Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Just a little update on me. We play Holte tomorrow which is really exciting because they are the only team that we have lost to in our league. So needless to say it should be an exciting match. I will keep you all updated on how we do. Next week Katherine and I will be moving to our new place....yay!!!! We are so excited to finally get situated. I am a little sad though that I won't be home for Thanksgiving : ( Just promise me that you all will eat extra for me! I know that won't be a hard request....hahaha. That's about all that is going on over here. I will let you know how tomorrow goes. Please be thinking about Fortuna Volley when you wake up tomorrow morning, because we will probably be playing at that time : )

Hey Friends and Family!

So I want to apologize for not keeping up lately with my blog. So let me fill you in on the latest that has been going on. A little over a week ago we traveled to Finland to play in the first round of the Nordic Cup. We had a Swedish team and a Finish team in our pool. We played the Swedish team the first night and beat them pretty good in 3 which was very exciting. And for those of you that are knowledgeable in volleyball might find this kind of cool. The Swedish team had former University of Florida outside hitter, Marci Hampton, on their team. That was really exciting to get to play against someone who I played in college and now play against them in Europe. The other great thing was that we beat them! We ended up losing to the Finish team the next day in 5 which was a bummer. And it came down to points whether we qualified to play in the finals at the end up January. But we missed it by a couple of points which was such a bummer. We really felt like we deserved to make it. But oh well life goes on.

So that has probably been the biggest thing going on lately. As far as our regular matches over the weekends we have won all but 1 match. Our team just keeps getting better and better which is really exciting to see. We will play in the semifinals of the Danish Cup sometime in December before Christmas.

Ok enough about volleyball......I'm still slowly but surely starting to get adjusted here. I have now started riding my bike and am verrrryyyy slowly getting better. So far my crash total is at 3. I'm hoping it doesn't get much bigger than that but I really can't make any promises. Me and bikes were just not meant to get along. But I will say that one of my big falls was not my fault and I will tell you why. We were leaving on a train and had to be at the train station by 730am with all of our bags for Finland. Well Katherine and I had to ride our bikes to get to the train station. I have never had to ride a bike with luggage so I just threw the bags over my shoulders......big mistake! I got about 30 ft away from the house and the first words out of my mouth were "uh oh im going down im going down!" and sure enough I fell and then the bike followed. Luckily I landed on my bag but it wasn't an ideal situation. Katherine was behind me laughing and asking if I was ok and I couldn't even talk because I was laughing so hard. So then I realized that there was a strategy to balance multiple bags while you're riding which Katherine was so nice to help me do. But we finally made it!

Katherine and I will be moving again in about 2 weeks to an apartment that we will be in for the rest of our time here. We are really sad to be leaving our nice house but at the same time excited to have a place that we know is ours. Right now we have an Australian guy who just joined the men's team here living with us. He is 6'10!!! And really sweet! It has been so cool to get to know him and also great because he makes Katherine and I dinner a lot which we never pass up on : ) Our house just seems to be an orphanage for those that don't have apartments. But Katherine and I love it because we get to know more people that way.

Lets see I think that should be it for now. If there is anything you all would like to hear about please let me know and I would be glad to fill you all in! I hope things are going great out in the good 'ol US and I hope to talk to you all soon!!!

Love and miss you!!!

Hey all! I APOLOGIZE with my whole heart for not writing in so long. My access to internet has been sooo limited that when i do get to use it I try to call my family. So I'm sorry for lacking in my blog writing : ( but I promise when I do have internet consistently that you will be hearing from me on a more regular basis!

But things are going good hear. My body is holding itself together which is nice and I'm slowly but surely getting settled!

I hope things back in the states are going well for everyone and I miss you all!!! Thanks for all your support and prayers!!!!

Hey everyone! sorry it has taken me so long to write. We haven't had a lot of access to internet lately but will hopefully get it in our house in the next week.

So just a little update on me. We went to Germany last weekend to play the top German team and another German team that took 4th last year. These teams were AMAZING!!!! Both teams had players girls that play on either the German national team or the French national team. So needless to say they were a little bit better than us.....hahaha. But it was really good experience especially for our young players to see that kind of volleyball. I struggled most of the weekend passing. For some reason my platform has not been the same. It has been really frustrating and I don't understand what is going on. I used to be so confident in it and now I feel like my confidence is getting lower with each practice and match. But hopefully I will snap out of it and get back into. If anyone has a nice perfect platform for sale I will pay anything for it!!!!!hahahaha (but seriously i will). We go to France in a week to play some of the top French teams and from what I've heard from the girls these teams are better than the German teams!!! So it may be a little rough! But I just hope that we take a lot of good from it and learn a lot as well. So just keep us in your prayers as we go into next week!

I'm slowly but surely starting to get adjusted. They got Katherine and I bikes to get around which makes me really nervous. I am a bad biker. I can't make sharp turns. I asked for training wheels on my bike but instead got a guys bike. And people can't really use the phrase "its like riding a bike" with me because it means nothing to me! But I will let you all know how it goes! It should be pretty comical.

We get to stay in the house that we moved in to because there are 2 American boys that are playing on the men's pro team, and they are living with us. They are both really nice so it should be fun. The only issue we have is that we only have 1 bathroom and shower. So it will be interesting to see how all that works out. But so far we haven't had any issues. But right now neither of them has a room or a bed so they both sleep on little mattresses in the living room. I feel so bad for them. Over the weekend while we were in Germany we let them use our beds and they said it was amazing! I felt bad taking my bed back but they should be getting their rooms here soon!

Well I am missing everyone back at home and I can't wait to hear from everyone and all the updates!!!

Love you all!!!

So we have the day off of volleyball today which is very needed! Katherine and I cleaned the president of our clubs house today to earn some extra money. And now we are just hanging out at their house just relaxing. Tonight one of the men's pros team is playing so we are going to watch them. I'm really excited to watch high level men play vball in person! And I think that will be all that we are doing today!

I'm really missing mexican food right now! I haven't had an enchilada or fajita or guacamole in forever it feels like.....so hopefully at some point in time I will be able to make some! I don't think they have mexican restaurants here so it may have to be made at home! So enjoy every bite of mexican food you can in states!

Ok our ride is here to take us home.....talk to you all soon and hope you have a fantastic day!

Much love

Hey all! So I'm in my second week of practicing and the body is still sore. I'm thinking it will take some time getting used to. We are all getting more comfortable with one another on the court which is nice, but we still have a lot to work on. We have our first matches this weekend against a top German team. Its a preseason match so I'm not for sure if it counts at all or not. I'm a little bit nervous but excited to see how we do! I don't know anything about this team but I will inform you on how it goes this weekend.

I am definitely missing all of you back at home! So I will keep reminding everyone to come out and visit anytime!!!

Well I better get going but I will update you when I have something to update you on!

Hej (Thats hi in danish i think)

Well today we didn't have practice because so many girls couldn't make it so Katherine and I figured it would be a perfect day to do laundry. Laundry is so weird here.....the appliances are so much smaller than what I'm used to and everyone just hangs up their clothes outside. Even though we do have a dryer I don't know if people actually use it. And I was so spoiled in the states cuz now we have to pay to do laundry! crazy......So while we are doing laundry we ate out on our deck cuz the sun was out and now Katherine is reading her book so I thought I would come in and say hi to you all.

We will start up practice again on Monday. We have another coach helping us and he used to train the Japanese women's national team. His name is Mizuno which I thought was funny considering he's a vball coach and his wife Saori (who also played on the Japanese women's national team) will be joining us too. She didn't think she was going to be able to play this year because of a back injury but decided that she could. She used to be an outside but is going to play middle this year so that she doesn't have to take as many swings. And maybe that will help out with her back issues. I don't think either of them speak English or Danish very well or at all so it should be pretty interesting.

Practices having been going pretty good. Their isn't anxiety to play like there was in college. So you actually feel like you can just go out there and play hard without someone jumping down your throat! They treat you like adults and have high expectations but aren't there to rip you a part. They want you to keep getting better......huh interesting.....no wonder why europeans play till they're in their 40's! They just love the game and get so good at it!!! I love the girls on the team and we all seem to get along so far.....and I hope it stays like that!

Well I best be getting on with the day.....actually I guess its evening already....I have no concept of time because I don't have a watch, cell phone, and my computer is set to a different time zone. So I just kind of go when I'm told to.

Love you all!