One Weekend Down, Only 30 More To Go

Ok so it's not 30 more, just 13 more. Actually just 2 more weekends and then 11 weeks, but you get the point. I have officially survived my first weekend of volleyball tournaments. Getting to play against someone other than each other is always exciting. We left Thursday morning for Oxford, Mississippi for the Magnolia Classic at the University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss. This was one of the few trips we had to take a travel bus, but for those of you who remember my days at Texas Tech, the 7 hour bus ride to Oxford was nothing compared to the trips I made with football. When we arrived on Thursday we practiced, ate supper and then my roommate, Stephanie, and I watched Top Gun and crashed. I must say Steph is pretty awesome. Like I said in a previous post she has worked with volleyball the previous 2 years and has been a God send to me. She already knows what our coaches expect and knows how to keep me sane when insane situations arise. Friday was pretty slow in the morning and then we had serve & pass practice, ate lunch, and headed back to the gym for the 1st match. Steph & I were very mad that we didn't think to spend Friday morning going through the shops downtown on the square. Oxford is a very beautiful place and has a really neat square area. We did get to go to a few shops, but they were definitely the higher end ones. One department store is famous for being the oldest department store in the south. It was pretty neat to go in there, just to say we had been there. Sadly I have no pictures, I kept forgetting to put my camera in the bag I was carrying. We didn't really see much of campus, but the athletic complexes were nice. We did drive by The Grove, but it was night and we couldn't see anything. The houses there are AMAZING though. I found several that I could live in. As for the tournament, we opened up with Ole Miss. We definitely had some first game jitters, but for the most part those were expected, especially with 7 newcomers on the team. Unfortunately we lost to Ole Miss in 5 games after 3 hours of playing. It was definitely a hard fought battle with the scores being, 28-30, 30-27, 32-34, 30-13, 13-15 (Mizzou scores listed first). Saturday didn't prove to start much easier. We started with Jacksonville State and beat them in 5 games. Apparently this was becoming a trend of the whole tournament. At this point in time 3 of the 4 games had gone into 5 games. Scores against Jacksonville State were 30-16, 28-30, 27-30, 30-23, 15-12. Thankfully match #3 at the tournament was much shorter. We played Arkansas State and beat them in 3. Scores were 32-30, 30-20, 30-13. After that game we headed back home. Coming back to CoMo was exciting becuase I knew my parents would be here Sunday afternoon. They flew in Thursday to St. Louis and spent some time with Emily & Kyle and then came over Sunday to spend some time with me. Mondays are very busy days, so we actually haven't gotten to spend a lot of time together, but it has definitely been great getting to see them. Sadly they must leave in the morning. I am already excited about them coming back in October for the Mizzou-Tech football game. We also play Texas in volleyball that day, so it will definitely be another one of those busy days. Personally I am hoping for a night football game so that the volleyball game will be in the morning and I can actually enjoy the game, but everyone keeps telling me it's Homecoming and they will more than likely have a day football game. :( Oh well, I can still hope for the ideal situation. Well I better go enjoy my time with the parents. I will try to be better about posting on a more regular basis I promise--I know I say this every time, but I am finally getting into more of a routine. I'll be in San Marcos next weekend if anyone wants to come visit! :) Sorry this post is somewhat boring as well. I keep meaning to write a post about "The Things I Have Learned Since Moving to Columbia," but time keeps slipping away from me. I'll just leave you in anticipation for that one.