Competition Day 1

video blog...enojy!!

Squirrel Sniper

Today wake up call was at 8am so we could have a fancy breakfast in room 444. Actually Sarah and Alyssa showed up at 7:54 waking up Amanda and Michelle by knocking ever so quietly with their key card. Michelle and Amanda were not pleased, so Amanda sent the girls back to their room for the next 5 minutes. Breakfast included a fine selection of plain bagels complete with cream cheese, apple juice in fancy boxes that came with straws, and to top it off a bag of Magic Stars cereal that we had to eat out of plastic hotel bathroom cups. We were definitely living the high life.

During our fancy breakfast, we received some outstanding news! Beth, now obviously in a better mood (Jake had payed her a visit), told us that we were only going to have to swim once today at precisely 11:00 am. The problem arose when we were about to leave for the pool, and Beth's twin sister informed us that the pool CLOSED at precisely 11:00 am. Beth freaked out for a few seconds. And then we sat there and tried to figure out what to do. While we were sitting there guess who we run into? Dani Korman /Dan-Dizzle of all people. Our first words to her were, "Aww Dani you are so small still!" I guess once you graduate college you don't grow much...who would have thought. Anyway after a short chat with Dani we decided to go to lunch at Noodles and Company, where Alyssa ordered, SURPRISE, plain buttered noodles. Beth continued to yell at Amanda for eating poor little Michelle's leftover food. Beth thinks Amanda is FAT and WORTHLESS. When departing Noodles, Amanda, the child that she is, tried to cross the road in front of a semi-truck. Michelle, obviously unaware of her size, tried to hold Amanda back, but instead was just dragged along. They survived. Nuff Said.

We then left for the pool at 1:00 pm. Swimming this afternoon was a lot less crowded than yesterday. Today we had our own lane! It was fantastic...but tomorrow it's going to be like 300 people trying to swim in a 2 inch puddle! So some quotable quotes were said during our swim. Alyssa says "Amanda, I feel like this is one big playground for you!" It's true Amanda was doing more underwater dives and hanging on the wall then she was swimming. Michelle joined her in looking through the underwater window, while Sarah and Alyssa watched. Michelle also came up with a list of things Amanda would get kicked out of. They are as followed:

a. A D-1 swimming program

b. Any school other than Camp Carthage

c. The ball pit in any playplace, including McDonalds

d. Anything or any place that doesn't allow goofing around

e.all of the above

We finished swimming and were somehow persuaded into taking a team picture on the podium. We were all for it, considering are team picture turned out absolutely beautiful last year. And by beautiful we mean: 3 out of 5 of us had our eyes closed, someone wasn't smiling, much less looking at the camera, and one of us had somewhat of a normal smile. We figured any picture could beat last year's by far. So with our hair wet and goggle marks still around our eyes we posed and smiled for the paparazzi. Before we climbed onto the podium the photographer asked if our coach was going to join us in the picture....the funny thing is that Beth was standing with us and she's like "I'm the coach...I know I sorta look like them." It was pretty amusing. After showing off our pearly whites we headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we hung out for awhile before getting all fancy (yes that seems to be the theme of the day, fancy breakfast, fancy us, fancy everything! haha) for our dinner with all the other teams. It was buffet style, just the way we like it. This way we can get all the food we want and Amanda should have no reason for eating any one's leftovers. Still, however, Alyssa did not take enough food to even feed a toddler. Anyway, we had some of Beth's ex-swimmers from Springfield, MA sitting at our table. This guy named Greg told us about how he got suspended from school for 2 months for killing squirrels with a gun from his window. So the squirrel sniper apparently had killed quite a few...we didn't catch the number, we assume somewhere close to 100 to get him 2 months suspension. Also, another member of the Springfield team is apparently in the Circus and can make any balloon animal and can juggle. No wonder Beth is so cultured (its part of her upbringing). Anyway they put cookies on the table for us to eat. There was a large variety including M&M, chocolate chip, as well as snikerdoodle (according to Steven). Beth, however, could not find the type of cookie she desired on our huge plate so she had squirrel killer steal the plate off the table next to us. Thinking she was in the clear, Beth enjoyed the cookie she wanted with a big smile on her face. That is until the less than fluent english speaking Asian waiter came over and scolded her, confiscating the cookie plate, and leaving Beth embarassed and flushed.

Right before we were ready to leave, Michelle felt a light grazing on her head. Confused, she turned around to find a completly random middle aged woman with salt and pepper hair, stroking/ petting her locks. This woman was flabergasted at how soft and silky Michelle's hair was, being a swimmer and all. We forgot to mention that Sarah and Alyssa, being the twins they are, ate a very small portion of food but yet devoured they're snickerdoodle cookie in sync with each other. It took us a good twenty minutes to walk out of the dining room, having to take pictures with small and stelth Dan-Dizzle as well as stopping frequently to talk to random coaches. Beth supposidly is best friends with all of them.

After diner, Amanda and Michelle utalized the long walk from the elevator to their rooms as their own peronal runway. Being the sexy beasts that they are, they tore it up. This is proven below in the low budget film we made, produced by Alyssa.

Ps. We forgot to mention we have sleep number beds!! Fancy eh?! Whats your number? our is 35!

Pss. Actually ours varies from 35-100...Amanda, in her devilsh/childish ways, has developed a new prank. This afternoon she Sleep Numbered Michelle. This new prank involves increasing rapidly someone's sleep number on their sleep number bed until it feels like they are laying on the Grand Canyon (which is now located acorss from the Quiznos in the Wisconsin Dells...ask about later).

Psss. Thanks to all of our fans so far. We will be here all week!

PSSSS Happy Birthday to Mama Croix and Happy St. Patty's day...no green beer or intoxicated students this time. (if confused see posts from last year)

Signing off your favorite fancy people:

Spaz, Awkward, Shoe Shop, and eighdolla holla

"Chocolate People Are Happy People"

And we're back! We know you all missed our enlightening and entertaining tales of the NCAA voyage from last year, so we decided to keep up with the blogging tradition again for this year.

So unlike last year, today we actually left on time at 9am. Before we got into our 11 passenger van we had a slight dilemma...Our van was already stuffed full and we still had to pick up Ripley on the way. With 3 boys in the van and 4 girls, intimidating 90 pound Michelle decided to take charge and tell the boys where to sit.....in the back! Stephen falls asleep for a good 20 minutes and all of a sudden something retched began to fill the air. Stephen unconsciously passed, no, exploded, some gas. It was so awful that we immediately opened all the windows before we choked on the toxic fumes.

After we picked Ripley up at some random gas station, we would soon be on our long awaited journey to Minneapolis, but we had to wait for the Schranck brothers to get out the bathroom (this would not be the last time). So on the road we head..again.

Stephen told us about the time he killed his hamster Jasmo by spinning its hamster-wheel way too fast. The hamster had a heart attack and died. It's still a touchy subject for him. He also decided to tell us about how he doesn't wear deodorant, because apparently he never smells...Too bad it didn't hold true for when he farted. ha

Beth was pretty grumpy; We were ordered that we weren't allowed to criticize her driving or make any noise because we are supposedly annoying. After that, we thought for sure her next order would be "no breathing". haha I mean come on, what else are we supposed to on what was supposed to be a 6 hour van ride that turned into a 7 and half hour trip. We sure couldn't sleep much because there is no room to move even an arm or leg without hitting someone or something. Michelle however, as tiny as she is, found room to comfortably curl up on the bench and catch plenty of Z's. Amanda is bitter about the whole sleeping thing because she was too big to fit comfortably anywhere. So, we thought maybe giving Beth some chocolate would make her a little less tense, but that is the last time we decide to give her free chocolate. As Sue would say "Chocolate people are happy people." I guess Beth needed to be hooked up to chocolate intravenously in order for her to enjoy what seemed to be the never ending van ride.

We stopped at the Dells for some lunch. Quiznos was our eating grounds. And of course Alyssa got just turkey and bread while Sarah got a bread bowl because she hates sandwiches. We hopped back into the van and had to wait for Doug...again! The Schrancks may be fast in water, but holy cow are they like sloths on land.

Back on the road with our stomachs full we continued to head Northwest to the big MN. It wasn't long until Amanda and Sarah noticed that we were almost out of gas. Greg was driving this time. He ignored the gas levels for awhile, but couldn't for much longer because the "low fuel" light came on. It was on for a good 12 minutes before we even started to consider looking for gas station. We got off somewhere in Eau Claire and Greg spotted a Sonic. (for all of you that don't know Greg loves Sonic, so we had to stop.) No wonder our trip ended up being so long, we stopped a lot and Greg drove a little on the not so fast side. And Greg "Driving slow doesn't necessarily mean it's safe."

So after that most of us fell asleep. We made it to our hotel at about 4:30pm....keep in mind we left Kenosha at 9:00am...what a long trip, but we finally made it! Before we could settle into our rooms we had to unload our over packed van. Beth told us she would get us a cart to put all our luggage on, but big surprise she lied to us again. Michelle and Amanda had to go find a cart, figure out how to steer it (they got some help from the bellhop boys...thank goodness), and then we were ordered to put Greg and Beth's luggage on there and bring it up to their rooms. (and we thought slavery had been abolished.) Michelle and Amanda are still a little bitter about it. haha

We got some free stuff: A blanket, pillow, water bottle, and a reversible winter cap. Which are all shown below and modeled by Michelle herself.

We went to the pool and got some laps in, then we had dinner at Applebees. Now we are all tired and ready to hit up the pool again tomorrow one last time before the big meet starts on Wednesday! We have our dinner tomorrow night. This time we'll make sure that Dani, being so small and stealth, doesn't cut in the food line!

Signing off,

National team 2009

Spaz, Awkward, Shoe Shop, and eighdolla holla

PS C-Rizz we miss you!

PSS More pictures to come!

PSSS Bax here's one shout out!