Dreams of Champions Meet

 Arete hosted the Dreams of Champions meet this weekend. The highest levels have pretty small numbers, so they included an adult-level with the Level 8/9/10 session Friday night. Maya (Tessa's Friday coach) decided to compete and told Tessa, Morgan, and Lexi they should come to open gym last Saturday and help her choreograph a floor routine. They all love Maya and thought that was so fun! When I was dropping Tessa and Morgan off, Maya told them she was staying to be the coach for a birthday party right after open gym too, and that they should stay for that and help babysit her daughter Kyla. They love Kyla too and were so excited to stay and play with her.

A bunch of the girls went to watch the coaches compete. They thought it was fun to have a fan club cheering them on!

Tessa's session was Saturday morning. We were up early again to get her hair ready. It takes a lot of time, but it sure is cute!

Grandma Clark and Emilie came to watch. It was fun to get to visit with them!

Arete started on vault and Tessa looked great.

Our seats were real close to where they run for vault. :)

Next was bars. Her cast was still awesome and she did a solid squat on. Her long hang kip had a lot of deductions, but the rest of it looked great.

She looked awesome on beam! She was excited she stuck her landing this time!

She did awesome on floor too. Grandma was telling her she has more personality and is more enjoyable to watch perform than all the other girls. :) The Arete coaches are very good at making fun choreography and training the girls to have smiles and personality while they're performing. It makes a difference in their scores, and Arete girls alway shine on floor.

Tess took 1st on vault with a 9.2

She took 4th on bars with a 9.0

She took 1st on beam with a 9.7!!! She was thrilled with that score!

1st on floor as well with a 9.65

And 1st All-Around again with a 37.55

Way to go Tessa Girl!!

Maya came to watch their session and wanted a picture of Tessa, Morgan, and Lexi with Kyla. She's just the cutest little thing!

While they were there, Staci, Stacey and I grabbed a picture of the three of them. They have been on the same team together the past 3 years and are such fun friends and good girls!

Grandma and Emilie came to watch Damon's volleyball game too, and then Grandma took Rockwell on his birthday Grandma Date. They went shoe shopping and to Dairy Queen. Rockwell told us that Grandma is so funny. He said that Paul and I are old-person-funny, like only other old people think we're funny. But Grandma is actually funny, like everyone of any age would find her funny. :)

Life Lately

 Damon had a blast at Rome's birthday party. These are his school besties and they partied hard! They got dinner, went to The Rush, and got frozen yogurt afterward.

Opal invited some friends to go to the temple Saturday night. Tessa was so happy to go.

They got cinnamon rolls after the temple.

Damon loves wrestling with Paul and Rockwell. He screams like he hates it, but we all know he loves it!

Audrey, Al and I took Katie out for her birthday. It's been months since we've all gone out, and it was great to get together again!

Conner Mantz came to the Timpanogos Spike Night at Runner's Corner. He ran the marathon at the Paris Olympics last year. The boys think he's pretty cool!

Rockwell has so much fun with his teammates, especially when they do long runs. They ran the Water Towers Trail this week. Conner Mantz had posted that he ran that trail earlier that day on social media, but said it was too muddy and turned around. These boys ran it, and made mud angels, and sent pictures to Conner saying that they didn't think it was too muddy. Haha! When they got back from the run, they got in the back of Soren's truck and went to Ben's house to hose off and then sit in his hot tub. Those kind of days are Rockwell's favorites!!

Tessa's the secretary of her Young Women's class. They were planning an activity for both the young women classes and the leaders requested that Tessa make the peanut butter rolo cookies. She was happy to do that!! They turned out delicious!

The Murphy Barth Team finished 2024 in the Top Ten Percent of their brokerage. They were invited to a retreat to celebrate their accomplishments. Sadly, it was a Wednesday-Thursday retreat and Paul didn't want to miss school for it. Instead, he rode out there with Josh and Rob just for the dinner and events Wednesday night. He came home with a bag of Nifty Gifties. :) Congratulations Paul and Theron for working hard for your clients and having a successful year!!

I went to the kids' school for Reading Across the Ridge. I read a few Elephant and Piggie books to Damon and his friends.

And Tessa read a little bit of a book to me. I can't believe this is the last year I'm going to be able to help or visit Tessa's classes. :( I help with math once a week in her class this year. One day the two girls I was helping ran up to Mr. Welch when we went back into the classroom and excitedly said, "I get it now!! I totally know how to do it!" Mr. Welch told me, "So, I've decided I'm going to give you one seventh of my salary. Thank you so much for coming and helping every week. Some of these kids just learn from you in ways they don't learn from me." He has been so grateful all year, and it means a lot. It's very fulfilling to feel like I'm making a difference for a few of these kids.

Rockwell's hair is finally long enough for a perm!!

I took him to Studio on State, and the curl specialist there was so great. She really wanted to make sure Rockwell got what he wanted, and we both appreciated that.

He was really happy with the results!! It looks so good!! 

Simplot Games & Blue Green and White Meet

 Rockwell and his team went to Idaho State University to compete in the Simplot Games. They could choose one running event and one relay. He chose to run the 1600m and the 4x400 relay. He ran the 1600 in 5:01.77, and his relay team (Rock, Wyatt, Ben, and Bridger) finished in 3:43!!! Rockwell ran his lap in 55 seconds. They took 1st in their heat and were really happy with their run!!

They were in Idaho from Thursday to Saturday and rented vrbo houses for each team (girls and boys). Rockwell loved all that time with his friends, but still needed a moment away from some of the boys on Friday. He and Ryan decided that instead of eating their pizza with everyone at Little Caesar's, they went to Walmart and pulled down a table and chairs to have their meal. They almost made it through their whole pizza before they were asked to leave. :)

It was fun to hear about all their experiences and shenanigans when he got home.

It was hard for him to wake up Sunday morning, but he got a real long nap Sunday afternoon. It sounds like they didn't sleep much on their trip. :)

They had their Blue Green & White Meet this week. The Timpanogos team was split into 3 groups and competed against each other. It's just for fun and to get the feel of an outdoor meet before the season officially starts. They could run whatever they wanted, so Rockwell ran the 1600m and finished in 4:57.73!! He really wanted to break 5 minutes, so he was very happy about that! 

He also ran the 400m (54.47 seconds, a new PR!!) and the 800m (2:18.46, also a PR). He ended up running the 4x400 relay as well. Their team decided last minute to have four of them run it just to get some more points. He was on the Blue team and they won the meet, so he was pretty happy to have those bragging rights. :)