Volleyball tournament and the weekend

My A and B volleyball teams both had tournaments this weekend, and both of my teams did a GREAT job!!  My B team ended up coming in first place for their tournament, and the A team came in second place!  We got gold and silver medals, and the kids were all so excited.  They worked so hard and did so many amazing things.  They are really coming along in their understanding of volleyball, and the rest of the season is going to be a lot of fun.  I can't wait to see where they are by the end of the season...I still have a couple of months with them, as our last game is not until November 6th.  We have our next tournament next weekend, so it will be an exciting week of practice getting prepared for it.

Travis was here this weekend to watch the amazing-ness of 8th grade volleyball, and ended up spending 10 hours in the gym as the games went on and on.  I was coaching pretty much the whole time, going back and forth between my A team and B team games, so he was just hanging out in the stands listening to his i-pod.    

The tournament finally ended around 5:15pm and we had to rush home, shower, change, and quickly leave again in order to make it on time to my birthday dinner reservations at the Melting Pot at 6pm!  We ended up being a little late, but my friends had already shown up to reserve the table, so it all worked out alright.  We had a blast, eating lots of fondue, and hanging out with my friends and sister.  I got a couple of early birthday presents from Sarah, and Travis gave me a new digital camera, since my other one had literally bitten the dust, and a wok pot that I really wanted!

Today (Sunday), Travis and I spent the afternoon looking around animal shelters.  I thought we would be allowed to take the dogs out and play with them at the Town Lake animal shelter, but you have to be a registered volunteer and go through an orientation before they let you do that.  I may volunteer to do that later (ie January or February...summer...) when things aren't so busy for me.  Anyways, we spent about an hour and a half walking around the shelter downtown, checking out the cute puppies and dogs that were there.  Travis found a bull dog, and I think if it was on the adoption list, he may have taken it home that instant.  He was incredibly excited about seeing the fat, drooling dog that was bouncing around in his cage!  There were lots of pitbull mixes there, that were adorable, and a Welsh Corgie and a Jack Russell terrier.  So cute!  We also checked out the cats that were there and had a chance to pet and play with a lot of them too.  I saw lots of orange tabbys, which I loved!!!  Then, we went to another shelter on the other side of downtown, but most of the shelter was filled with dogs and cats being held for the evacuees who are still in Austin from hurricane Ike.  They only had about ten dogs there for adoption and all the rest were waiting for their owners to pick them up and take them back to Galveston.

Then on the way home, we stopped by the new townhouses that are being built two miles down the road from my current house.  When I was looking for a place, these townhouses were still just a dream, and had not been built yet.  They have about 20 of the 101 houses built now, and they were AMAZING.  There were two models that we could go in and look around, and....wow.  The houses are built on a hill overlooking the preserve and the hill country, and the view from the huge windows was amazing.  I would live there in a heartbeat if I could.  The floorplan of the first place we saw was pretty cool, and the spacious rooms and vaulted ceilings were really quite impressive.  We also went to check out the pool, and it was pretty amazing as well.  It was a lot of fun shopping around for things we weren't really going to buy, but were interested in seeing!