Snow in Central Texas....What?

First things first, it snowed in Central Texas yesterday! Sadly though it did not reach us here in San Antonio :(, but we did however get a few ice pellets in the afternoon. Just the mere fact that it snowed in Austin and San Marcos gets me more and more hopeful that next winter it will actually snow in San Antonio. This winter the weather has been crazy....one day it will be freezing cold and the following day, such as today, it will be sunny and warm. I told myself "Texas needs to make up its mind, because I think it's ready for some full-time sun!"

Changing subjects now, we are all super excited for this weekend because we are heading to Longview, TX for the LeTourneau tournament. Who doesn't love tournaments, right? I mean team bonding, food, and more team bonding. It's the best part about tournaments, as well as getting to play 4 games in 2 days! But as Helen stated in her blog, we love to eat! (We are hoping that the team moms are bringing their signature surprises to the tournaments, ie - carmelitas, cake balls, and cookies! We will be facing some good competition this week and hopefully we can continue playing the way we have been playing in the past games, with such energy, determination, motivation, and awesomeness that we will have improved our record to 8-2. But for now, we shall take one game at a time.

-XOXO-
Alexa

The Start of Many "Firsts"

(I'm going to add a parenthetical note that my blog is in no way going to match up to the hilarity of Helen's!)

Last Friday marked the beginning of many "firsts" for our softball team for the 2010 season...ROOT BEER FLOATS, PIZZA AND MOVIE NIGHT!!!!!!! Friday night, the night before our FIRST game, we gathered in Calvert 213, aka Becca's humble abode, for a little R&R. The night was all laughs and giggles until...we had to decide on what movie to watch. We had to pick between Sydney's abundance of chick flicks, the Goonies, Free Willy (my personal favorite), and several classics. We finally narrowed it down to 10 Things I Hate About You, Mean Girls and Free Willy. I was immediately thrown out of the pile since I was the lone vote. I mean who doesn't love the big whale jumping over the big rocks at the end? Anyway, to make a long story short, the group ended choosing 10 Things I Hate About You. However, the story isn't that dreary. Our lovely manager and Sigma Beta President, Texas, showed up in the middle of the movie with an activity for us (to offset the monotony of the movie). :) She brought the colored string from Michael's that you make friendship bracelets out of. Sidenote: girls I know you know what I'm talking about because we've all made them before. They're the ones that come out of the friendship bracelet books end sidenote. This proved to be a great bonding activity for our team and spurred a lot of creativity.

Last Saturday was our FIRST set of games of the season versus Texas Lutheran University. As Helen mentioned before, this marked the last FIRST set of double headers she and I would ever play, which is a bitter-sweet moment for the both of us. But at the same time it is the start of a new beginning for our new freshmen. Seven new freshmen got to play in their FIRST set of doubleheaders. Now that is an exciting experience that you will hopefully one day get to experience.

Another sidenote: During the break between our games on Saturday we always have food since we will have only eaten breakfast that morning. Anyway, Brittany's mom decided to bring Carmelitas to the game (yes I am once again referencing these delicious desserts), which everyone thought was a HUGE mistake to eat between games. She also made these Red Velvet balls, which I didn't get to try, but heard they were delicious (according to Becca) to snack on. So naturally, we all ate these between the games, and naturally we all regretted eating them. However, we all got into the second game and were so energized and we hit very well. lol So moral of the story is...EAT CARMELITAS BEFORE YOU PLAY A GAME!!!!!

Well this has been a very nice break from the copious amounts of work. Till next time; take care and have a great softball season!

- Caitlin

Carmelitas and Root Beer Floats

With our first games just around the corner, excitement is running high in spite of the rain and colder weather. However, rain boots have become the new essential accessory. Even though our field was literally soup the other week due to weather, we’re at that point in pre-season when people are really ready to start playing. As a senior, it’s kind of hard to believe this is the beginning of my last season, a fact that’s really just starting to hit Caitlin and myself. On a much less bittersweet note, this past weekend we had team dinner – “Fajitas and Carmelitas” night – at Britt’s house where we discovered the awesomeness of pineapple salsa and Beatles Rock Band. Britt’s mom made enough carmelitas to feed a small developing country, and still, we managed to clean house, as usual. For those of you who haven’t experienced a “Carmelita,” it’s basically two slabs of oatmeal cookie sandwiching melted layers of caramel and chocolate, and I’m pretty sure any member of the team would trade their first born child for a slice. Rock Band seemed like a great idea until Texas – our delightful manager, not the state – decided it would be a great idea to up our vocal prowess and try to harmonize. I was instructed to “just sing whatever” and she would shift her voice off of me. This produced possibly the worst rendition of “Day Tripper” known to man and the most hilarious karaoke performance I’ve ever been apart of. Needless to say it’s a good thing none of us are in choir. Tonight is Team Movie night with pizza and root beer floats (woooo yeah), an excellent night before a game meal. In my case it will be a nice break from paper writing, grad school applications, and job searching. And, seriously who doesn’t love root beer floats.

Helen Thompson