Nationals 2026 - Orlando

Tessa and I flew to Orlando, Florida for her Nationals competition.

We made our way to our hotel and enjoyed the night in.

We heard that Orlando has amazing outlet malls so we went to one the next day. We shopped and got lunch and then got Tessa ready for her meet.

Tessa had overcome one of her mental blocks in practice the couple weeks before Nationals. She is doing her back walkover on beam again!! Yay! She was very proud of herself and excited to add it back into her routine.

Arete's first event was bars.

I thought Tessa looked good on bars. 

I was shocked again by her score of 8.15. That was her lowest score of the whole season, and I definitely feel like she's improved a lot over the season, so I just don't get it. Luckily she didn't let it get her down and she stayed in a good mindset as she went to beam.

Tessa looked great on beam!!!

She did her back walkover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My heart was about to burst with happiness for her!!

She did awesome on the whole routine and scored 9.5, her highest of the season and the team high at this meet!! She was so proud of herself and so excited that she did her back walkover. I absolutely loved seeing that!

She did awesome on floor and scored 9.65.

Tessa did great on vault too, and scored 9.625.

The mat set-up on vault was different than the girls are used to, and not in a good way. They did not have enough landing space for the power that they're supposed to have. On Tessa's 2nd pass, she flew all the way over the mat. You could just see her legs sticking up behind the mats, and then see her stand up and salute with a huge smile on her face. We laughed pretty hard watching the video that night. It's a good thing they get two passes and only one counts. Haha!

Tessa took 5th place on beam!! I love the smile on her face. I can see how proud she is of this accomplishment!

She placed 4th on floor! It's always fun to be up there with a teammate!

Tessa placed 9th All-Around with a score of 36.925.

Well done Tessa Girl!!! You did great this season!

We were out of town for the team party this summer, but Tessa got her award when we got back. The coaches gave her the award, "You always keep trying." It's such a great award and one that's well-deserved for Tessa!

We got some ice cream after the meet and enjoyed driving around Orlando seeing a little of downtown.

The next morning we went to another outlet mall.

Then we drove out to Clearwater Beach. It's on the Gulf of Mexico side and it was beautiful!

The water was warm and calm and very pleasant. We stayed for sunset and had a great time.

We went to a salon the next morning and Tessa got her nails done. It was unintentional, but they matched her swimsuit perfectly!

We wanted to go to another beach, but Tessa really wanted waves, and I didn't want to drive 2 hours each way again. :) We tried Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Ocean side. 

It had waves, but it also had a ton of seaweed on the beach and in the water. Tessa didn't mind it too much, but we were picking seaweed out of her hair for quite a while. :)

It was a fun vacation with Tessa! We had a good time and enjoyed exploring a new state.