We were fortunate enough to have a few days at our home base (Anaheim, CA) after returning from Finland.

Well, I guess this depends on your definition of fortunate. Most of the guys on our team play professionally outside the USA for 6-7 months of the year. That also means live outside the USA for 7 months a year. This is some serious time away from friends and family (we are not just talking parents, but actually our kids and wives). Couple this with a national team schedule requiring us to travel religiously, and let's just say we all feel fortunate to have a few days at home.

Our overseas season is from the end of September through April, and our national team fills April through September. Yeah this is a pretty much a year round sport for all of us. There is not much of an off season like most other professional athletes. This year-round atmosphere can have any number of consequences on our lives: 1) not much time for vacation 2) very little recovery time from a grueling professional or national team season 3) a lot of catching up to do with friends and family with not enough time to do all the catching up.

Do I sound like I am complaining yet? I hope not. Many of these same friends we don't have a chance to see often are the first to tell us how lucky we are not to be at a desk job, and playing a sport we still love.

Sure it's a little strange that, in fact, one day a couple of years ago I remember realizing I had not actually seen my own mother for a year. It's not that she was not around.  She does not live in a remote place. My lifestyle was just that way at the time.

Aside from those types of moments, all of us feel blessed by the lifestyle we've been afforded. We make a living playing a sport we love, and have done it in on average 5 different countries (ala experiences from around the world and diverse cultures). Personally, since I left college at Stanford I have lived and played volleyball in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Hiroshima (Japan), Istanbul (Turkey), Milan (Italy), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Seville (Spain), and Patras (Greece). Next season I will be playing in Ufa (Russia). Other guys have played in remote places such as Indonesia, Quatar, and Korea. There are professional leagues just about everywhere else in the world aside from the USA.

Several attempts have been made over the years to have a professional league in the USA. In fact, back in the 1980's, there existed a co-ed professional league that had matches at the L.A. Forum. It eventually went the way of the dodo. Since then, we've been close to getting another one started but never really been able to pull it off.

The USA national team is our closest version of a professional league in our home country. We are paid a monthly salary, and best of all we often get to perform in front of some great home crowds. We all cherish these moments where family and friends, and Americans in general, can come support us heading into Beijing. We always feel the excitement of getting to perform in front of a home crowd.

This weekend our home crowd of close to 5,000 was at the Sears Center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Our crowd was really behind us from the start and it felt really good to play in front of the loud fans cheering us on. We played a tough Bulgarian team that has been steadily improving over the years to become one of the better teams in the world (their world ranking is 4^th, just one behind us). The first night we took care of business and won 3-0. Our team really served the ball excellent and was just clicking on all cylinders.

The following night was a little more of a roller coaster. First set we really took it to them, cruising to a 25- 12 win. Most volley people call this type of score a "smack down" in today's scoring system. At our international level, most matches are won with both teams finishing in the "20s" ala 25-22, etc. But we followed that crushing win with a terrible second set where we got the favor returned, loosing 25-16. After loosing a closer 3^rd set 25-20, we again won by a large "smack down" margin in the 4^th set, 25-12, only to just come up short in the 5^th set, 15-13.

While we were disappointed to not pull it out in the 5^th set, we had to be reminded that to really get better going into Beijing, you have to loose sometimes. It makes you examine your work off the match court, in the weight room, and your mental focus moving forward. Our coach used it as an opportunity to motivate us heading into our next matches against Finland to be held next weekend in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

So I guess we'll see you soon Lambeau Field! Oh wait, I play volleyball. The Resch Center will have to substitute for the "frozen tundra", but we are all hopeful the fans will be the same.

Gabe Gardner is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This blog was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.