I'm ready, I am. - What it is ladies, what it is...

So, here I sit, bruised and broken and back from Utah (finally!), and after a long night out in C-dawgs neck of the woods I think I should write a little about my trip...even though a lot of you might not care. In fact, it's more so for my sake because...yeah. We'll come to that. So it all begins Sunday at 4am...

Sunday: It wasn't even light outside when we started our twelve hour trek to Park City, Utah, and we carpooled with Mel (who probably ended up being my savior by the last few days of the tourney, I hope I helped her a bit too). We stopped in Vegas for some breakfast where we encountered the KEEEENOOOOOOO lady. You honestly cannot fully appreciate Keno until you met this woman. Seriously. So the rest of the trip I rode with Mel in her car, and after balling my eyes out watching 'Finding Neverland' I found myself amazed at just how pretty Utah is. Maybe not even that much, but just the fact that it's so NOT L.A it seemed amazing. Tons of green, tons of trees, tons of mountains. It was just, pretty. Sunday night we went to Coldstones and had about 20 million orders...the Utahians were mad that we stole their ice cream. I found myself later sitting outside under the Utah sky and just staring at the stars, breathing in the clean air, and wondering how the hell I got to this place, this place in my life, and how I could be so lucky. I Then got dragged into playing volleyball, and colliding with Katie lol. And the rest of the night really wasn't too interesting. Just sleep, and a sort of dread knowing we had practice the next morning.

Monday: Ah yes, Monday. 10:00 practice and it was already freaking hot outside. And the altitude!!!! My gosh. I could deal with the heat, but the fact that the air was breathable was something my body just couldn't handle. It was fun though, knowing in a day we were going to be playing. Later that day were the opening ceremonies. But before that we went on an actual bobsled. Down the actual bobsled course! 70 MPH! It was the craziest thing I have ever done but I am so glad we did it. Now when I watch the Olympics I can say "hey! I did that!!!" After that craziness was the pin trading, and set out with my 20 supposedly lame pins, I went to work. Freaking Mirage...I HAAATE! But I got some cool pins. The actual ceremony was like five minutes long but seeing our name up on the big screen and marching around with people cheering us on was pretty damn cool. Deciding not to stick around for their lame "air show" (skiers jumping into a pool...eh) we went back to the hotel. Our 10:00 curfew was gay, and so was the rest of the night. But I went to bed excited about getting to play the next day.

Tuesday: Being the team we are, and knowing full well that God has a thing for hating us, we had the 8:00 game Tuesday morning. We played Colorado Commotion and beat them 7-2. Not a bad way to start of the tournament!! Our next game against Motion DNA (AZ) was probably the most fun I had playing that week, seeing as we beat them 8-1 AND pissed them off in the process. It's funny, how we play our best when we are screwing around on the field...I mean come on, we were making animal noises on the field yet somehow beat them that badly! And the fact that it took their whole team to be as loud as Nina and SJ combined made my day. We had the rest of the day off so that night headed to Park City for some shopping and dinner. It was funny to see all the teams dressed in something other than uniforms walking into all these girly shops and buying shoes and clothes and all that (like the ones Nina got, I love em!!). We had some crappy Mexican food and realized just how white we were, seeing that no one could even handle the salsa. But no matter, it was fun. And even though we had no games until the next night we had an 11:30 curfew...we pushed it to the very last second, beleive me!

Wednesday: We actually got to sleep in for the last time on this day. I woke up at 10:00 and it was the greatest thing ever.  Everyone else did their little zipline thing, but me and my mom went to the outlets and shopped. Old Navy and PacSun are the greatest. Some after wasting away the day and my parents hard earned money, it was finally time to play ball. Our games were in Salt Lake City, a nice 30 minute drive from where we staying. We played at 7:15 against Colorado Storm and won 7-1 (I think). I hit a triple AND started my series of getting hit while at bat, getting hit on my left arm. It's a nasty bruise, when and if I do a picture post you'll all see it. After that we played the Blue Jays (Gilette, Wyoming) and mercied them 8-0. It was a fun game, a quick game, and also a late night. And lucky us, we had a 9:45 game the next morning!

Thursday: But oh, how we couldn't wait. We were playing Mirage, our Ventura not so friendly "let's punch Katie in the face and not trade pins with them" team. It was like El Rio but on a lesser scale. I made two errors at short which of course made me mad, so SJ convinced me to take out my DUBIOUSNESS on the ball my next time at bat. So I did, in the form of a two run homerun! YEEAH! And this was after getting hit again (#2, on my right arm this time). We beat them 6-2, which was a relief and sent them to the losers bracket. Walking away another girl on another team hit one out, but everyone said it was ok because mine went farther..WHOA! TOOT TOOT!! We played later at 3:00 against Pegasus (St. George, Utah) and lost 4-3 in extra innings...sent us to the losers braket. And there I got bruise #3...the worst of them all. No joke, when it hit me (at 66 MPH) I fell on the ground and screamed crying. It was so bad. I couldn't walk and it still hurts like a fisher. But that night cheered me up because we saw "War of the Worlds" and got Coldstones...oh yeah and McDonalds. But that was an adventure only me, Mel, Farah, Janie, Louw, and Robby will ever get. :)

Friday: This was probably our best and my worst day of the tournament. We beat Sting (Utah) 6-0 in our first game, and the Cobrazz (Utah) 3-0 -on my hit, if I can add that in- for our first two games and in doing so sent two teams home. Our third game came against the Eliminators (Simi Valley) which was almost fitting seeing as they almost did just that. I played short this game, and had it not been for my two errors in the first inning, it would have never been as close. I was so upset and so freaked out I had to ask my coach to pull me. And he did. It was 2-0 until the bottom of the seventh and we tied it up (Marie and Mel are awesome). We held them in the first tiebreaker and in the bottom of the inning, after I popped out, Nina hit a hell of a homerun to win the game. We were all going crazy, the parents and coaches were having heartattacks, and I was trying to convince myself that it was, I was, all OK. A few things that night made me feel OK, my parents and Mel's note for one, and others that I'm just keeping for myself because their too good to share. We all kind of relaxed that night, knowing tomorrow was our last day.

Saturday: We were just lucky to be here. We played 3rd Degree (San Diego) and lost, 3-2. And I got hit again...#4 and I finally got one bruise on every limb! But as SJ says, they still need some ice for that burn! We ended up finishing 7th out of 49 teams...not too bad, having 41 teams go home before us.  I wasn't really upset about losing because I knew our time had come. But when the third out was made and we had to go give them the cheer I almost lost it because it hit me...that could have very well been the last time that I ever stepped on a softball field. I held it together for team pictures and team talks, but I walked out to my mom in the field a little bit and just started crying. And when another mom came up and gave me a hug, her crying too and telling me what a sweetheart I was, it was too much. Yeah, I could play Burbank. But next summer is a no. And if I don't play this fall, it's weird knowing that something I did for 12 years, something that I ended with the best two summers of my life, was just gone. It was a weird feeling, I felt sort of empty, lost, I don't know. Way to emotional over softball you might say? But it isn't just softball, it's the way I've spent the spring and summers of my life since pre-school. It was something I could run to and gave me friends I can count on when nothing else was there. Now it's just...not. But anyways...we drove to Vegas and stayed the night there. Me, SJ, Louw, Farah, Patty, and the kids saw Bewitched, and three of them fell asleep. Had some interesting talks with SJ and Louw (and you guys don't know how much I freaking love you, really). It was a long a draining day. But fun no matter what....

And now I sit here, after a long morning drive, finishing the new Harry Potter, and partying it up in Simi. Schill won an ESPY. And I'm getting really excited for Hawaii.

I don't say it enough, and I probably never will, but to all my Shockies, you don't know how much I love you. You're wacky, you're crazy, and you're some of the best athletes I've played with. You're all my heroes, and you better damn well kick some ass in Kansas. Thanks for an awesome week.

....#38