Well after the first two weeks of slow pitch softball are done I'm already feeling a little sore. My legs are still tight and feeling strained. This week has been a pretty positive one with mostly all wins. Monday night was amazing. This is one of my coed teams and we played the Miken team. No one really understands what that means when I say that unless they play too. The Miken team is some of the areas best players playing and they get sponsored by Miken which is a big softball sponsor. Well the game was pretty boring at first, the first three or four innings for both teams was three up and three down. We were done with the first four innings in about fifteen minutes. After that it got pretty intense. Both teams were hitting well and started hitting to open spots rather than to the opposing players. The game went back and forth I don't know how many times. We ended up winning and what a sweet victory it was. We ended up losing on Tuesday for my women's team. We only lost by one run in the bottom of the seventh inning. We had our last at bats and we were down by three and only ended up scoring two runs. My Wednesday night women's team won by the fifteen run rule. We won 16-0, the team was pretty bad and it was a super boring game. This Friday hopefully we can keep the winning going and put another tally to the win column. These weeks are just flying by with how busy I am with softball almost every night. Can't wait for summer and no school!

This week has pretty crazy with all my sporting events. This Monday was the start of summer slow pitch softball league or what many refer to as bar league softball. This week was also the last week of intermurals. Starting on Monday it was about to be a crazy week. Monday I had the volleyball intermural tournament. My team went undefeated the whole season so we were ready for teams to take out revenge on us. The first game we started off a little bit slow, at one point we were possibly down by ten. We then pulled ourselves together and came back and won that game and our next one. After that we had a little break since a team forfeited and we had to watch one game before our championship game. We ended up losing but we definitely shouldn't have, we got ripped off. I was supposed to have my first softball game on Monday but I couldn't make it because we kept winning in volleyball. My softball team ended up winning anyways even though they were short one player. Tuesday was the start of the all women's team I play on. I couldn't find my cleats so I decided on a pair of tennis shoes. Big mistake! I hit the ball and was running from second to third and I slipped and completely wiped out. After I realized the ball was getting thrown to second I quick scrambled my way through the dirt back onto second base and was safe. We ended up losing but we played one of the better teams in the league. Wednesday I had my other women's team play and we ended up winning. One of the girls on my team got hit in the mouth by a ball that took a bad hop. Her lip was split pretty good and most people thought she should go have a stitch put in. After the softball game on Wednesday I had to go and play in the basketball intermurals tournament. We lost in the first round though so it wasn't too long of a night. Today, Thursday, I had the night off and didn't have any sporting events to play in. I did end up watching a men's team play though. Tomorrow I have another softball game for my coed team. Hopefully we will win!

Another week is pretty much over and Easter is coming up on Sunday. Unfortunately I have to work this weekend so I won't get to go out of town to my aunt and uncle's house in Stevens Point. I also was going to attend an easter egg hunt and a candy hunt with my younger cousins but won't be able to since I will be working. I remember when I was younger I used to go to Copeland Park in La Crosse on the easter candy hunt. All the kids and their parents got there early so you could line up on the outside of the rope and wait for them to blow the whistle and you could go. You tried to gather as much candy and items as fast as you could before all the other kids got it. After the candy race you got a raffle ticket. You then waited in hopes of getting your ticket drawn to win big fun prizes. I once won a big wheel and that was the end of my winning streak. I'm not a very lucky person so winning even once was amazing to me. I am kind of sad I won't get to now go and watch my little cousins participate in an event that I enjoyed every year. Hopefully my grandma will make a tasty meal for me to enjoy after I am done working this weekend.

Another week has come and pretty much gone...the days are just flying by it seems. I can't believe it is April already. One interesting thing that I did this week was apply for my passport. This was very interesting and exciting for me. It was a little crazy because I really needed to get my passport for my trip thats coming up in May and the passport takes about a month in order to get back so I needed to apply soon so I would have enough time to get it back. At first I didn't have my real birth certificate only copied ones. I thought that I was going to somehow have to go to Madison, since this is where I was born, and get my birth certificate. Luckily, my grandpa said he had the real one so I did not have to go and get it. After I got my real birth certificate I had to go back down to the post office and submit my papers, pictures, and payment for my passport. This was really exciting because it made my trip seem so real and so close. I have only been out of the country once and that was to Mexico. When I went to Mexico you didn't need a passport so I have never had one before. One thing I did not know about passports was about the picture you had to take. I had no idea that you could not smile or show teeth or anything. I was standing by the white background ready for my picture and they informed me I could not smile. This threw me off guard and I could no longer keep a straight face. When someone tells you not to smile it is hard to do as they tell you. The first picture I was smirking a little bit so we decided to take another picture and settled with that one. Let me just add that no smiling pictures are not very attractive! I will just be happy to finally get mine back for my trip.

Wow spring break and almost another week are over. Last week we had spring break for Western. I started the week off with my birthday on Monday, this was also the first day of spring break. That day I got to go shopping and hung out with my friends. Later that night my family took me out to eat at Drugan's. It was me, my mom, her husband, and my grandparents. I was very excited because Drugan's is one of my favorite places to eat so of course I had to pick that for my birthday dinner. The meal was delicious and so was the cake. After dinner I met up with some friends and just hung out for the rest of the night. The rest of spring break was pretty laid back. I mostly just hung out and relaxed. Most of my teachers did not give us assignments, thank you! Now that we came back to school this week my teachers have given me plenty of homework. One exciting thing this week held was the start of intermurals at TC. On Monday night I played on my co-ed volleyball team. We won our first game in three matches and we got a win the second game because the other team didn't show up. Then on Wednesday night I started co-ed basketball. This was a little different from co-ed volleyball. There is way more contact and way more males than in volleyball. My team consists of all boys except for me. We also only have six people on my basketball team so that means I get pretty tired. We ended up winning the first game we played and ended up losing the second game. Both games were pretty good games. Tomorrow I need to go to the post office and get my passport for my trip to the Dominican! I am getting so excited for it to finally get here. That means school will be out and I will be getting tan. I then finish the week up by working this weekend. Not looking too forward to that but I have to make money somehow.

Not much has happened this week once again. My spring break has started well it doesn't actually start until Monday but I don't have classes on Friday so it started on Thursday for me. Unfortunately I am not going anywhere or spring break but in a couple months my trip is coming up. I have to work this weekend and not looking forward to it. I have to work Saturday 12-9 and Sunday 11-8. It is kind of nice because I get to sleep in but not so nice that I have to work that long and that late. I guess I can't complain too much I didn't get scheduled the 2-11. I am very excited for Monday since it is my birthday. I will be turning 20 and am very excited to celebrate. A lot of my friends also have birthdays in March. A couple years ago a group of my friends and I surprised all of our friends for their birthday with something different. It turned out that out of that group of friends four of us had birthdays in March. All of them around the same time as well. It was kind of ironic actually because I was dating one of the guys and his birthday was in March and my other two friends that had birthdays in March were dating each other as well. We ended up having to give everyone surprises because we couldn't leave someone out of it. That year my surprise was a large group dinner and I got a gift card to Metropolitan Spa. My friends thought that would be a good gift for me since I absolutely love getting back massages. After a while my friends all learned that if I say I will give you a back massage if you give me one and I say they have to give me one first that I won't give them one back. This is why they thought this might be a good present for me. A newer friend that I met this year has his birthday in March as well. It is two days before mine so hopefully we will all have fun celebrating our birthdays together again. It will be nice because most of my friends will be back from college so we can all hang out like old times and celebrate our birthdays together.

So another week is flying by. Not much really happened this week so far, pretty boring. I am looking forward to this weekend. Not too much planned but its not my weekend to work so that's always better! I did end up picking up a three hour shift on Saturday from 3-6 just to get a little extra money since I need to start saving up for my trip to the Dominican. It is getting so close to May and that means the end of school and my trip is coming up. Another thing that is exciting that is happening soon is my birthday. My birthday is falling on the most perfect week this year, SPRING BREAK! My birthday is March 16 and it is on a Monday but we don't have school that week so it doesn't matter. I'm not sure what I have planned for my birthday but one of my favorite traditions is going out to eat with my family every year. I usually go to either Drugan's or Tequila, my two favorite places to eat. Another tradition I get excited for when my birthday comes around is that my grandma usually makes me my favorite meal; hot beef and lefse. My family is Norwegian so for holidays or birthdays she usually makes that. We call them Norwegian tacos. We take a piece of lefse and put butter on it and then we put the hot beef on the inside and roll it like a taco and eat it. Some of my family put beets or other things inside of it as well but I just like the simple hot beef and lefse. My grandma also usually has an assortment of pies: coconut creme, pumpkin, apple, cherry. Wow I am really making myself hungry. Can't wait until my birthday so I can get all of my favorite foods!

This past week has been pretty crazy for me. Since I am a procrastinator, I had a whole lot of assignments to do in a short amount of time in order to get it all done for grading. These assignments were for my abnormal psychology class. This class is a blended course so we usually have assignments every week or so that are about an hour long each. He breaks up the semester into units so all of the homework for that unit is due by the day you take the test. My test was scheduled for Wednesday and I hadn't even started my assignments until Monday. I had to study, do my homework for that class, and my homework for my other classes as well. This upcoming week I have the same professor for another psychology class and it works the same way. I have a test coming up this Thursday and have to have all of my homework done by Thursday and turn it in. This week is going to be busy as well but hopefully I will end up starting it earlier, like today! This is also my weekend to work so I will be busy during most of the day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I work 9-6 and Sunday I work 8-4. I work at Woodman's Supermarket in Onalaska. After work on Sunday I have to go home and get ready to go to my end of the season basketball banquet. This will be held at Features in Holmen, one of the girls on my team works here. At this banquet we will get to have supper and whoever got awards will get them at this time. I am very excited for the banquet it should be fun and am excited to see all the girls again. Spending so much time with them and now that the season is over it feels like I haven't seen them in forever. I am also looking forward to the second half of intermurals starting at WTC. I am planning on playing basketball for sure and maybe even volleyball. This will definitely give me more things to do and will be fun. I am really looking forward to spring break this semester. My birthday just happens to fall over spring break and I am very excited because I won't have school! How great of a birthday present is that. My birthday is March 16 and Sunday is the first day of March. Spring break and birthday here I come!

End of the Road

Well as many of you know I have been pretty involved and busy with my basketball season. As of last night my basketball season is over with. This Monday was the start to the State playoffs. Monday we played UW-Marshfield which we have played two other times this season already and have beaten them every time. Before the game started their coach told ours that these girls already decided they were winning this game. Well after warmups that Monday we started out playing amazing! We were all playing like a team and all of our shots were falling. We got up to about a 15 point lead and then by halftime we were still up by 10 points. However, after we came out at halftime it was a whole different game. None of our shots were falling and our team kind of fell apart. This was not good because Marshfield had come out refreshed and ready to kick butt! All of their shots were falling and they chipped away at our lead for the next twenty minutes. With only a couple minutes left they were only down by a few baskets now. The score kept going back and forth and eventually they were only down by two points. Well our defense ended up picking us up for the lack of our offense we were playing. We ended up winning that game and was headed for Madison on Wednesday to play to go to State. At our shoot around on Tuesday, to prepare for our next game, our coach told us he had a surprise for us and we were to meet at the Coleman Center. Everyone was trying to figure out what our surprise could be but everyone was stumped. After waiting in the hall for a while a lady came out and told us we were getting massages by the students here. These massages were amazing and a fun way to have a little team bonding before our game. Well Wednesday comes and we leave in the afternoon to head off to Madison for our big game. Now Madison is pretty good and ranked pretty high up in the nation. We knew this was going to be a hard game to win but we had to have positive thoughts going into it. Right away Madison took a lead and kept us to two points for more than ten minutes into the first half. It was a hard fought game but we ended up losing which put an end to our long battle of a season. I am pretty pleased with how the season turned out and am excited for next year already!

Basketball and Cars

So last night I had the first playoff game of the year. My team traveled to Milwaukee to play Milwaukee Area Technical College. Let's just say yesterday was a long day. I had school all day and then had to get on the bus at 3:30 to ride up there. Our game wasn't scheduled to be played until 8 p.m. that night. The entire game was really close and it was a good game. We ended up losing so that tournament is done. We didn't end up getting back until almost 2 a.m. and then I had to get up and go to classes all day. It is kind of sad we lost right away but we still are playing to make it to state and that game is on Monday in La Crosse against Marshfield. Hopefully we win so we can try and make it to state. One significant thing that has been happening a lot lately is my car has not been starting in the morning. Only one teacher of all my classes is strict on attendance and only lets you miss four classes. Well of course this is the class that everday my car never starts for. My car is a 1990 Mercury Grand Marquis. It looks more like a boat rather than a car. I am really worried that I am going to end up failing the class if my car keeps not starting. Guess I will have to start saving up my money for a new car so this problem won't keep happening. Looks like the only thing I will be doing for a while is working.

Another week of school is coming to an end! This semester is going by pretty fast already. Basketball at Western is almost done and I am sad for that. This week we had a game on Monday against UW-Richland Center. This was the second time we played them this year. The first time was a couple weeks ago and it was one of the most intense games I have played in. We ended up losing, with a little help from the referees, when we played them at their home court. That first game I had a career high of 27 points so I was really excited to play them again. We ended up winning the game on Monday against them and it felt really good to beat them at our home court. This second time we played them I had a total of 19 points. Then on Wednesday we had another game against MATC - Milwaukee Area Technical College. We really needed to beat this team in order to have our season be .500. The first time we played them was in Milwaukee and we ended up losing. This Wednesday we played them on our home court and we were hoping that would make a difference. At half time we were down by four points and we were playing really well in the first half as a team. I managed to somehow have 19 points by halftime. After the half was over we came back out but not good enough. We ended up losing by about 15 points, give or take a few. I only ended up with 23 points by the end of the game. Our team kind of fell apart and it was pretty sad. Playoffs are about to start on Monday and in order to keep going on we need to keep winning every game. The first game we play I think is against MATC - Milwaukee Area Technical College again and I really want revenge after that last game. This week should be pretty interesting and hopefully our season is not over quite yet! Today at practice we are doing a fund raiser called a freethrow-a-thon. This is where we will go out and ask people to pledge some money either a flat donation or they can donate a certain amount of money per shot I make. I then shoot 100 freethrows and collect my money. The money we make is going to the TC basketball program so we can get new things for next year like new jerseys. Wish me luck!

About me!

Hey everyone. Welcome to my newly made blogging page. This is my first time ever having a blog and being responsible for writing in it at least once a week. This should be quite interesting! I guess I will start off by talking a little about myself. My name is Maekenzy and I am from La Crosse WI. I graduated from La Crosse Logan High School in 2007. I am about to turn 20 in March and am very excited for that! In high school, I was very into sports. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. One highlight of my high school sports career was making it to state for basketball my senior year. This was an amazing experience, most of the girls I played with have played since we were 5 years old at the boys and girls club. We competitively started playing together when we were in 4th and 5th grade. We worked so hard to make it to state by at least our senior year and we did! After graduating high school I went to UW-Milwaukee for one semester and after the first semester came back home to La Crosse and took a semester off. I worked at Woodmans, and currently still do, and saved up some money and went back to school. I now attend Western Technical College in La Crosse and absolutely love it. The teachers are awesome, and so are many of the people. I have made a ton of new friends from school. I am also involved with the Western girls sports teams. I played volleyball this year at WTC and am currently in basketball. Our volleyball team did extremely well, we took 2nd at state and made it to regionals for nationals. It was a very fun experience and plan on playing again next volleyball season. Like I mentioned I also play basketball at WTC. I did have a very crazy life a couple of months ago when volleyball and basketball overlapped and I ended up having the two sports practicing on the same nights right after each other...crazy! So far basketball is going well and hopefully we continue to win some more games. After basketball is over I will not know what to do with myself seeing as that has kept me pretty busy as well as my schoolwork. One really exciting thing that I am looking forward to is that my friends and I have planned a trip to the Dominican Republic. We are going on an all-inclusive trip for a week around the time school is out. The only time I have been out of the country was a family trip to Mexico, which I loved, when I was a sophomore in high school. I so cannot wait! Well I guess that pretty much sums up anything new that has happened so far and a little about me.