Beaches of Brazil

so, today we visited Croco Beach. Best beach yet, I think. There was tons of beach and lots of swimming areas. Scott and I practiced our flip and dives, belly flops, and cart wheel entrances to the water. We had to return the buggy by noon, so after rolling over, opening the curtain and watching a few matches, we loaded up the buggy and headed out to use the last 2 hours of transportation we had......lots of fun...lots of sun! WE also had our authentic Acai smoothies!

FORTALEZA, BRAZIL

We are in Brazil. It is beautiful, sort of! And very hot and windy. But, it is a great place to be right now. We lost in the qualifier to Brazil (Agatha Shalyn). Tough draw for us. So we have been tourists for now 36 hours. We started off today watching game out our window. We are facing the courts on the 10th floor of the Flat Classics. Then, we started walking to find a taxi and go to the mercado. But, were stalled by the buggy we saw parked! We decided to walk inside the car rental store and ask how much to rent........So, YES, we rented a buggy! It is yellow and green, no top cover, and very loud. But, awesome! We drove to the indoor mall, then drove to the Mercado centraal. Lots of shopping once again. Tomorrow we look for a beach up the coast and get some tan. Ciao!

Fundable

For those that donated to fundable.com, the final day to raise funds was Saturday. And, unfortunately we did not hit our mark. We aimed pretty high. But, who shouldn't right? So, you will not be charged. If you are still interested in donating to the Philippine Volleyball team of Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua, please leave me a comment and I will let you know where to send the funds. At this point we have no support from the Philippine Volleyball Association, so we must raise money on our own. This is not easy task while also competing.

You can comment on this blog or email me at pascua77@gmail.com.
Thank you for your support.

Heading to BRAZIL

Long time since my last blog. That is because I have been at home recovering from the last 2 months of travel. It has been wonderful. I have also been preparing for the next event in Fortaleza, Brazil. I leave in 3 days. CAnnot wait. I am excited to play, but also to check out the Brazilian coastline. So, I will keep this updated while I am away.

Tourist in Russia

So I was told this place is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I would mostly agree. We walked around St. Petersburg for 2 days now and have seen some amazing architecture and OLD buildings. It seems that all the buildings are sooooo big. We walked through the Hermitage, saw Old Savior cathedral???, some other churches, some palaces, bought some Matryoshka dolls, bought some jewelery.........and took tons of pics. This is our last event until Brazil and will be home for 3 weeks.

FUNDABLE

Heidi's fiance, Steve, has set up a donation account for Heidi and I. It has been a tremendous season so far. We have had many "once in a lifetime experiences." However, we have had to plan all of our own travel and budget off the personal sponsorships we have received up to now. We have definitely maxed out our budget and our into our own pockets now. We will continue this because we are determined to play every event until the Olympics. However, it is an added stress. So, if you feel in any way that you are capable of donating, please check out the site. The link is on the right side of the page "our funds". Love you all.

St. Petersburg, Russia

We are in Russia. It is about 14 deg outside and we play at 2pm. Long story short, we won our first game and lost our second yesterday in the qualifier. We did, however, get lucky and manage to find a spot in the Main Draw because of the lucky losers process. So we play Turner and Wacholder at 2pm. It has been an interesting trip to say the least. First, it took a good long flight and train to get here. Then, we had no hotel to stay in, and our luggage was lost for 2 days.......yes, we had to borrow suits from another team and buy cold weather gear. And, we slept in the same thing for 2 nights. Kinda gross.
Well, another thing to mention is that Steve, Heidi's fiance, posted a fundable. com link for us. Please feel no obligation to donate, but we have been traveling most of this season with a very small budget(from some generous friends). Our Philippines volleyball federation has helped in no way monetarily. We have 2 more events this season and about 8 more next season before Beijing. So, if you feel that you can help, wonderful. Otherwise your prayers would be more than sufficient:)

Thank to all of you that support our dream.