Fuddpuckers 2007-- A Weekend of Volleyball Fun!

Last weekend, I went to Florida with a group of people who play in our volleyball leagues here in New Orleans to participate in the largest beach volleyball tournament in the US. We played women's 4's (that's our team above) in the BB division. We played BB because we didn't really have any big hitters or blockers (I hit most of the day, which should give you an idea why we played BB since I'm a setter/defensive player.) We did pretty well in pool play on the first day, taking second in our pool of six, which placed us 11 out of 35 teams. On the second day, which was single elimination, we made it to the semi-finals, and then lost, which placed us third in our division... not bad for my first fuddpuckers trip (Fuddpuckers is the bar that organizes the tournament).

We left New Orleans on Thursday afternoon, and spent the night at a friends house in Navarre Beach. Then on Friday, before even going to our hotel, we hit the beach at Fort Walton for some pickup volleyball. We met Terry and Chris (from Kentucky) shown below, and played some coed 4's with them, and some coed doubles with some other friends we made.

After our day of pickup volleyball, we finally headed to our hotel room, and then out we went to the opening night party for the tournament! Here's a picture of some of the girls from New Orleans.

Saturday brought our first tournament games, and was followed by another night out with the girls for dinner, and another party sponsored by the tournament.

Some of the gang from New Orleans chose to be true to our city and dress in costume. As you can see below, Doug is quite the character in his wonderwoman costume which he actually played in despite the wind blowing the cape in his face! Another one of our New Orleans teams dressed up as nerds, with the very creative team name "To Kill a Blocking Nerd".

Probably the funniest moment of the trip, and undoubtedly the most embarassing, was when my bikini top broke during warmups and I flashed the entire beach before I realized what had happened! After a quick recovery with a sport bra which I luckily put in my bag at the last minute in the morning, we were back on the court and ready to play. At least it was during warmups and not during a game! And I didn't even get any beads for my effort!