Guess what? Only one and a half weeks until Thanksgiving Break and then only two weeks until finals! I am so ready for this semester to be over. There were times when I questioned my major, questioned my extracurriculars, and questioned myself, wondering if I could handle everything I put on my plate. But I can finally see the finish line! It's just a hop, skip and jump away!

Speaking of hopping, skipping and jumping, track officially starts next week. I started working out this week though.. I was getting restless and I also wanted to get a jump start on training. We have a new assistant coach this year who will be helping us with strength and conditioning. So far, I have done a few lifting workouts and I am super sore. But I know that weight training is something I need to do to be a stronger runner.. my little arms right now can't propel me!

My online portfolio project was due today. The theme was a flower garden outside, so I had a sky and clouds and grass as the background, and then I had flowers pop up when you rolled over the links. Its cute. And I like it more than the last portfolio I did because it actually has a theme. And I have more work to display on it now ;P

My toe injury is healing, slowly but surely. The nail hasn't shown any signs yet of falling off, but just give it time and I'm sure it will. It's still purple and gross, so I am glad that the weather has gotten cold so I can only wear shoes and no sandals.

This past weekend was Family Weekend and there were a bunch of activities going on. On Friday night there was bowling, but my friends and I got distracted and ended up going pretty late into it and didn't get a lane.. so we played DJ instead and it ended up still being a good time. Saturday was a super busy day for me. I helped at the GPAC cross country meet because it was held in Yankton this year and then I had to hurry back to the school to give tours for the campus visit day. I hadn't given a tour in over a month, but its just like riding a bike.. you never forget how to do it! Later that day, I had to play pep band for the two basketballs games and in the evening I went to the fall play. It was such a good play and I had a lot of friends in it, which I think made it even better! It was very cute and senitmental and everyone did a great job. On Sunday my mom came over because I was playing flute for the Family Mass. I played "The Prayer" which you may have heard before (by Celine Dion :)). We also went to the Family Weekend Brunch.

It will be nice to go home in about a week. It won't be much of a break, since I will have several papers due and much reading to accomplish for when I get back, but it will be nice to just get away from campus for a while. I am excited to see some friends too that I haven't seen all summer. Oh, and of course, do some Black Friday shopping!

This week, I thought my soccer career was going to end early. At our game on Wednesday against Dakota Wesleyan, with 40 seconds left in the second half, I went to kick a ball and I got it, but a DWU defender went to kick too, and got my big toe. I went down hard, but got up like a champ since there was no point in leaving the field for the last 40 seconds. Over the next two days, I had a very purple and swollen toe. The athletic trainer had to drill a hole in my toenail TWICE to drain the blood underneath and relieve the pressure from it. I sat out from practice those two days because my toe hurt too much to wear shoes. Yesterday, we had another game, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to play. So I went to the trainer again and since my toe still hurt to touch, he sent to the clinic to get an xray to see if it was broken. It was my first ever xray and I had to go by myself so I was nervous. But, it turns out my toe was not broken after all, just severly bruised. The doctor showed me the xray image and I saw all my little foot bones perfectly in a row. Except there was some pretty visible swelling too. She said I should not practice until it no longer hurts to put a shoe on... so hopefully I don't have to miss next Wednesday's game too! My mom and brother, and my friend Kelly are coming to that game, so I want to give them something good to watch! Also, what was funny and ironic about missing yesterday's game, was that it was against Concordia, and I missed that game last year too because I was severly sick with a stomach flu! Crazy!

I feel like I have spent the past month in two places: the classroom and a bus. We have travelled the Midwest up and down and over and under for soccer this year. We hit Iowa/Missouri/Illinois which equalled about 16-18 hours on a bus on our first big trip and Nebraska/North Dakota on the second one which equalled about 20 hours on a bus in one weekend. Unfortunately we have been having some bad luck and our record is only 1-10 for the season. We are at the midseason mark right now, so hopefully we can get over our slump and make some magic happen.



As for the classroom, I am still trying to find a routine to work out my 21 credits. The hardest part about it is that I have no morning classes.. they are all in the afternoon and evening. Most college kids would think that is the best situation ever because they can sleep in every day, but for me, I would just rather have my classes 8-12 every day and get them out of the way.



Outside of school and athletic news, I got a new phone! My Blackberry took a turn for the worst, so I finally got rid of it. I ended up getting the LG Ally.. its a droid and it runs soo much better than my Blackberry did. I can actually make and receive phone calls again! And its really cool because its a touch screen and it came with a 4gb memory card so I can take a ton of pictures and have a ton of music on it. I feel like such a kid just talking about it... :P

My favorite class right now is probably Calligraphy. Its so much fun and actually really relaxing to just write letters. We have learned all the lowercase letters in italics and started on the uppercase letters. We have written some quotes and have full pages of words.. I always feel so accomplished after I write a whole page of something!

Third week of school done. Those three weeks went by so fast, and yet they didn't go by fast enough to be stress-free. Since I am taking 21 credits this semester, I am swamped with stuff to do. But what makes it more difficult is that all of my classes are from 1-4pm and then in the evening. So I don't have any classes in the mornings. So either, I have to get up early and do homework in the morning for hours on end (which is weird and contrary to the routine of every other college student) or stay up really late to do homework after my evening classes get over. Its hard to manage my time, but I have been doing my best :)

Soccer has been quite the adventure this year as well. Right now our record is 1-5. We played in a tournament in Canton, Missouri. It was actually alot of fun because we got to stay in a hotel for three days, play two games, go shopping in Quincy, Illinois (we hit so many states on the trip!), and get some quality team bonding time in. We lost out first game we played, but won the second.

Since then, we lost the next three games we played. We have definitely had our share of injuries, which makes it frustrating during games because we barely have any subs and we have players playing positions on the field that they aren't used to.

I am also getting used to my new job with the school newspaper, The Moderator. In previous years I have been a writer and the ad designer, but these year I am also the ad manager. That means I have to call area businesses and see if they want to advertise with us. I have five so far, but would like to get more. I hope my public relations skills work well for me! Tonight I worked on designing a few of the ads that I got.

This week I found out I was picked to be a "Hometown Hero of Character" for Mount Marty Athletics, as well as a male athlete from here. I had never heard of this award before, but apparently area high school and college athletes who show good character are given this award. On Monday, a spokesperson for the award is coming to Mount Marty to take professional pictures of us for a poster that we are going to be on. We had to write a statement about one of five character values, and that will also be on the poster. I chose to write about respect. Anyways, I think its a pretty cool honor and really appreciate being chosen for it.

This weekend is going to be an R and R weekend. We don't have any soccer games, which is totally unheard of! We usually have one (if not two) games every weekend, so I am definitely going to take advantage of all the extra time to get majorly caught up on homework!

Schools starts tomorrow! It will be my last first day of school.. bittersweet, I guess. I AM excited to be done with school but have no idea where I will end up afterwards. The world is my canvas, I guess!

The past two weeks we have had two-a-days for soccer, and as a team we have had ups and downs. We have a lot of talented new players (3 freshmen and 2 transfers), but we have also had a lot of injuries to deal with. BUT, as of right now we only have two players out with injuries and one should be good to go by the weekend, which is a huge sigh of relief. However, the other player out right now is my roommate April.. she fractured her wrist at practice last week and is out until as least September 13th. And of course, it was on her right hand, so she is getting used to doing everything (or at least everything I don't do for her ;P) with her left hand. She is a very valuable player on our team and one of the best (if not THE best) defensive player on our team. So she will be missed dearly during our first part of the season.

I have actually been learning a new position this year, outside back. I have never played a defensive position before.. I have always been an outside mid or forward, so its a lot to learn. Some days I feel like I'm progressing really well, while other days I feel like I can't grasp anything. Its been frustrating but as soon as I can play in a game and get a real feel for the position I think I will improve.

Our first games are next weekend. We are playing in a tournament called the Culver-Stockton Classic in Canton, Missouri. I am excited to go and excited to play! It will be nice to take a trip and sight-see, as well as hopefully win some games! The winner of the tournament gets a trophy, so we definitely have our eyes on it!

My class schedule this semester is pretty odd. I only have one morning class, 11am MWF. All my other classes are in the afternoon 1-4pm. And I have two night classes as well. Its going to be a struggle with soccer to get to all these classes and make up work, but I've done it before and can do it again.

Besides tomorrow being the first day of school, its my 22nd birthday. I don't think I will do much for it since I will have class and practice. My mom and youngest brother came to visit yesterday and my other brother just got back from Montana yesterday and met us here in Yankton, so he had pretty perfect timing. I may go out to eat with Isaac or something, but who knows!

Wow.. I think I spaced off the entire last month of the summer. I haven't blogged in exactly 3 weeks and 3 days.

This is my last week of summer. Soccer starts on Monday, and its gonna be a killer two weeks of practice. Coach emailed us all and said we will be having fitness practice in the mornings, a meeting or lifting in the afternoons, and soccer practice in the evenings at the fields. BY THE WAY, we have NEW fields this year! Ones to call our very own.. I am very excited about this!

At work the past few weeks I have been busy designing. I made posters for the new archery program that is starting here this fall, postcards for last minute financial aid reminders, finished up the orientation materials, made a few newspaper and magazine ads, and lots of other fun stuff. This is my last week of work, which is sad because I will miss the paycheck and actually getting to make finished projects. But alas, I still have one more year of school before I can be let loose into the real world.

Next week will be my last week as an RA. I just hope that when the fall sports kids move in they don't cause a ruckus! I have lots of posters to make for orientation and really need to get started on that. Kelly, the other summer RA, has been busying making posters, so I need to play catch-up.

School starts on August 30.. aka, MY BIRTHDAY. I am okay with it, I just hope with classes and soccer practice I can still find room for a little fun :) I feel so old.. a lot of my friends just turned 21 this summer and I will be 22! But my roommate April turned 22 yesterday, so at least I'm not as old as her!

Tonight I made tatertot hotdish for the few of us still living in the dorms. Kelly had made some for a potluck we had a while back and I wanted to one-up her and show her how it was REALLY done :) So, I worked my magic and it was a hit! No leftovers!

I think I took too much time off from blogging! Its been about two and a half weeks since my last one.

Last weekend was the best weekend of my summer! My friend Theresa got married! And I was a bridesmaid! We have been friends since middle school and she graduated from MMC. I followed in her footsteps in coming here, actually.

Anyways, last Friday I went home for the rehearsal. Isaac and our friends Jordan and Becca came with. The rehearsal was at the church in Jackson and didn't take very long. The groom's dinner/rehearsal dinner was at the golf course in Lakefield. We had tacos lol. How sophisticated ;P After the dinner, we played yard games are Theresa's parents house. Becca and I teamed up against Isaac and Jordan for very intense game of ladder ball.. and we won! Although I would like to think it was a big feat beating these boys, they are notorious for being a bad ladder ball team :P

After the lawn games, we went back to Jackson, but this time to see my friend Lucia. She was a foreign exchange student at my high school two years ago when I was a freshman in college and I got to know her really well and hadn't seen her since then. But she came to the U.S. to visit this summer and I was so happy to see her again! It was really great to catch up and she finally got to meet Isaac. She had talked to him on the phone but was never able to meet the person with the voice.

Saturday morning, I had my hair done at the salon with the other bridesmaids. My style was half up with spiral curls and "little" poof. Lets just say, I would hate to see what the "big" poof looks like! Theresa's sister Laura and I both did similar hair styles, while two of the other bridesmaids did side ponytails and the other two did up-dos. So, we all had hairstyle partners!

We got to the church at 11:30am for pictures. Our bridesmaid dresses were "marine" blue.. somewhere in between royal blue and navy blue. The best part about them was that they had pockets! So we didn't have to haul around a clutch with everything we needed. Anyways, we tooks bridal party pictures for almost two and a half hours in the church as well as outside. It was such a gorgeous day out.. sunny but not extremely hot.

The wedding ceremony was amazingly precious. The groom (Mike)'s dad is a pastor and precided the ceremony. His sermon was awesome because he was able to give personal stories about Theresa and Mike.. like how they were caught smooching in the back of the bus in middle school and how when Mike wanted to transfer to USD, he told his dad that he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he was sure he wanted to be with Theresa. Isn't that just adorable??

The reception was a blast. It was at the Windom Community Center, by the lake (which we, of course, took more pictures by!). The bridal party made their grand entrance (I was escorted by Derek, who I graduated high school with and it was great to see him and catch up with him), then the bride and groom cut the cake (they didn't make a mess of their faces, thankfully!), then we ate some amazing food (catered by the Hi-Lo, where I used to work), and danced the night away. I kept saying that the reception was like a school reunion because there were so many people there from high school.. alot of whom I hadn't seen SINCE high school!

The next day, Isaac, Jordan, Becca and I went to a place called Red Rock Dells. Its about 45 minutes from my house, near Sanborn, MN. Its a beautiful little sactuary in the middle of corn fields. There is a creek that runs through these hugh cliffs and there is even a waterfall! The rocks are about 30 feets high and there is a pool of water at the bottom (where the creek empties into) and you can jump off the rock into the water. So thats exactly what we did. I did this when I was in high school too, so I was the expert. It is so much fun. Isaac and Jordan did it probably a dozen times and they were so sore the next day! I guess the impact of the water was just too much for their sensitive bodies ;)

Here are some pictures from Mike and Theresa's wedding:

Theresa with her bridesmaids after the wedding (so she is a Mrs. in this picture!)

Becca, Jordan, Isaac and I (Becca's dress was unintentionally the same color as our bridesmaid dresses!) (also note the beautiful bouquets we had-purple daisies with green roses)

Guess who is walking down the aisle??

Theresa before the ceremony!

Here are some pictures from Red Rock:

Me with the smaller waterfall.. there was one ten times bigger too!

Becca jumping off the cliff into the water!