Hawaii Spring Training - Day 5

Aloha Family and Friends!!

Today was a very exciting and crazy day here on the island of Oahu!!! We started off our day around 9am to get a bus to Pearl Harbor for the morning/afternoon. Once we arrived at the harbor we ran into some complications because of the cruise ships that unloaded so many other tourists who also wanted to be at Pearl Harbor the same day we were! Dave and Liz gave us the option of walking around the Harbor or walking through the USS Bowfin Submarine. Many of us went through the submarine and to enter you had to walk through a 4 foot door which gives you an idea how compact it was inside. We walked through the life of many soldiers when we went through the Bowfin Submarine and were able to see where they slept, ate, and worked. After we went through the submarine we all ate lunch under a nice tent at the harbor and finished 9 pizzas which wasn’t a problem for our team!! After lunch we had a team bonding experience with our special guest Shelly Behrens. And then it was finally our turn to go on the tour after waiting for quite a bit but it was worth every minute we waited. The tour first started off with a 23 minute movie on the history of Pearl Harbor and after the movie was over we hopped onto a ferry to go over to the Memorial site. The memorial was really emotional and no one was allowed to talk once we got to the memorial to show respect to those who served for our country. What was really interesting at the memorial was seeing the oil still spilling out from the USS Arizona Ship that sunk still to this day. We were told that the oil spilling out was the tears of fallen soldiers which all of us found unreal. We had a really great time at Pearl Harbor but once we left it was time to GO GO GO!! There was a problem with the airline that was taking us to the island of Maui tomorrow so we were informed that our flight was taking off tonight at 7:10 instead of tomorrow in the afternoon!! At this point it was 3:30 in the afternoon and we just left Pearl Harbor and needed to be all packed and ready to leave the hotel by 4:30 to catch our flight to Maui! Surprisingly room 902, which housed the North Rockland connection, were the first ones to make it down to the lobby with bags packed and all!!! ((Hey Deb, Dan, Joe & Di don’t we make you proud!! J love your girlies)) Everyone else did make record breaking time and left the hotel to go to the airport without any problems! Right now we are all waiting to board the plane to go to Maui and stay at the Aina Nalu Resort which should be beautiful! Tomorrow’s events include laying in the sun and a training session late afternoon which seems like a nice relaxing day! I can’t believe its Tuesday and we’ve been in paradise for 5 days already, we are such a lucky bunch of girls!! Hope everyone had a nice Easter, we will keep updating!!

Love,

Beth Cherry #9

Hawaii 2008 - Day 3

We arrived in Hawaii on Friday night after 11 hours in a plane. It was a little cramped but leaving the cold, snowy north east to beautiful sunny Hawaii makes it all worthwhile. We had the girls up Saturday morning to hike from our hotel in Waikiki to Diamond Head. Diamond Head is the most famous volcanic Crater in the world located on the South-east corner of Oahu at the end of Waikiki Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I believe that the total hike was about 6 miles that included 280 steps up to top BUT if you ask the girls it was 10 miles and by the time we get back to Oneonta it just might be a 20 mile hike! The pictures will show it was worth every step and I am sure they already have memories of a lifetime.



Sunday morning was our first training session and how great it feels to be outside in 80 degree weather kicking a soccer ball around. The girls worked really hard and their touch is coming back fast! We have 2 more training sessions before we take on a U18 boys club team from Maui and the Maui Red Devils Women's team.



Tomorrow we are off to Pearl Harbor. We can't wait.


Liz McGrail

Oneonta State Women's Soccer Coach