                So, like very normal tournament morning, I wake up at 5:45 am. I do my teeth, hair, makeup, and get on my uniform and equipment! The team and I always meet down at the lobby of the hotel the day of the tournament so that we can all ride to the gym together. The gym was at the World Congress Center! I was very happy to play there because the name makes it sound even MORE cool! Our first day went really well! We beat every team that day, and they were some tough competition!

                The next day was an okay day. We started the day in 5th gold, but ended up last in gold. We dropped down because we played our MAVA Elite team. They are the number one team and we are the number 3 team, so we weren’t expected to win. Now before I go on I must say that it was super unfair we had to play Elite. They are 13 year olds but play in tournaments with 16 year olds because they are so good! They haven’t lost to a 13 year old team in 2 years! THAT’S GOOD! So the first game was very close! They would get a point, then we would, then they would, then we would, and so on. The only flaw in Elite is that they seem to get mad and sad easy, so they started messing up more, the more we got in their head. But even when they are kind of mad, they still are creepy good! So we lost that game by 7 points! But that was good. Then on our 2^nd game against them, we just couldn’t seem to get a pass. And everyone knows you need a pass to get a set. And you need a set to get a hit. And you need a hit to get a point. So we lost that game pretty bad, but at the end of the game one of the Elite players came over to talk to me. She is super good, but she came over and started telling me how good I did! She said she was SCHOCKED that I didn’t make Elite or Blue (the 2^nd MAVA team). I thought she was super nice for doing that!

                After that my team and I went across the road to the CNN building! There we eat our lunch. The building is so cool! I went there last year for a tour with Emma, but it’s still really cool to see it again! There were so many places to eat, so many offices, so many TVs, so many stores, and so many people! It was really crazy! There was no room to eat at a table, so me and some of my friends eat outside. That was really fun for 2 reasons. First of all there were two men dresses as a beaver and a squirrel! They were advertising the World Wrestling Champion Mach. WE got our picture taken with them! They were so soft! Second reason was that there were lots of pigeons outside! I love running after pigeons and scaring them! I tried to make the pigeon call, the realized I was making a Mourning Dove call! Mr. Whillimi would be so ashamed in me!  

                The next day was super long! We had to ref a team that had the most annoying coach ever! The first match was really close, but the coach still got mad at his players! It was the Tribe against the Wave. Tribe was the team with the mad coach! Wave was super nice and really good, and Tribe was really good but had weird players and a mean coach! On the 2^nd game, the Tribe coach tried to get the other team to forfeit. The wave coach had put on the line up that the lebaro was #4, and that #4 was in the front row. (The lebaro is a passer and cannot play front row.) The Wave coach had meant to put #14 in the front row but the Tribe coach said that he could not change the line up and that the Wave team could earthier not have the lebaro play, or she had to take off her lebaro jersey and play as a normal player.  So we had to have one of the professional refs come over and settle the whole thing out. That took about 30 minutes! WORST REFFING GAME EVER!

                So at the end of the tournament we came in 21^st out of 96 teams, so that isn’t bad at all!

Pine Mountain

Just recently I took a class trip to Pine Mountain. It was a very different trip from the many that I have taken. The week started off with a four hour bus ride to Eastern Kentucky, where Pine Mountain Settlement School is located. The bus ride was a ton of fun; I sat by three of my best friends Beverly Kings, Mackenzie Tatum- Johns, and Marra Burton! We had a really fun time playing lots of card games! The only boring part about the ride was when Mr. Whillimi has us learn our birds!

During my week at Pine Mountain I got to learn a ton of things! One of the first classes I had was coal class. The coal class was taught by Mr. Ben. Mr. Ben told us how coal was made, how it was removed from the mountain, and what it is used for. That part was MEGA boring, though it also might have been the fact that I had gotten no sleep the night before! After Mr. Ben talked to us, we got to go in cars and see some old mines. The car ride was really creepy because Mr. Ben’s car had lots of wasp in there! Nick and I were very, very scared! It was also annoying because Goldberg keep saying how cool he was for killing one wasp! But anyways, once we got out of the car we had to cross a creek to get to the old mine. The creek was really fun to go across, because it was cold and really high, and was funny to watch people get across! Then when we got to the old mine, Mr. Ben told us how they made room for the machines and tools. Then we got in the car again and went to see where the miners did Mountain Top Removal. It was kind of sad to see that where a beautiful mountain top should be, there is dead grass and nothingness.

The other classes were okay, but one of my favorite classes was the animal class! Valerie, our teacher, showed us tons of animals! First she showed us two toads! They were really cute with their big bulging eyes! Though I didn’t touch them because I was afraid they would bite me! Then Valerie showed us turtles!!!! I had been waiting for that moment because I LOVE turtles! (I can also relate to them with my wicked awesome turtle face!) She showed us the boxing and snapping turtles! THEY WERE SO CUTE! Then she showed us the snakes! That part was creepy, but because I knew my Avada Kedavra curse, I decided to be brave and touch the snake! It felt really weird!

The only scary part of the trip was my fall on the very top of Pine Mountain. You will hear my class mates say how they fell down, but none of them fell as bad as I did! At the top of Pine Mountain there is the SSS. That stands for Short, Sweet, and Steppe, but it is really; Long, Hard, and Steppe. So I was at the top coming back down, and I had only gone down two steps when I fell. It wasn’t one of those “Woops, I fell. I think I’ll get back up now” kind of fall. This was the “Holy Cow!” fall! I slid face first down the side of the trail! Luckily there was a rock I grabbed my foot on! I was grabbing it for dear life! But Mr. Rice and Mrs. Seely came to help me. They told me to lie still while they came and got me. The good part is I only feel 3 more times on the way down!

My all time favorite part of the trip was the Folk Dance! It was super funny to watch people dance to it! We did about 3 types of dances but my favorite was the last one! It was where there was a circle of boys, and on the outside was a circle of girls. A few girls had to play the part of a boy for there to be enough people. The “point” of the dance was that you would sing the songs with the partner in front of you. Then at one part in the song the boys would go to the right, and the girls to the left, and when the music stopped you had to dance with the person in front of you. If you didn’t have a partner you had to run to the middle to find one. But because there was an odd number of a boy, one boy would be left in the middle. The boy in the middle would have to start singing the song, and then everyone else would join in! Then the dance would repeat itself again!

Over all Pine Mountain was a fun experience, but I was very glad to get home!

St. Louis!!!

About a month ago I took an awesome trip to St. Louis! I went there for a volleyball tournament.  At first the trip was really boring, because it was a 6 hour drive through endless roads with trees, trees, and more trees! Not only was it boring to look through the windows, but my phone and iPod was dying; so I had to listen to my parent’s choice of oldies music! So as you can imagine I was pretty happy when we got to the hotel!
     We stayed at the Pear Tree, which was a really nice hotel right by the Union Station, the Convention Center, and the Arch! We got a big room so that the team could hang in my room during our breaks during the tournament! They had nice breakfasts in the morning that we would eat before the games.
      Before you go on to read about my great vacation, you should know some back ground information on my team. We started off with 10 players at the beginning of the season, but our team was accident prone. Our lebaro (best passer on the team that is allowed to come in for any back row player without it being counted as a sub) is Bernie. Sadly, after our 2nd tournament she had serious back problems; and was not allowed to play for the rest of the season (6 months)!!!! So then we were down to only 9 players, but the numbers keep changing because people keep on getting sick and injured. Luckily every one but Bernie was allowed to play this tournament!
    On the first day we won all of our games. Most of the teams we played were pretty easy, so it was fun to get to run some pikes, slides, ones, and get to switch around in positions! After celebrating our wins that day, we decided to go to the Union Station!
     The Union Station used to be an old railroad station back in the 1900's, but is now full of stores and restronts. My favorite part, and almost anyone’s favorite part, was the Fugery. The Fugery is a place where they make awesome fuge!!! You get to seen every step of the fuge making! Not only do they just make fuge but they sing too! They sing songs bout fuge and interact with the people watching. My favorite singer that worked there was T-pain! (Well that what he said his name was.) He was super funny and was a wicked singer! So of cores everyone on my team including me bough some fuge!!!!
            That night we had team bonding!!! First we did blind make up! We each had a partner and did their makeup blind folded! My partner was Olivia and she made my face look like a total wreck! But I made her face a mess too! Then we did blind hair styles! Olivia did mine really crazy, and it made tons of tangles in my hair! Then we had to dress our partner in toilet paper and try to make shoes, jersey, and knee pads out of it! It was so messy but fun!
     On the 2nd day of our tunement we got to go into the gold bracket! We had to play the West Virginia Cherry Bombers to decide who won the 13 year old gold division. We were all pumped up, when our setter, Rayanne, seriously hurt her knee and could not play the championship match!!!! So we had to switch around our positions and had a girl named Brenna be our new setter. At first Brenna's was only having a little trouble, but she pulled it together and we won the 1st set by 10 points! The 2nd match however is a different story. Each set is played to 25, but you have to win by 2 points, so it can over 25. The other team started getting in their grove and played much better this set. The score would go 24-25, 25-25, 26-25, 26-26, and so on! So the score was 28-27 us, and after the ball was on our side we got a dig then Brenna set our newest player (Bailey who just started playing volleyball this year and was already really good for just starting) was set and she hit the ball and got us the winning point! We were all super happy because we go shinny gold metals!
     After our win we wanted to go to one last place; that of curse was the Arch! The tickets were sold out so we didn't get to go up to the top (which honestly I was very happy because I am very afraid of heights) so we went under the arch to the museum! We didn’t really care to learn about the history so we just took pictures with the statues and dead animals! Also we carved our team name into the arch! We wrote "Mava 13 Red Trip to St. Louis 2010!" I felt like such a rebel writing on a fancy statue!