Welcome Weekend Day 1

This past week we put in a lot of hard work but now it was time for welcome weekend! Welcome weekend is a chance for everyone to be together outside of the gym and enjoy each others company. I have heard from the girls that welcome weekend is always a lot of fun so I was really looking forward to it!

We loaded up the vans early Saturday morning and headed to our destination up on the foothills. They had told us to bring sleeping bags because we were staying over night in a cabin. You know its going to be a lot of fun when you put the whole team into one room with a bunch of bunk beds! We finally made it and the place looked really cool! There were a bunch of small cabins, a building that can hold special events, soccer field, swings and of course a great view.We had two big rooms full of beds- one room was for people who wanted to stay up late and one room for people who wanted to go to bed early. The place reminded me of White Pines Ranch which was a camp that I used to go to as a kid!

My teammates and I in the party room of course! It's kind of hard to tell from the picture but there were about 6 or 7 bunk beds along the walls.

The other room with bunk beds!

The tennis courts! It was early in the morning and we were stuck in a cloud so we couldn't see the lake but it cleared up in the afternoon!

This is the building that held receptions and parties. There was actually a wedding reception on Saturday night.

This was our cabin that we stayed in.

I will never get bored of this view!

Rommies!!

Here is a video of the view!!

Once we were settled the first thing we did was take individual and team pictures which I think will be on our website. Here is the NUC Website for anyone who is interested but unfortunately it is all in french! We had a nice lunch as a team and then it was down to business. Philippe told us that the afternoon would be mentally exhausting but then the evening would be more relaxing. He first went over guidelines and rules for the season. Ophelia went over our physical results that we had done a couple weeks prior. She also talked about what to expect for our weight program for the whole year. Something I thought was cool was they asked us to fill out a form for what we needed this season to succeed. Some examples of the questions where like, "what do I need to succeed" and "this will make me angry if...". I think its great that the staff wants to try to figure out what each of us needs and work towards that. The next task which was my favorite of the day was figuring out our individual values. Philippe told us that once we figured out our values for ourselves we would share and come up with some team values. I honestly couldn't believe that we were doing this!!! Something that I really loved about Illinois was that we had core values that we lived by on and off the court. Our culture before we had these values wasn't the greatest but once we put these in place it became a lot better. It definitely wasn't easy and it took a while for things to change but eventually it did and I think it was one of the reasons why we were so successful. The great thing was that Kevin allowed us to pick but our own which made it even more special. It was something that everyone one on our team believed in and because of that we would hold each other accountable. That is probably the thing that I am most proud of accomplishing at Illinois. So if you can't already tell I was super happy that we would be having team values!! It's crazy to think that even though I'm half way around the world, I'm still doing things just like home. We had a long but good discussion and we finally came up with values and goals for the season. I can't wait to see these go into place!

Finally it was dinner again which was perfect timing because we were all a bit mentally tired. After dinner Philippe quickly went over some stats for the season and what goals we should be striving for in terms of hitting percentage and serving. The next thing we did was watch a movie from the beginning of when Philippe started coach in 2007 to last season. It was really cool to see the improvement from each team through the years as well as some American's that I've played against in the past. The night ended with a dance party, letting loose and staying up really late! I think I've already mentioned this but I really feel like I'm already apart of the team which is a great feeling! Overall Saturday was a blast! Sunday's post will be put up soon!!