Assorted Athletic Activities :)

Last summer I remember telling my brother "Michael, I want to play beach volleyball next summer." We were sitting in Muskegon, on Lake Michigan, listening to our dad and uncle play live music on the deck. There was a beach volleyball tournament going on at the beach in front of us. It looked like so much fun! Volleyball was always my favorite, but thanks to bad genetics, I received a knee injury many moons ago that put the kibosh on my plans of professional volleyball, lol. In fact, it was the sort of injury that made it difficult to do ANYTHING remotely healthy for my body - from running to kickboxing, lol... I honestly had not played since before I had children, and Joshua will be 7 in August...

Fast forward to, oh, about 3 weeks ago. My friend from high school, Lindsay, had sent an invite to everyone on her Facebook friends list inviting them to get together and play beach volleyball once a week through the summer!! I love when things fall into place like that! I immediately let her know I was in, and had been waiting to hear when the first time would be. We decided on Thursday nights, at the Grand Haven State Park on Lake Michigan. This past Thursday was the first one. It occurs to me on Monday that maybe a little practice would be in order, to avoid making a fool of myself....

So, Tuesday night, Michael and I headed over to our friend Scott's house for a little "practice", since we all want to play. Practice turned into a deathmatch of insane proportions, LOL. We were ALL out of practice, but were trying SO HARD not to look ridiculous. I was bleeding in various places and we ALL had bruises and contusions up and down our forearms, LOL.

I woke up Wednesday morning barely able to move, lol. Went to the zoo with Josh's class for a field trip and felt better as long as I was moving. Assuming that sitting around would do my aching mucles NO GOOD, we decided to play some tennis on Wednesday night. Much easier on my body than volleyball, for sure :)

Unfortunately, I am not all that athletic by nature, but I LOVE sports, so I don't care. My poor brother (who was a tennis star in HS), took it upon himself to show me some pointers, lol. Luckily I catch on pretty quickly, so it wasn't as disheartening as it could have been!! I felt a whole lot better after a game of tennis, though. A lot less stiff and sore.

So, Thursday night, we headed down to Grand Haven for the maiden volleyball game. It was SO MUCH FUN. I will say that sand is a whole lot more giving than grass is. My body was thankful for that :) Luckily, I've been taking glucosamine for my knee for the last couple of months, and it appears to be working, because I was able to play hard for 3 days in a row and not have any knee issues at all!! I can't wait until the next time we play! We weren't great, by any means, lol, but we didn't look ridiculous, which is awesome! I can't play next week because I have to go back to work (long story, different post - one of these days), but I'm looking forward to Thursdays for the rest of the summer!!

Especially since on Thursday nights, my dad and uncle play at Jack's in Spring Lake, on the deck out there, and it's on the way home :)