long beach and garden starts

Hello volley-fans!

Laryssa and I took on the sun, sand, wind and competitors in Long Beach this weekend for an AVP sanctioned, 2 day, double elimination tournament.  With a pre-tournament seed of 17th, we felt confident that we would finish higher than expected. We faced the very tough team of Cayley Thurby (pictured below blocking) and her partner Sydney Donahue, (16th seed) at the start of the day on Saturday and lost in 3: 21-18, 17-21, 15-13.  It was a heart breaker, but we weren't going to let the loss keep us down.  We played two more matches on Saturday and won them both.

Bright and early Sunday morning (7am!!!) we faced my former partner, Laura Ratto and her partner Tarin Keith (8th seed) and won convincingly in 2 sets.  Next we played a team from New York.  We did not know much about this team before hand, just that they had to be ballers since they were seeded 4th and travelled across the country to play in a tournament comprised mainly of teams from my beautiful state of California.  We struggled early in the first game and were not able to catch up until game two.  Unfortunately we lost that one also, 21-18.  We finished 9th overall out of 42 teams and we're excited to train this week for the AVP qualifier which we will play on Thursday in Riverside.

On a domestic note, I planted my garden last weekend.  I have a small area that I share with my neighbors that I would like to eventually convert in it's entirety to a mini community garden.  For now, I am using about a third of the space to grow tomatoes, beets, eggplant, cantelope, pumpkin and banana peppers.  My friend George came over and helped me clear the area of weeds and start a compost pile, then later, my friend Meghan helped me cultivate the soil and plant the seeds and starter

 plants.  The doggies were as monumental in little garden helpers as the mimosas were in refreshment. 

 Check out the album to see the transformation.

Comments

[Jheri]

The garden is so exciting and WOW you can jump girl!!

[steve]

You are getting amazing height off the sand. It must be two feet!

I read that volleyball players are better jumpers than basketball players and you make me believe.

[rebecca]

That is wonderful about the garden!
Did you get it tested for contaminants? Tires in a garden make me nervous....

I am busily working in my community garden as much as I can and will hopefully set up some native bee habitats. If you have any interest in native bees (they are totally awesome) let me know! Habitats are so easy to set up!