Hi Everyone-

Well I didn't get to blog everyday like I wanted to, but I am here now and that's what matters! It's Sunday night, 7:15 Arizona time and our plane doesntt leave till 10:30. Our plane is scheduled to get into Newark around 5:20 in the morning and then it's home for a quick shower and then off to work! It really stinks as my husband has the day off tomorrow for Presidents day and he can sleep all day, and I will be walking around like a zombie at the office.

SOOOO. About National Doubles, it was a great weekend for me. Two GOLD medals. Let me give you a brief run down of each division I played.

Women's US Team Qualifying Division. Jackie and I won our semi-final match against Shannon Inglesby and Cheryl Gudenas in two straight 15-5, 15-6. It was a pretty straight forward match, nothing to exciting going on. Our finals we played the #1 player in the world Rhonda Rajsich and Janel Tisinger. We won 15-11, 15-7. It was a great feeling to win and now this gives us the opportunity to go to the World Championships in Ireland in August. It really is an honor to be able to go to these International competitions and play for our country. I also want to congratulate Janel and Rhonda for getting to the finals, and they are two great girls.

Mixed Open Doubles. Jason Thoerner and I were scheduled to play on Saturday at 11:20 am. I got up that morning, showered and started packing my gym bag. I turn my phone on and there is a message from Jason Thoerner telling me that he can't play and is backing out of the mixed because he is a sick as a dog. What do I do? I didn't want to just forfeit because I wanted to play. So I called Dave Ellis (US Team Coach) and said Dave, Jason just bailed on me, do you know of anyone that is looking for a partner? And he was at the club, and said let me see what I can do I'll call you back. So about not even ten minutes later he calls me back and says I got someone for you and he is a right side player, and can hit the ball a ton, and he said it's Mike Dennison. And I was like sure! Does he know that we are playing Cliff Swain in about an hour? And Dave was like yep, he knows and I was like let's do this. So I get to the gym, talk to Mike we warm up and we smoked Cliff Swain and his partner, 15-4, 15-5. Let me tell you how great that felt. Cliff even joked with me after the match asking me if I would want to play him in a game of singles or something. I heard from other people how after I would roll the ball out Cliff would walk to the back of the court with a surprised look on his face. Mike and I just played really well together and clicked. Besides the fact that he is a super nice guy. Onto the finals, we played Andy Hawthorne and Diane Moore. Andy and Diane won this last year That was the first time in 7 years I didn't win the mixed, so I really wanted to get back my title. After beating them the first game I think 15-2, we lost the second game 15-11, we made a comeback and almost pulled it out, but it just wasn't enough. In the tiebreaker we just couldn't miss and won the breaker 11-4. Mike just didn't miss and was making great gets up front, and I just did my best to hold my own on the left side with Andy and put the ball away when I had the chance. It was a great match and I just want to thank Mike for playing with me! He was truly so NICE to play with. Besides the fact that he is an awesome player and was hitting BOMBS on the court. And also for changing his flight around to play with me.

So, that is really all. It's back home and back to work. I am beat and am hoping to sleep most of the plane ride going home.

Thanks to everyone for their support this weekend. Thanks to my trainer Terrance at Parisi Speed School for driving me nuts and pushing me hard even though I bitched and whined the whole time, and thanks to FELIX for being the best coach/best friend/husband EVER.

My next blog will be from Costa Rica in March for the Pan American Championships. The US Team is still looking donations to pay for our expenses for our trip. If there is anyone out there that is interested, please feel free to email me, or check out www.usaracquetball.com and look for the Team USA Sponsorship Package.

Look forward to blogging again next month.

Aimee~

Hi Everyone!

Well I am in Phoenix and will be doing a daily blog and hope to give you all a recap of my days here in Phoenix. This year I am playing the Women's Team Qualifying Division and also Mixed Open Doubles. My partner Jackie Paraiso and I are the defending champs in this division, but this year there is a big incentive. The winners this year will be able to go to Ireland in August to the World Championship!! How great is that. What an honor that would be. I am also playing Mixed Open Doubles with Jason Thoerner, he is always very entertaining on the court.

My husband Felix and I got in last night about 7:00 pm or so. We were both completely shocked that our plane departed out of Newark Airport time because if anyone has ever flown out of Newark, you knew that they are never on time, plus with all the bad weather on the east coast we thought for sure that we would be arriving in Phoenix at least a few hours late. So we got in got our luggage, rented the car, checked in at the hotel and then went and picked up Jackie who is rooming with us. We got all situated at the room and probably went to bed around midnight which back home is 2:00 am.

Today (Thursday) we got up at 7:00 am to hit. I don't play either of my divisions till Saturday so you may think that that is nuts, but we really just wanted to get on the courts and hit the ball around and get used to the courts, and really the only time to do it is before the tournament starts. And when we got to the Club by 7:30 some of the courts were already in use by some of our opponents in the ladies qualifying division. So we aren't the only crazy ones.

So anyway, we got to hit for a good hour or so and then hung out at the club for a little bit. We went and had some breakfast and then went back to the hotel to shower. In the afternoon we went back over to the club and got to watch a really good mixed open doubles match. Ben Croft/Cheryl Gudinas-Holmes against CLIFF SWAIN/Lorraine Feeney. I really wanted to watch this match because Jason and I play the winner of this on Saturday. The match was really great with Ben diving all over the place, and Cheryl rolling every down the line off the back wall she hit, but really the main factor was Cliff and his drive serves. The match ended up going to a tiebreaker and Cheryl and Ben went up 5-0 but then Cliff just starting drive serving. to Cheryl's side and he and Lorraine ended up pulling it out with an ace service by Cliff and they won the match 11-8. I am really looking forward to playing them on Saturday. Obviously I have never played Cliff before but am always up to the challenge.

After that, I had enough of the club, and we left to go get Jackie and we ended up going to a really nice mall and walked around and then went out to dinner, and now we are just chillin in the hotel room.

Very exciting for the life of the tournament player isn't it? Well, tomorrow should be just as exciting hahahaha. We'll be getting up pretty early again tomorrow and to go and practice and then in the afternoon are some of the other matches in our division so we really want to watch those matches and scope out our opponents. Our feeder match is playing tomorrow so we'll be sure to watch that and come up with a game plan.

Well that is all. Today was really not an exciting day. I am looking forward to playing on Saturday, but really wish I was playing tomorrow, I really don't like all this sitting around nonsense. I'll type some more tomorrow and will hopefully have something a little more exciting to say.

Later-
Aimee