Sunday, August 24, 2014

Semi Final Game Day!!!


I am sitting here on the deck of the Mahogany Lounge with my best friend Keelin and her pug, Jeep and we are each doing our own thing, not speaking, just drinking water and letting our minds wander to wherever. This evening at 8 PM it is the semi final match. We play Washington Spirit. They have traveled all the way across the country and I must say, I am just beyond ecstatic to be playing here and not away. Poor Portland had to go back to Kansas City for their semi final match, just the same as last year and the conditions were grueling to say the least. I heard that it was something like 150  degrees on the turf. And based upon my experience there last year, I dont doubt that stat one bit. Kansas won, so they have sealed their spot in the final match next week.
 
This week was a long one. Our national team players were away this week because they had a game against Switzerland. You never realize when you have the full squad here, but when they are away it is so apparent how much we miss them. They are such a huge part of not only numbers on the field but a part of the atmosphere and level of training as well, so it was nice to get them back to say the least. But all that aside it was a great week of training and we are all so excited for the match tonight! Big games bring out the best in players and teams and I am excited to see this team in our element.
 
I know you are all dying for more inside stories so I have been trying to compile the best from the last week for you all! So here some random stories of the week...
 
First since Jeep is right here and he reminded me of this... a few weeks ago Kee took Jeep for one of his 50 daily walks and on it she came across a lady who lives down the street from us and her new 10 week old black lab puppy. His name is Stewie and he is justttttttt precious! So Jeep and him have been having play dates over the last few weeks and just become good little friends, even though Stewie is a little rambunctious from time to time. Anyways, Kee and I went over to her house just yesterday to let the doggies play when Leslie (the neighbor) said "Oh, wait, we have a present for Jeep dont we, Stewie." She went inside the house and came back out with a little bag of tiny Jeep-size tennis balls for Jeep. Jeep has been trying his very best to fit a regular size tennis ball in his mouth for two years now, aka all his life, and he has only just even been able to hold it for a brief second before his jaw dislocates and he is forced to give up. When Leslie took the ball out and gave it to Jeep he took it and ran in a circle, then set the ball down and ran back to Leslie and gave a baby little jump onto her leg and made solid eye contact for aout 5 seconds and then ran back to his ball. It was literally as though he ran up to her and said "THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!" It seriously filled my heart with love. It was so adorable and made me laugh all at once.
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On a completely unrelated topic, Laura brought in some new tunes for the locker room. For those of you who dont know Laura is a master at everything she does, but particularly music and dancing. she is our DJ because she has the best tunes... no one else can agree on what is good music, but no one disagrees with Laura (ever) so her music choice is always good. And on this team, new music always brings about new dance moves... mostly from Laura herself, but also from Carm and sometimes Amanda Frisbie (which no one really cares to see, but we encourage it nonetheless). This time though, the dancing was taken out onto the field into a game of rondo (which is just soccer jargin for keep-away or monkey-in-the-middle) we played before one of our sessions. We are only allowed one touch and so you can imagine it gets pretty funny because you can really put people in some difficult situations. The story basically goes that a ball was played to Syd, pretty slow and she had to do a few moves to try to juke the defender and get her pass off... I wish I had a video of it... this is pretty much as close to it as I close to it as I could get... but she ended up doing some sort of "dance" around the ball before attempting her pass which got picked off by the defender anyways and she got put in the middle. Click on the link below and then imagine Syd is the white boy doing a dance around a ball.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=705854879468562&set=vb.547156485338403&type=2&theater
 
Lastly, just to make fun of myself here... For any of you who follow my other social media accounts, you probably know that I have fallen completely in love with fishing this summer. I needed some sort of meditative practice to center myself. I have tried traditional meditation, yoga, breathing exercises all those things, and they work great but I wanted something that would put my in nature. I love being outdoors and I want to just be surrounded by nature. So I took up fishing and have found this amazing little cove by my house where I can just wade into the water and fish from there. It is beautiful and quiet  and absolutely horrible for fishing because its shallow. But what ever... the purpose is not actually for me to catch fish there, I say that I go there to "work on my casting" when really I just want to be in the water with nature doing something meditative. Anyways, this morning happened to be particularly beautiful. And as usual I was up at the crack of dawn at about 6 and decided I wanted to go out there.
 
So I jumped in the car and drove down there. Today I decided I would try one of my new lures. With my other lures, going with the wind I can usually cast about 40-50 feet. So when I wade into the water I can throw a short amount before getting into any shrubs or things. Well my first cast with this new lure, I chucked it and it just FLEWWWW. Like 100 feet right into this underwater forest of seaweed trees. I pulled and pulled and it was just absolutely stuck. I said... "welp, sh*t." So I took off my shirt and waded into the water in my shorts and sports bra and walked out up about to my neck to untangle my lure. I saved the lure though and was proud to have a new PR in casting distance! Soooo, I got that going for me. The rest of the morning I spent shivering in the water but it was absolutely beautiful and as per the usual... I didnt catch anything! haha. What a way to start off a game day!
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Thats all I got for you! Wish us luck tonight! We will do our best if you guys promise to cheer your best! Thanks for all of your support!
 
Much love!
 
Dani

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Last Regular Season Game


I cant believe it. The 2014 NWSL season is a a few days away from being officially over. The top 4 teams that will be continuing their post season are not set yet but we have won the league and thus we will for sure be hosting a semi final game on the 24th. The championship will then be held August 31. It is just mind blowing that this time is already upon us, it seems like just yesterday that we were just starting this crazy season. 
 
The end of every season is by far the most stressful time of the year. Unfortunately that usually comes twice a year, once every six months. September 1st not only marks the day that our season is officially done, but it also is the day that everyone has to be out of the houses/apartment/apodment/host family house or what ever else temporary housing situation we have been living in for the last 6 months. We would all like to hope that the morning of September 1st we will wake up with a medal around our neck and some funny celebration stories from the night before, but the truth is, that with or without a medal... we have to wake up and MOVE! UGHHHH! What a celebration that is!
 
Then comes September 2nd which is pretty much when everyone heads out across the world to  their new leagues and new teams or new jobs and we all have to say "sianara" until that next February. Its pretty crazy what a quick turn around we must make. I mean, heaven forbid you find a house that you like, or want to have a pet, or even a healthy relationship for that matter. Our lives change every six months and not just in a small way... they change drastically. But thats ok, we have all become pretty used to it by now, but it still doesnt make it any less stressful come this time of year. And still, we move into a place acting like it is our home for the next ten years, like really setting up shop... only to pick up and move out again in 6 months. Its pretty stupid of us actually, but can you blame us for trying to have a semi normal life? 
 
Anyways.... So, here we are with that annoying day approaching us rather rapidly and we are all trying to sort out our lives whilst still focusing on the most important games of the season. We have our last regular season game this Sunday at Portland. I think it will be in front of a sell out crowd, and one I have may fond memories playing in front of! And dont forget that the northwest rivalry between Seattle and Portland runs very, very deep... so it will be an exciting game to say the least! That's Sunday at 2 o'clock. Better get your tickets now. 
 
And then, in a completely unrelated matter, last night a lot of girls from the Reign went to the Ray LaMontagne concert. He was performing out at Marymoor Park and we went with a good group and took up a lot of room on the lawn to watch! We had a pretty spectacular time jamming to his music. But I must say the highlight of the night for me was that Kim Little and Mariah Noguiera were standing in a food line and one of the guys who worked the concert looked over and said "OMG is that Kim Little??" Kim's face just turned bright red (so obviously she didnt say anything) but Mariah responded on her behalf, "Yes, yes it is." The man then said "I am THE BIGGEST Kim Little fan... here give her the VIP tickets." So Kim and Mariah got comped into the VIP section, with the best seats in the house for the rest of the evening. Normally I would be too jealous of their fortunes to tell you this story, however, Kim is absolutely one of the best people and hands down the best player I have ever met in my entire life and she deserves EVERY single bit of recognition she receives. I literally think the world of her... and so to see that someone else sees that same brilliance in her and gave her what he could made me really happy. And you know what... Mariah was the best person I could think of who also deserves that... so that made me really happy for them! 
 
Other than that we are in full practice mode again, we are preparing for our game this weekend and we are enjoying the grey weather that Seattle has brought back about. I know its kind of pathetic but I love the grey skies so much that I am actually looking forward to September even though the sun only shines here for three months... I am about ready for the grey again. August is too hot... and thats why I will never be able to live anywhere out side of the Pacific Northwest. Its just too hot... and I cant handle it. haha. Thats all I got for you. 
 
Laura is still crazy awesome, Sam still makes his games unnecessarily complicated and I am not looking forward to the season being over :-( I love this team too much! 
 
Thats all for now!
Much love!
 
Dani

Friday, August 1, 2014

The End of the Season is Near


I have once again let my blog posting slip away and I will again apologize for that. I was nicely reminded via twitter yesterday that I have not posted anything in a hot minute (someone straight up told me I suck at keeping a blog)... Nevertheless, I will do my very best to catch you up with all that is happening in the sweet life of the Seattle Reign players and staff.   
 
Thats a lie... the last post I did was when we were only 7 games into the season and we are now 20 games in... so I dont want to, nor do I think you want me to go back and talk about the 13 games that happened somewhere in between now and then. Basically what happened was that we traveled a lot and played a lot of games... we had a lot of wins, some ties and one loss. You know, the typical journey of a season... its been up and down. But having said that, we have been on a consistent incline towards peaking at the end of the season, which is our ultimate goal. And to bring you right up to the present we played Portland this passed Sunday at home and won with out best overall performance this season, 5-0! It has been a lot of hard work, a lot of travel and a lot of laughs... but thats mostly because Laura is our coach and thats how our team functions.
 
For those of you who dont know, Laura Harvey is our head coach and the best coach I have ever played for. She is absolutely hysterical, a great coach and an even better person... to put it simply,  we are her team and we are proud of that! To epitomize her... the other day she came in after the post Thorns match press conference and said "Well that press conference was shit." I said, "Why?" and she said "They didnt have any banta for me. I only got a few laughs..." I said "Is that how you judge how well a press conference goes?" And she said "D.F." (which is her nick name for me) "That's how I judge every day of my life... 'Laura, how was your day?' Did I make anyone laugh? no...? Then, it was a shit day." Then she walked away and I was left laughing at her knowing that she was actually serious about that. I think thats how everyone should judge how good their day was... how many people did you make laugh today? The more laughs you got the better day you just lived.
 
That leads me to the next thing I need to discuss... our team is just incredible. On the field this team is just made of the best in the world. From the back to the front...  I can go down the line and give you proofs about every one of them to defend my beliefs here, but I wont. Instead I will just say that Laura and our owners have put together a team that is full of great players... and with that comes some strong personality. So many wildly different personalities... but somehow deep down we are a like minded team. We all love what we do. This team genuinely loves to work our asses off knowing full well that every other girl on this team is doing the same thing to fight with you. And that gives us genuine enjoyment... we are a team with no inhibitions and no fear and I have loved every second of this season. 
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This blog has actually taken me a few days to write haha, sorry about my ADD... regardless, our last game against Houston sealed the league championship for us and that was quite exciting for everyone! We celebrated in style after the game by going to a very casual restaurant where, by happen chance, a lovely lady named Paige did acoustic renditions of all of the greatest 90's tunes... Nsync, Aqua, Snoop Dog, Blink 182... we sang and danced our hearts out! The joy of that was short lived however as we had to get on a plane the next morning to go to our last big road game against Kansas City. 
So thats where we are right now! And tonight we enjoyed a night out as a team to watch Sporting KC play the Philly MLS team and are in bed early to get some rest before our game tomorrow night. 

I will do my best to keep my blog up to date from here on out... but if I forget (which I absolutely will) feel free to send me a tweet (preferably nicer than the last reminder I received).

Thanks to all the fans who have supported the Reign throughout the season, you guys are just the best! Keep following as we get into playoffs... it is after all, THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR!!!!

much love!

Dani