Day 3 in Texas

Texas day 3

Today was Thursday, and my third day in Texas. This was a very quick trip to Texas, and we are leaving tomorrow (Friday), but I think my family and I made the most out of it. Today, my mom left early to go to her conference, so my brother, dad, and I went to the IHOP at the mall. I got chicken and waffles which is one of my favorite breakfasts. After breakfast, we came back to the hotel for a little while, and then we tried to go to a place called SegCity, to try to get a small tour of San Antonio on Segways. We got this idea because yesterday at the Tower of the Americas, we saw some people taking a tour on Segways, so we wanted to do that. Unfortunately, I didn't weigh enough to ride a Segway, so we couldn't do that, and I was disappointed.

 Next, we went to a store that was selling all San Antonio shirts, sweatshirts, and some little gadgets that said San Antonio on them. I got a peach colored short sleeved shirt that said San Antonio, Texas on it, and has the Alamo on the shirt. Then because my brother wanted to get a shirt that had something about the Dallas Cowboys on it, we went to the Cowboys proshop and he bought a shirt that had a Tight End player on it. Don't ask me why he wanted a Dallas Cowboys shirt, we are hardcore New England Patriots fans, in fact, he was actually wearing a Patriots shirt when we were in the Cowboys proshop.

 I knew that I wanted to try to go on a bike ride while I was here in Texas, so after we bought the shirts, we went back to the hotel, and my brother stayed there with my mom, and my dad and I went to a bike shop called Blue Star bike shop. I really recommend it if you ever are in San Antonio and are looking to rent bikes. We got the bikes, and stated the bike trail. It was a terrific bike trail, also with spectacular views. We were alongside a river the whole time, and it was awesome. There was a full on waterfall at one point on the trail. It was BEAUTIFUL. I really enjoyed the bikes we were given, and they were very fast. We spent just over an hour each way on the trail, and when were were done, the lady at the bike shop told us we went 12 miles each way, so we went 24 miles round trip!! My dad and I only thought we went like 8 or 9 miles each way. It was a very scenic route, and it was breathtaking. finally, after biking, we came back to the hotel, and relaxed for a while, and then went out to a restaurant called La Tuna Grill.

 It was pretty much a hole in the wall place, but the food was amazing! They are famous for their outstanding cheesy burger, and fish tacos, but I got fries and chicken tenders. Our waiter was very funny and nice. We took an Uber back to the hotel, where we picked my brother up from the hotel and went to the mall. He really wanted to go back to the massage chairs at the mall, so that's where we headed. For 5 dollars, he was in the massage chair for 31 minutes, and for 2 dollars I went in for 10 minutes. After my 10 minutes was up, my dad and I went to Ghiradelli, and I got cookies 'n' cream in a cake cone. After that we picked up my brother and left.

                                           Well, that concludes my San Antonio, Texas trip, and I would just like to thank my mom for letting us come with her and working hard to have this opportunity! 

Day 2 in Texas

Texas day 2

Today, (Wednesday) was my second day in Texas. I went to the pool at our hotel last night for a swim, and it was so cool and colorful. There was different colored lights in the pool, and it was also a heated outdoor pool. The view was spectacular. But this morning, my mom left early to go to a conference, so the rest of my family and I walked to Denny's for breakfast. I had these sticky bun pancakes that were SO GOOD. It was two fluffy pancakes stacked on top of each other, that were glazed and had some sort of brown sticky thing on it. It was basically if you took pancakes and a cinnamon bun and cooked them together. They were the best. After that, we walked back to the hotel, and took a little break. After, we went to go see a 48 minute movie about the Alamo, and how it came to be today. It was very informational and detailed, except I was covering my ears for a lot of it, because the volume was very loud, and most of the movie was gun fires, and cannons. Once the movie was over, we went to the actual Alamo. There were lots of landmarks to look at and see, and the Alamo looked exactly like it did in the movie in terms of like the walls and ceilings.There were lots of landmarks, Soon, we went to the Tower of the Americas. If you don't know what the Tower of the Americas is, it is a 750 foot observation tower, also with a restaurant inside. Also, very slowly it turns in a circle while you are up there. I can see the tower from my hotel window, and I always see elevators going up and down. It doesn't take very long to get up there. We took lots of pictures and videos there. What was cool was that you could go outside, so that it would just be a glass window in front of you, and you could see like everything. The view was extraordinary. Next, we wanted to do something fun before we went to dinner- we contemplated either going to Six flags the next day or trying to go on a Segway Tour a that time. The times didn't work out for the Segway tour, so we think we are going to try to go tomorrow instead of Six flags. I remembered that there was a Dave and Busters down the street at the mall right off the Riverwalk. So, we walked there and spent around an hour at the arcade. It has so many arcade games. My brother spent the whole time playing a game called Crossy Road, and racked up over 3000 tickets. I decided to give some new games a try, but on some games I played it didn't even give me any tickets, so that was cheap because even if I did good on the game, I wouldn't get any tickets. I got just over 1000 tickets, but i wasn't mad that I didn't get very many tickets because I knew I had to get something small, because we are flying back on Friday so it would have to not really impact my room in my suitcase. I got 3 small packs of Haribo gummy bears, and pink LED light pulse earbuds that by the pulse of the music you are listening to, the LED lights go up and down the sides of the earbuds. I also went to a dinner tonight. We went to a barbecue place and got some really yummy ribs. I really recommend this place.

----------------stay tuned for texas day 3!

Day 1 in Texas

Texas Day 1

On Tuesday morning, my family and I left Massachusetts at 4:30 AM, to fly to San Antonio, Texas. My mom has this conference here, so we decided to make a little family vacation out of it. I will try to blog as much as I can while I'm here. Our flight left Boston at around 6:20 am, and then we flew to Chicago, and then we flew to San Antonio. I have never been to Texas, so I think this will be a great trip. We finally got to Texas at around noon time. The hotel we are staying at is right by the Riverwalk. The San Antonio Riverwalk is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio river. My whole family was starving when we left the airport, so we knew the first thing we had to do was get a bite to eat. We ended up going to a Mexican restaurant. It took us a while to get there because we didn't really know where we were going, so we took some wrong turns. I was so tired and my legs were aching. Right after we ate, we went back to our hotel, and took a rest for a couple hours. After that, I wanted to go back to the Riverwalk. This time I went with my dad and my brother, and we went a lot farther than we did to get to the Mexican restaurant. A ton of boat tours passed us along the river. We plan on doing that on one of the next few days. I played a lot of Pokémon Go, and caught a ton of new Pokémon. It was so beautiful and scenic on the Riverwalk, with a variety of plants and nature. But I'd say we got a pretty good workout in because it is 6 o clock, and I have 16,000 steps.
 ---------- stay tuned for more blogs while I'm here in Texas

HONK Festival

HONK FESTIVAL- SATURDAY

On Saturday I went to a festival called Honk in Somerville. Honk is a festival of activist street bands, and it is truly a great time, where you can dance and sing along to all kinds of music. Honk is a three day festival, and my dad and I went on Saturday. We took the train and subway to Davis Square. There were tons of people there. First we went to a food truck called RedBones. RedBones is known for their delicious ribs. It is a tradition that every Honk fest, my dad and I eat some ribs from RedBones. They were SO good!! After we finished the ribs, J.P. Licks caught my eye, and I knew instantly that I just HAD to get ice cream. I got peanut butter cookies 'n' cream.

We had planned that my music teacher would be meeting us at Honk, because SHE also goes every year too and lives in Somerville. When we met up with her, we looked at shirts, talked, and took some pictures. It was really fun to see her there.

After a little while, she went off with her friends, and we went with my dad and his friend Greg.

We went to his son Charlie's bake sale he was holding down the street. Everything was whatever price you think was fair. He got a lot of business, and had 5 choices, but sold out of some of the treats quickly. I got 2 peanut butter cookies that had a Hershey kiss in the middle.

Once Charlie had basically sold out of everything, they packed up his stuff, and carried it home, while Greg my dad and I went to go watch a Brazilian drumming band. It was amazing how they could just keep drumming nonstop for like 5 minutes at a time. Their hands and fingers must have to be very strong in order to do that. Next, while they were still drumming, I decided to go on Pokemon Go (because duh :)), because I thought there might be some good Pokemon around because it was such a big event.

My dad told Greg where we were going, and he said that the best place for Pokemon was the park down the street where there was also a band playing. Turns out that all 4 pokestops at the park had a lure at them. A lure is when Pokemon spawn quickly around you, and makes more Pokemon appear. Usually there wouldn't be as many Pokemon, but there was a lure at all 4 pokestops. IT WAS AWESOME!! And lures aren't that popular, and they are hard to get too. However, I had to stop playing because it was using up a lot of my battery.

Then, we went to a plaza where there was a huge band from Detroit that was playing, and I saw my music teacher again! She and I squeezed through everyone and the tight spaces. Finally, we got to the front row! This band was my favorite out of all of the bands I watched. Something I liked about the band was that some of the songs they were playing were pop songs, so I really enjoyed that.

When the band was done we walked to Greg's friend's house, which was where the float was that they had made for the parade on Sunday. Ill import a picture at the end. A group of people (including me) brought the float down to a park so it would be ready for the parade. The motor for the float was human powered- 2 people were pushing it, 1 on each side, and there were 2 bikes at the back. I was actually on one of the bikes, and right when I had started to bike, the tire popped and was flat!

I still biked because it wasn't that bad, but i had to get off a few minutes later because I had to leave, and the actual tire was peeling off the rim, so it was becoming unsafe. Honk 2016 was extraordinary! I didn't want to leave.

POKEMON GO!

So, I have recently discovered my new obsession. Its an app called pokemon go. In case you don't know what it is, its an app that uses a GPS on your phone and you just walk or drive around and pokemon pop up and the pokemon appears on a camera on the phone, (so it looks like its in real life) and you use pokeballs (balls that you throw at them) to catch them. Iv'e spent numerous amount of time playing this game because it is so fun! The only bad part about is that it uses your battery quickly, partly because you are using GPS signal, and I also had to stop playing it for a month because it was using too much data, (even though most of it was on my brother's phone). So right now I'm on level 10. Also, a lot of my neighbors play Pokemon Go, so sometimes we go out on walks throughout the town.

 In the game there are landmarks all through your town, and anywhere you go that are called Pokestops. You spin something that looks like a coin with a picture of the monument, and you receive different things that help you, or that you can use for the better. Some things are: Pokeballs, Razz berries, eggs, egg incubators, incense, potions and revives. You can put egg incubators on the eggs, and then it tells you the amount of kilometers you have to walk in order for your eggs to hatch. When your eggs hatch you usually get a rare pokemon. Once i got a Pikachu! Razz berries are helpful when you are trying to catch a really good pokemon and it keeps breaking out of its shell, or it keeps moving and its hard to throw it at the right place. If you throw a razz berry at it, it makes it easier to catch. whenever you catch a pokemon, you get 2 or 3 candies for the the pokemon, and when you get enough candies, you can evolve that pokemon! For most pokemon, you need 50 pieces of candy. Surprisingly, it doesn't take a lot of time to get that many. Also, if you get a pokemon that's CP Isn't that much (like 15- 40) you can transfer the pokemon and you get 2 more candies towards your next evolution.

So that is basically the whole game, but i might make another blog explaining more in depth and in detail. :)

MAPS NJ Soccer Tournament 2016

Over this past weekend, I traveled to New Jersey and played soccer matches in the scorching sun. It was a heat wave all up and down the East Coast. We played four games overall: 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. I had no idea what the competition would be like but I just wanted to play my best.

Usually my mom and I fly to tournaments but this time it was close enough to drive. We were able to carpool with one of my teammates and drive seven hours down to Bensalem, PA where our hotel was located. For these tournaments, you have to stay where GPS (Global Premier Soccer) says you have to stay. We were were about 40 minutes from Fort Dix, NJ where our games were being held.

Here are some highlights of the games:

Game 1 vs. Centre Court FC (a NJ club)

My team, GPS 2006 North National, won the game 3-1.  We had a lot of chances but we just couldn't finish more goals. My coaches was looking for high intensity, good communication, and through balls throughout the weekend. This first game was the easiest out of all four games. However, it was the first game that our team had played together since we went to the National Futsal tournament in Kansas. This was a challenge because we don't get to play together a lot. But, I think we did very well.

Game 2 vs. another NJ club

This game was a very hard-fought match but we ended up losing 2-1 to very unlucky goals. I thought I did very well in this game. In the second half, we did a LOT better because we noticed we weren't communicating effectively in the first half and we were a bit slow at the start. It didn't help that it was 2:00pm and 98 degrees (not including humidity). Despite it being almost too hot to play, I did have a very nice "nutmeg". A "nutmeg" is when you kick the ball through the opposing player's legs.

Here's what happened: I was right near the left sideline and had one strong defender trying to trap me and I no options to pass whatsoever and it was too tight to even try to do a move around her. So, I looked down at her feet for a quick second and saw that her legs were wide apart (which is kind of an instinct when defending because you're thinking about trying to get the ball, not how wide your apart your legs are). In a flash decision, I pulled the ball back with my left foot so it would go just behind my right foot and I kicked the ball through the girl's legs! That was definitely MY highlight of the game (if I do say so myself). What was great for my mom is that is happened right in front of her! She told me she screamed but I didn't hear her. I was just focused on the game. It was a tough one.

In the 2nd half, we started out very fast and with a very high intensity level and we were able to score. Everyone said that we outplayed them the second half but we couldn't pull off a tie or get a lucky goal. This team ended up winning the whole tournament for our age group and bracket.

3rd game vs. another NJ team

This game was temperature-wise, the coolest game. We ended up winning this one 2-1. Technically, we really like to think it was 3-1 because I brought up the ball, beat a defender with my speed, crossed a beautiful pass to our striker who had two girls on her and she slid and scored in the right corner. The ref called it back due to "off sides". The girl who scored, her mom was filming and caught the goal. When we went back to view the goal after the game was over, it was clearly not "off sides". I heard that my coach and the other team's coach discussed it and even the opposing team's coach didn't think is was off sides. Frustrating. The ref was really not good and there was a theory that our first goal was off sides but he didn't call it. So, he decided to try and fix his mistake by calling the second goal which was almost an exact replay of the first, off sides.

4th and final game vs. another NJ team

Well, this game a bit of a let down because we had a healthy 2-0 lead but ended up losing 3-2. We scored our first goal in like the first minute and the second within the next 5 minutes. The second goal was my only goal of the weekend but it was a very nice goal off a through ball. This was what my coach was looking for to create opportunities to score the goals. After I scored, I quickly "dabbed" to my coach because he was joking and said if we scored we should do a dance move like the "dab" or the "running man". I didn't see it but my mom said he did a quick dab back and had a smile on his face.

The second half we started off really slow and couldn't seem to find our momentum from the first half. We let up two easy goals and it was a tie game all the way up to the final minute. In the final minute, everyone was exhausted from the heat, and large field (I forgot to tell you that we were playing 7v7 on a field that was like a 9v9 field), and we just fizzled and lost our energy. They were able to toe-poke a ball to the left corner and scored. There was no way our goalie could save it.


Overall analysis of the weekend/tournament:

Basically, I have to say that overall I feel that we played really well everything considered. This group of girls are people I consider great friends and phenomenal soccer players. It's weird when you don't get to play with your team except on these big deal tournaments. There is a lot of pressure on the team, and we never know what the competition is going to be like. But, in the end, we always try to stay positive and learn how to get better.

One last thing...I would like to say goodbye and thank you to my coach, Matt. He is a wonderful coach but he is moving on to a new job in another well known soccer club, the New England Revolution. He is also getting married in August. So, he will have a lot of new chapters in his life. However, I hope he always remembers the chapter he spent with us and smiles.

WBZ Tour

    Today I got to go on a tour at WBZ news! When my dad went to London on his semester abroad, he went with a girl named Paula who is an anchor at WBZ news, so he asked her if we could get a quick tour of the place, and she got in touch with Danielle Niles and Pamela Gardener (both meteorologists)and made it happen! It was such an amazing experience for me because that is what I want to be when I grow up. I know that the meteorologists stand in front of a green screen, but it was cool to see what everything looks like. And, Pamela even let me have the experience that a meteorologist has by letting me click through the slides and describe what the maps and radar shows, and figuring out where to look and point. Since the President was having a speech about the supreme court, Danielle had less time to present the forecast. She only had about a minute! She had to go fast and keep it simple. It was fascinating that there were so many jobs to help edit, record, broadcast live on TV, and produce! I got to see people recording live for the WBZ radio, and even got to see my neighbor, and how she edits the sound and decides what is on the radio station at the moment. I want to thank Pamela, and Danielle for taking time out of their really busy day and taking me on a tour around the studio, and thanks to Paula for making this all happen! I didn't get to meet Paula because she works the night meteorologist shift, but Danielle and Pamela were so nice to me, and I really enjoyed them and the experience.

Summer is Finally Here

      So finally, school is out and summer is here! I have a pretty busy summer planned, but its going to be fun. I have like 2 weeks or so before I start camp so I just get to hang around the house and play with friends. I am doing camp for 6 or 7 weeks, so that pretty much fills up my summer. But, I enjoy going to the camp I go to because they have a variety of things to do like: swim, laser tag, rock climbing, crafts, tennis and more. There is a regular indoor pool, and then outside there is a water park. The 2 water slides can go very fast. This will be my second summer at this camp, and more to come.
      Also, in July I'm going to New Jersey for a soccer tournament with the same team that I went to Kansas with. Except this tournament is outdoors and on grass instead of indoors. I don't really know what the competition will be, but I'm sure the teams we play will be equally as good as us because I know our coach wants to give us a challenge, and doesn't want it to be a total blowout. And, I might do a soccer clinic that my Club is holding for a couple of days with some of my teammates.
      Overall it was a great school year with lots of exciting moments, and I'm ready to dive into the summer.

Post Kansas Trip

So I just got back from Kansas a few days ago, and I was planning to blog the whole trip day by day, but I got very busy with all the soccer games and just hanging out and having a blast with my teammates. So because I didn't blog each day, I'm going to do a recap of the games.

          I got to Kansas on Thursday and then we had a game Friday night. We were very nervous because we didn't know what it was going to be like. My team got beaten 4-1 by a very good Kansas team. I think we made too many mistakes when we had possession because we were still getting used to the court size. All of the team except for me had flown in on Friday, so I think they were very exhausted and tired because travel days can make you VERY tired. There was some getting used to do because at regionals (the tournament we played in in order to go to Kansas) the courts were a lot smaller and then we got to the courts in Kansas and they were a lot bigger so we had to get used to the width, and we had to remember to keep wider than usual when we had the ball. Also I think all the teams we played were teams that play Futsal year-round and are a Futsal academy. GPS (my club soccer team) doesn't focus on Futsal a lot, they focus more on outdoor playing, and we hadn't played in any Futsal games that were not in a tournament together, so we hadn't had a lot of practice. Next, our goalie that played with us throughout all of regionals couldn't make it to Kansas, and I didn't think that was going to matter, but it did because my coach just had to keep switching the goalies up, because nobody on my team plays goalie all the time. After that game we knew what it was like to compete in Nationals, so we had to come into the next two games with a different mindset.

        Our next game was against a team from Richmond, VA. We lost 7-4, but I wasn't very disappointed in how we played because we had kind of a slower start to the first 5 min., but we quickly turned it around, and was putting more pressure on the other team, and making better decisions when we had the ball. I thought though at some points, we were rushing the ball, and just shooting it wide when we had players wide open to pass to. If we had had a couple more lucky breakaways we could've won the game. I feel this was our best game we played, and we really
showed people what we are capable of and what we can do. I scored 2 goals in this game, but technically 3 because the left forward crossed the ball in, and I kicked it, but it bounced off someone  from the other team and went in so it was an own goal by them, but it was kind of me. The first goal I scored was a lucky play because the goalkeeper liked to kick it to the sides instead of throw it, and she didn't kick it hard enough, and went off the wrong part of her foot, so when she tried to kick it to
the defender on the left, and was right there, and simply kicked it into the back of the net. The second goal I scored was also kind of lucky too, because me and the left forward had passed it to each other a couple of times, and she passed it to me, and I kicked it low and at the goalie, and it went right through the middle of her legs.
         We were hoping to end our weekend with a win, but unfortunately we lost 2-1 to another team from Kansas. If we had had the same intensity from the second game in the third game, I think we could've won it. The other teams goalie was very talented and she managed to save all but 1 of our shots. In the first half, we had a lot of great 1 on 1s which led to a lot of shots, but again, their goalie knew just what to do in most situations. Towards the last 15 min., we started playing with 1 defender and 3 forwards, so we could have a better chance of shooting and scoring. But what happened a lot is that we were very tired and we were forgetting to come back and help the 1 defender when the other team had possession.
        I had a great time participating even though we didn't get the outcome we were looking for, and we had a lot of fun, and made lots of memories. After our last game I said "Well, it's going to be time for payback in New Jersey!" Because in the summer we are going to New Jersey for an outdoor soccer tournament which I'm looking forward to.

After one of our games our whole team went to a restaurant called Jack Stack Barbecue because everyone was recommending it and the Kansas City area is actually known for good BBQ.  I got ribs that were really good, I ordered from the adults menu and got more ribs than I could eat and one of my teammates next to me was stealing some of my bbq sauce because it tasted so delicious so I had to ask the waiter for more sauce and everyone at the table shared it. The last day we were in KS there were 2 other girls from my team still there, so we decided that we wanted to go site- seeing and just explore Kansas City together. Unfortunately, a lot of the historical places were closed, so we ended up doing more of a shopping day, which included going skating, eating frozen yogurt, and going to a Hallmark Card place that had a lot of stores. I was so glad that I got to go, and I Had a very fun time!

Enjoy some pics below!  If you want to see more I am going to make a slideshow that I could email to you if you send me your email address. 

        

Off to Kansas! Day 1

As you know from my previous blog I'm in Kansas right now! Its my first day here and I'm enjoying it very much. Our plane took off at 7:00 am but I had to wake up at 4:30 am so I was really tired on the plane and it felt a lot longer than it really was. Finally we got to Kansas, and a nice gentleman picked us up and drove us to our hotel. We were very early at the hotel because it was 11:30 and the lady at the front desk told us our room would be available at 2:00. So then my mom called the guy who was going to pick us up to drive us to the rental place where we would pick up our rental car. My  mom thought ahead and reserved a car for this trip so we could drive to places by ourselves, not always having a taxi pick us up.

Unfortunately my mom and I were stuck in the hotel lobby because the guy who told us he was going to be picking us up, told us he would be there in 10 minutes which, turned into 40 min. The both of us were being hit with waves of exhaustion, and on top of that, we were starving beyond belief because the last time we had eaten was 6:00 am. After a long wait, the guy named Logan picked us up, and we went to a place called enterprise and got a very nice silver Toyota Corolla. And, both of the drivers that picked us up recommended a really good barbecue place called Oklahoma Joe's. We decided that would be a good choice for when me and my teammates are all together. Due to how hungry we were, we decided to go to AppleBee's for lunch.  It was right next to the car rental place.

Our server brought food to the table that was very good and filling. The waitress was super upbeat and friendly and thought it was cool that we were from Boston (our waitress also worked at a bowling alley nearby that I really want to go to). Then, We hopped in our car and went back to the hotel.

Since our room still wasn't ready, the front desk manager gave us a room for a few hours so that we could have a place to be until our real room. I was on my I-pad and we were watching tv. About an hour and a half before the front desk manager told us it would be time for us to go to our new and real room, I decided that. I wanted to go swimming. Literally, I couldn't drag myself out of the jacuzzi because it felt like paradise. I went into the regular pool too. We came back to our temporary room and realized that it was the time that the manager had told us to come down, so we went down hoping that our room would be ready because he said it would be, but of course NO it still wasn't ready. He told us in 25 minutes it will be ready, so to kill time, we went to Kohl's (there was one right behind the hotel) because we wanted to shop around and, I forgot my Patriots had at the house so I wanted to get a new hat. I got a scarf and 2 hats. I got to scratch a coupon and we got 30% off! we saved a lot! Finally, we got back to the hotel and our room was open! We got settled and then I started blogging!

SUPERBOWL 50:PANTHERS vs. BRONCOS

          On Sunday, the well-liked annual SuperBowl happened. The two teams that were playing were the Carolina Panthers vs. the Denver Broncos. I personally wanted the Panthers to win simply because they had such a great season coming out of the regular season with only 1 loss (against the Arizona Cardinals), and i really wanted them to finish out on top. On the other hand the Broncos came out of of the regular season with 12 wins and 4 losses. The Panthers were heavily favored to the SuperBowl, and in conferences previous to the game, all of the players on their team acted like they had it in the bag, and they were very confident about how they were going to play. I feel that the Broncos were more humble and low key about it, and they didn't want to get too ahead of themselves. Peyton Manning had tons of people flocked around him trying to ask him questions. no doubt that he was the spotlight in the conference.  Tons of people were hating and trash talking the Broncos, but I don't think that they let that get to them because how they played blew everyone away, and they proved everyone wrong. The Broncos ended up winning 22-10, and I'm fine with the Panthers losing because the Broncos deserved it, and they certainly played very well. Congratulations Broncos, and lets just hope that the Patriots can bring home the trophy next season!

Going to Kansas

        From previous posts, you probably know that my North National Girls 06 team has won the past 2 tournaments that we have participated in. First, there was a Thanksgiving tournament at the end of November, and there was a Futsal tournament a couple weeks ago. Girls on my team had been telling us that if we won the Futsal tournament, we would go to Kansas to compete in the Nationals, but I never really knew if that was true or not. My family didn't think we were going because it would be such short notice. Turns out though...... It was true after all! When girls on my team would ask the coach "If we win this, do we go to Kansas?" But he would reply back "We need to focus on the game we are playing now." After the tournament had happened, everyone on the team was dreading the wait of the email that we either say "We're off to Kansas!" Or, "No, we are unable to play." Finally, my mom got the email saying we were going to Kansas! I remember that I was in my room, and my mom called me downstairs and said: I have some very serious news, WE'RE GOING TO KANSAS! It was awesome. We are leaving Thursday very early in the morning and hopping on a plane.
                                                                                ~
                                                I'll blog more in Kansas at nationals!

MA Youth Futsal Tournament

 

    Over the extra long weekend, I participated in a Massachusetts Youth Futsal tournament. In case you don't know, Futsal is indoor soccer, with a smaller court than outside, and you can't kick the ball off the walls. The ball is also a little bit smaller, and it doesn't really bounce.There were 2 tryouts that the team had to go to so that my coach could pick certain people. Since Futsal has a smaller court, there can only be 5 people on the court at once, including the goalie. So because of that, my coach picked 9 players to participate in this tournament. Out of the 9 players he picked, fortunately one of them was me!
       There were 2 games on Saturday, 1 game on Sunday, and 2 games on Monday. I was very proud of how we played on Saturday. The first game was at 8:00am, and we played Kings FC. For most of the game it was tied, and at almost the end it was 3-3, and then one of the girls on my team immediately scored twice, and then the other teams goalie was going far up because she wanted to try to steal the ball and get goals, but then my teams goalie threw it about 3 feet over the halfway line, and one of the forwards was there, and I forget if it bounced once or not, but the goalie was not at the net, so it was wide open, and one of my teammates just kicked it right in the net. The final score was 6-3 my team.
       The second game that day was against Cape Cod Futsal Club. The first half my teams goalie didn't get 1 shot on net, and we scored 10 goals. I scored 3 goals (hat trick technically) The first 2 were just simple on the ground shots in the corners, but the 3rd one was even better. One of my teamates (or me) shot the ball, and the goalie saved it and it was moving very fast about to go out of bounds, but I stopped it, pulled it back behind a defender, and then no one was in front of me, so I held onto the left post (to get my balance) and shot it fast and high to the left. In the second half, we switched our goalkeeper who had a couple of great saves, and my team continued to try to win the ball as much as we could. We got up to 16-0, and then my couch called a timeout, and he told us that we needed 5 passes before we could shoot unless we had a wide open net. And then, he switched it to
3 passes, and THEN he finally told us that we should just try to keep possession of the ball and pass it around. Everyone wanted to try to keep scoring, but we just passed it around. The final score of that game was 16-0 my team.
     And then on Sunday, the stakes were high because whoever won that game would be in 1st place In bracket A, and would have to play the 2nd place team in bracket B (there are 2 brackets for U10. A
and B.) We played a very aggressive and competitive team called DV Academy from Long Island,
New York. The game ended up in a tie 3-3. My GPS North National 06 girls team only plays together once or twice a month, and people think we have very good chemistry together even though we don't practice often. A lot of the teams we played (including DV Academy) practice together all the time. But since coming into the game on Sunday we were already 1st place, we stayed first place, and then on Monday played the second place team in bracket B, and DV played the first place team in bracket B.
     On Monday morning, we ended up playing the Bayside Bolts FC. I thought something that was critical that my team did that morning and afternoon was high pressure, and making good decisions. We made sure that we tried to take as many shots as we could. At first, we were shooting the ball a lot , but they were just a little off target. Soon though, we turned it around, and the final score was 4-1 my team. They scored in the last 10 seconds, and I take the blame because I got the ball and tried to kick it away because there were a lot of people around me, and the girl in front of me stopped the pass, and shot it up high and fast into the left corner, and the goalie had no chance of saving it. Everyone thought in their head after the game was over "We won the semifinals, now all we gotta do is win the finals, and it's all ours!" After our game was over, we went on the next court to watch DV Academy play Futnado FC, and they had tied, so they had to go into penalty kicks, and even as the number one team in bracket B, they still lost to DV. So, later on in the day, we had a rematch with DV Academy in the finals.
    The game started out scoreless, and then a girl on my team scored, and not soon after, I scored! I was on defense, and the ball got kicked away on the ground, and I one touch smashed the ball high into the middle of the net, and the goalie tried to jump, but it was to fast to stop. After my goal, we were up 2-0. Later, DV scored, and then at the last 10 minutes, me and another girl were talking on the bench about how much it would mean to win this. We kept saying 9:30 to go, 8:30 to go, 7:30 to go, and on and on, until about the last 3 minutes because I subbed in for left forward, and played the hardest I could. I distinctly remember the last 10 seconds of the game because we were on the verge of winning, and finally I heard the BIG LOUD buzzer and I ran over to the bench and I just hugged the other girl named Avery who scored the first goal so tight. Everyone was so happy and excited! My coach came over and told us to go to court 8 because that's where we got our medals and pictures taken. After that, we went into a room off to the side of the courts because one girls family on my team had brought cupcakes to celebrate, and we just had tons of fun, and took lots of pictures. EVERYONE ON THE TEAM WAS SO HAPPY WITH THE OUTCOME!!
    Throughout the  tournaments and the practices, we have really grown big friendships with one another, and we really bond together. At the start, no one really knew each other, and now, whenever you see us, we are Moses likely laughing. We earned the outcome we were looking for, and we played our hearts out his Futsal tournament. Oh yeah, I forgot, one last word: YESSSSSS!!!!!!!

Upcoming Patriots schedule and plans

    As you probably know, the Patriots have not done the best the last few games... Luckily, they made it  into the playoffs ending with a 12-4 record in the regular season. On Sunday and Saturady there were NFC and AFC wild card games that determine who plays who, and who's out and who made it. On Saturday, the Kansas City Cheifs beat the Houston Texans, and on Sunday the Seattle Seahawks beat the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers beat the Washington Redskins. Since the Patriots are in the AFC and since the Cheifs won to the Texans and they are in the AFC, the patriots are playing the Cheifs next Saturday in New England (it is VERY good that the pats have home field advantage). Also the Steelers are playing the Broncos next weekend. And on the NFC side, the Seahawks are going to play the Panthers, and the Cardinals are going to play the Packers.
    The Patriots are really going to have to step it up this next playoff game against the Cheifs because the Cheifs have become very good as their season has progressed. Something that is good for the Pats is that they have players coming back to play for this game that have been injured like Julian Edelman, Sebastian Vollmer (hopefully, questionable), Donta Hightower, and I think a couple more players but I just listed the players who are always playing. I feel that the Patriots really need to focus on their running game and practice running the ball. They also have to have consistent, accurate passes and try to prevent sneaky interceptions. But I hope that the players that are going to be back from their injury do good because that would help a lot.
    GO PATRIOTS! DO YOUR JOB! Just 2 more wins, and we are 1 of the 2 teams that play in Super  Bowl 50!

Should I be a Youtuber?

Recently I have been thinking about starting a YouTube channel. I wanted to get your thoughts on if I should be one or if I shouldn't. I'm still thinking about it and how I would make it good. I'm kind of inspired by my brother because he has a gaming channel (The Gaming Solution) and has been doing for a year +. I probably wouldn't game, but I would do challenges and maybe cover songs. On my channel I would vlog sometimes if I wasn't doing something else. If I had a channel I would kind of do all around things, and be open to any suggestions!
Please comment or email me your thoughts on my idea!