NFL here we come!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/OddSNEndS#

You can follow the link to some new and old photos that I put up from the weekend and some from summer.

Well St Louis, what a fun town with a great downtown! I certainly enjoyed our trip, we made it down there in only 4 hours which reminds me how close I am to different climates and big cities! We were lucky enough to have great weather on Saturday where we drove around downtown and walked around the stadiums and found some nice little bars to have a beer. I did have a social faux pa by ordering a Miller Lite and not a Busch product... the beer was warm... oops, I guess I forgot my surroundings! The new Busch stadium was great to see, you can actually see the whole field from the street! When we were walking there around and back, both times going by and coming back there were different weddings getting their pictures taken there.

After finding a parking spot we made our way to the HUGE dome. Lots of ticket scalpers and lots of rams jerseys. We sat in the 11th row extremely close to friends/family of the players, so we assumed that women with kids wearing famous gear with large diamonds we assumed they were wives. The guy next to us asked us if we knew one of the families of the players since we were sitting in their seats, so that was kind of exciting really being a part of the NFL and yes I did make it on the jumbo tron! ok, I was in the background but I saw my profile on it thanks to a rowdy fan in front of us! The Rams lost which wasn't surprising but hopefully next time I'll be able to go to a game where the team I really want to see wins!

The Banquet

Tonight is our volleyball banquet and the official end of the season. Mom and Dad are supposed to be coming with me (since they haven't come to one since my freshman year at Coe) Hopefully there will be plenty of my favorite cheesy potato casserole! Anyway it will be nice to recognize the girls for their hard work and good attitudes.

This whole last week I was subbing at Stewart School for an associate (all that is required to be an associate is a HS diploma) I'm not authorized to teach below a 6th grade level but I can sub for teachers associates and sit with students that don't have severe problems which keeps me busy and I enjoy the classroom.

Mom and Dad have the new carpet in which everyone is enjoying and feels good on the tootsies! And tator is really enjoying his cushy new stairs. Now it's reorganizing things back to what is necessary and what will look nice (I'm hoping that means to... get rid of a few things) I'll be posting a link later for some pictures of the rooms. The computer also quit this week had a reading/writing RAM problem with it's good I have mine for emergency back up.

The weekend after Thanksgiving I'll be going to my first NFL game! The Rams vs. Seahawks. Why? Why not? I haven't been to a major sporting event for quite a while, I didn't even make it to the Iowa Cubbies last year. So that will be exciting! Hopefully it's all TV cracks it up to be :)

I'll be starting back at fairfield again in a few weeks as well, got my please return letter yesterday, won't be as good of pay but will be quite a few hours and at least I KNOW I'll be working opposed to a phone call at 5:45 in the morning.

Well that should take care of me all the way up to December. I'll get my wish list out soon... if I just knew what I wanted...

Thankful giving!

Start of the Season

Well I've finally had a taste for coaching a team sport. It makes me sick to my stomach, literally. I've never felt this much stress as an athlete and now I'm carrying the anxiety of 12 people instead of just myself! Well my girls have been doing well. Their passing has blown me out of the water, our passes allow us to really get an offense going, it's just defense we need to work on. Also, they are advanced enough that I can teach them more advanced things like quicks! And then we'll really blow those other teams away! Our net game is a little unorganized but now that we've had a few games I can really focus on improving the line-up and get people really comfortable with their positions. We played Mt P on tuesday and won in 2 and so I got to play the girls that didn't play during regular competition then last night we played fairfield. Tried to switch it up a bit to get some other people in some different positions and it did not work out well at all, so I put the starting line up for Mt P in and we did ok. Made a few more mistakes (serving/in the net) then we did in Mt P but we pulled it out. All 3 teams won against Mt P but the freshman were the only ones to win against Fairfield. We'll see how next week goes, we only have one game to it'll be a learning week! (and conditioning :) )

Go Demons... never thought I'd be saying that again, or standing in my high school gym listening to the national anthem. Oh well, guess I just can't get away from it.

School time

Well, nothing much is new, started volleyball practice last week and school starts today! So now we have the paintaking task of taking the nets down every night and putting them up again the next day.
Here's the link for our game schedule. http://www.eteamz.com/WashingtonVolleyball/news/index.cfm?cat=518908

The girls are learning lots and so am I. Going from college ball to freshman ball is a bit difficult for me but I'm trying to keep it simple. I just want them to be so good! I'm excited for our first game to see how they play together... however I'm not looking forward to playing some and not playing others, maybe we'll play someone really bad so I can play everyone?? I'll cross my fingers.

Mom and Dad are prolly going to be making more appearances at the high school again now that they have a reason to go to athletics again :)

I went to a varsity dinner the other night and one of the girls asked me "did you play with Steph Rich?" It was then followed with an "I thought you looked familiar" I'm not sure if it was a good familiar or a bad familiar but it definitely dates me if they can remember me playing basketball at WHS. But I guess it's good they remember right? That means they were old enough to remember going to the games, and not so young to completely be unaware that I played.

Summer in Wash-town

Well what a quick, cold summer it's been. So cold I've already gotten a dark color for my hair since sun-blonde doesn't work when I haven't been in the sun and there hasn't been enough sun in the first place! Work has kept me pretty busy through the early months but I'll finally be done next week after a month of saying 2 more weeks. I've been blessed enough for another short-term job to find me. I'll be the freshmen volleyball coach this spring. I'm taking a 2 consecutive weekend seminar that covers everything for my coaching authorization. The WHOLE weekend, 25 hours worth, and I haven't been a student in 3 years... yikes, I'm sure I'll be fine since I've covered all the subjects multiple times, I could wrap my own ankle, identify parts of the body and tell you about human growth and development. Practice starts the Monday after my last day of class.

Well I'm 25 now, with a new car, a new hair cut, and yes, still living with my parents. At least there's always tator. J/K mom!
http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/SummerInWashTown#

Getting his feet wet

Well since we were teaching Henry all sorts of new things like cocolate peanut butter ice cream

and "gardening skills," we also got to introduce him to the temperature of well water and

realized he might second as G-pa's 1st mate. I was washing my car and Henry got a little curious and was adventurous enough to pick the hose up. Since he doesn't have great self-control he might have doused himself a little too much but we were delighted afterwards he would let out a shriek of joy and would go back for seconds. After he was throughly soaked we gave him a good warm clean up followed by lunch and juice... A completely fulfilling afternoon for a 15 month old.

All cleaned up and ready for a snack!

Tired him out to send him home!

Viva Las Vegas

I went to Vegas a few weeks ago and had a blast! http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/Vegas# Not only did I make some money I barely spent any! I went with a good friend of mine for a few days and I just had a great time learning some of the games and seeing what is "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" We went to a comedy magic show that was very entertaining, not only was the magic good but his jokes were hilarious! We also swung by the Mirage and went to see their dolphins and cats exhibits. We ate lots of expensive good food and stayed up ridiculously late and had a very well rounded good time. What U.S. city should I invade next?

On a lighter side, the day I got back to work after Vegas, Syngenta decided to lay me off... it's a good thing I didn't lose a bunch of money since I'm unemployed now!

Update

Well kiddos, here's a little update on my life since I've started to live at 1855 Riverside Rd again. Work has been ok, learning a lot since the only thing I've witnessed is pollinating during the summers. Now I have general knowledge of turnarounds trial writing, scan files...etc.

I've been involved with a league volleyball team that ended Monday with a very ugly defeat, but it was fun playing and at least getting some exercise. I've also joined a kickboxing class on Tuesday and Thursday nights and wow, I'll be ready for bikini season in no time! The class instructor is really energetic and I have 3 friends in the class so we have a lot of fun and we definitely have plenty of motivation to go since we don't want to hear about it from the other 3 friends if we don't show up. I'm going to set up a study plan to take the GRE within the next couple months and hopefully have ideas of schools in about 6 months and be accepted in 8 months. My hardest decision is choosing btwn neuroscience (since I love biology and always have) and educational psychology (since I've already had plenty of great experiences in the educational field) both have slim picks for Grad school since they aren't the most popular areas of study.

For my sister's you can only imagine the antics I put up with at Syngenta. John and Bill have already challenged me to a game of basketball, we have it scheduled for next week and you can imagine the crowd from work that wants to see it. We might have to get a carpool going in the tank. I played last night and I was a bit more than rusty. I started off thinking "was the basket always this high?" so I might be in trouble but my partner is 6' 3" so I'm hoping we can give them a run for their money.

I'm trying to rediscover Washington to the best of my ability as a early twenties single girl and it's ok for now but I'm starting to itch... we'll see where my next blog will take me. Hope to most of you soon.