Relaxin with my Roommates : )

A DAY OFF FROM HOOP....

Last night, my friend Joe who plays on the men's team told me to watch a scary movie called The Strangers. Anybody who really knows me, knows that I am not a fan of scary movies or the best person to watch scary movies with because of my excessive and uncontrollable screaming : ) Nonetheless, I promised I would be a "G" and watch the movie alone in my room, in the dark (not a good idea lol). Twenty minutes into the movie I screamed histerically and my teammate Rocky panically ran to my room trying to figure out if I was okay, only to find me shaking and seriously frightened. After that moment I decided to finish the movie with Rocky and Vanessa. There were many moments of me screaming to the top of my lungs and holding on to my blanket extremely tight. After that movie we watched one of my favorite movies "This Christmas" for the fourth time, which was still hilarious. Before we knew it, it was 4 am and decided to go to bed.

Today, we did not wake up until about 1:30 pm and were relaxing all day. I was able to talk to one of my best friends' Sade on the phone which is always fun. Like usual, my roomies and I got hungry around 11pm so we took a trip downtown, by foot and in the snow to get some food. We ate at this spot called Grillie 21 and on our way back we made some snow angels and had a mini photo shoot in the snow which was so much fun! One thing is for sure, Finland would not be the same without my roomies : ) Until next time, God Bless !

SNOW, Washing Machine & BASKETBALL

When I woke up this morning to the flash backs of last nights game which featured instant replays of missing 3 free throws and many jumpers, I decided to do some laundry. So, a bit upset I begin to get all of my clothes together, separate the whites from the darks and head down four flights of stairs. As I get outside I can not help but notice the beautiful white SNOW everywhere. I felt like a kid in the candy store because in an instant I was showered with so much joy and excitement. It was like a scene from a movie, the scene was so beautiful and perfect. There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground, snow covering all of the trees, the weather was perfect, the air was fresh and everything was white. It looked and felt as if I just entered heaven and God told me "Mandy, job well done". Unfortunately, this fairy tale start of my day ended immediately when I got to the laundry room because I get so irritated when the laundry machine decides not to work for me. I think that particular machine enjoys getting my heart beat racing and seeing my body tighten as I am 'frustratingly' trying to get the machine to stop making that beep noise it does when I push the wrong button. That machine is so annoying! lol Just to clarify for you, I am well capable of doing laundry, the machines here are all in Finnish so it is hard to figure out what the buttons mean : )

Enough about being in heaven for a couple minutes and ridiculous Finnish laundry machines. I am sure everyone is more eager to hear about our basketball games. First, we finally got a post player named Vanessa Gidden, who is pretty good! woo hoo I know so exciting!! She is 6'3 played at Hofstra University, which I have to add LMU beat my freshman year In the Miami tournament : ). Straight out of college she made it until the final cut of the Connecticut Suns WNBA team. After the cut she played for a team in Turkey who went undefeated for the season. Since her arrival we played two games and in both games our team looked so much better! Unfortunately we lost both games which we really should have won! The first game was to a team called Peka who is the defending champions. We ended up losing by 8 points which sucks because we are better coached, better conditioned but we could not make a shot. Our team shot like 17% from three point line and 25% from the field, and 56% from the free throw line which is terrible but even with the bad shooting we only lost by 8. The second game was last night against the Huima team. We lost by 1 point and again we should have won but we had to many spurts of missing shots, free throws and not taking care of the ball.

Our next game is Sunday against FoA and we are going to WIN because we keep getting closer and we are getting better!

I love you all and God Bless : )

HoNsU is back on the MAP

Hello Family and Friends! I am writing today in very good spirits. My team just won our last two games both in overtime and against the same team. We are now 2-6 in league and the two teams above us in league standings, both only have 3 wins which means we can turn our situation around! We have a semi-final game against Espoo on Wednesday and a tough game on Saturday which will round out the first round in league. Our last game which was yesterday was such a great win for us. We only traveled 8 players and we had many players show up BIG time for this game. Throughout the game there were several lead changes as well as many times we went down by 10 points. Then all of a sudden each player dug a little deeper and found a way to take the lead. With the final seconds to play we were down by 2 points and we ran our go to play, which is an isolation for Rocky. We executed it to perfection and Rocky scored which sent the game to overtime. The five minute overtime game started out pretty sloppy as both teams were exhausted and could not score for the first 2 minutes. Suddenly, one possession at a time, all five of my teammates on the court decided to hit big shots. It started with Katja hitting a jumper, then I came off a screen and hit a pull up jumper off the dribble, next possession later Rocky hit a three pointer, then Piia hit a jumper in the corner and to finish the game off we broke the press with ease which resulted in Laura scoring a wide open lay-up. The final score was 75-66 and it felt so good to win on the road let alone WIN. Everyone of my teammates confidence has risen to the next level and we were just happy. Tiia had her season high scoring of 16 points and 11 rebounds which awarded her Player of the Game, Rocky scored game high of 24 points, Piia scored 11 points and played great defense and I finished with a good overall statistical game, with 14 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, and 4 assists. Our next league game is Saturday at home against Peka, whom are the defending champions.

Besides basketball, I experienced -2 degree Celsius weather which is about 20 degree Fahrenheit. The lake in front of my apartment went frozen within one day and soon when the ice gets thick enough we will be able to ice skate on it. Also, I am learning how to count in Finnish which is a little hard because each number is a long Finnish word. Oh and today is the Finnish Father's Day so Happy Fathers Day to all you Fathers!

Alright well that's enough for now. Hope all is well and that God continues to bless you!