Arete Gymnastics Meet

Arete hosted the gymnastics meet last weekend.

They rented the gym at Telos U to be able to fit everyone. It takes a whole lot to run a meet! They needed a lot of parent volunteers. I spent 4 hours Thursday afternoon unloading all the equipment from a semi truck and setting everything up. It was quite a workout, but I enjoyed it. I learned how to put together the uneven bars and vaults from parts. That was actually really satisfying. :) Then I worked concessions for 4 hours on Friday while the kids were at school. And then I worked another 4 hours Saturday night taking down all the equipment and loading it back into the semi. I got home just before midnight. It was a lot of time and effort, but I was happy to help make the meet happen. It was fun to get to know the coaches a little better, and visit with everyone while we worked. 

Level 3 had their meet Friday night. This was Tessa's most solid meet. 

She earned her highest all-around score yet, and the most exciting thing of the night was Tessa stuck her cartwheel on the beam!!!!!!!! I wanted to scream when she landed it!! I was there by myself since Paul was in New York with his family and the boys chose to stay home, so I sat there by myself screaming inside my head. :) 

Here she goes...

And she sticks it!!!!!

While we were doing Tessa's hair, we talked about what we had learned from watching the BYU gymnastics meet. Every gymnast took a moment to pause before doing their tumble skills on the beam. Tessa set a goal to pause, take a deep breath, and tell herself that she can do it before she started her cartwheel. I think this really helped her!

Tess took 2nd on vault.

4th on bars.

2nd on beam.

2nd on floor.

And 2nd all-around!

We definitely needed to celebrate with some ice cream afterward. :)

We're so proud of all the hard work you put into gymnastics Tessa! There have been a lot of meets lately, and you continue to do your best at each one. Nice work girl!

Everyday Adventures

 Damon learned how to break boards at Activity Days. Paka is his leader now, and she taught the boys a few karate moves. Damon loved this!!

Paul, Theron, and Josh put on their Movie Night for their clients again. We got to see Ant Man: Quantumania. This is a lot of work for them, but their clients sure love it!

It was fun to have Rockwell come this year! He thought it was the best night ever with Keith bringing Wyatt, popcorn, soda, and a Marvel movie.

He was happy to take as much leftover popcorn as he could carry. :)

The kids each cooked a dinner this week. At this point in time, they all think it's fun to cook. :)

Ofa and EJ had their baby!! Zariyah Elaine was born on March 3rd, and she is just beautiful!

EJ and Ofa are going to be such good parents! I can't wait to meet her!!

Tessa loves this picture and how Zariyah looks like she's flexing her muscles. Haha. :)

Rockwell had his Spring Band Concert last night. I sure loved listening to him play! He's still loving playing, and it's so fun to see him after his concerts and how proud he is of how good they sound after months of working on their songs.

Tooele Gymnastics Meet

 We took a long drive out to Tooele for Tessa's meet. Morgan came with us because her mom was sick, and Tessa loved having her with us for the long drive. The girls did great!

She took 4th on vault.

And 3rd on beam.

2nd on bars.

And 2nd on floor.

She finished 2nd in the all-around!

And Arete took 1st Place as a team again!

Tessa and Morgan were worn out and fell asleep on the way home. So cute!

Morgan came home with us for the rest of the day. They were proud of the cup tower they built. :)

Snow Day

 Last Tuesday night/Wednesday we had quite the snow storm! The district declared it an online learning day, and the kids were thrilled!

I took a turn helping each of the kids with their assignments.

Rockwell's assignment for P.E. was to exercise for 30 minutes straight, and he could earn extra points if he also did some service for somebody. He and Paul went out and shoveled a bunch of houses. 

Tessa was excited that her teacher set up a Google Meet where the kids could just hang out for a while.

When they were all finished with their schoolwork I took the kids to Oak Canyon so they could do some sledding. It was SO cold and windy, I don't know how they had any fun. I lasted for about 45 minutes, and then I was so cold I was in pain and called it for the day. :)

Las Vegas Gymnastics Meet

 Tessa had a meet in Las Vegas on President's Day. We drove to Vegas on Sunday, found the hotel the meet would be at, and then checked in at South Point. We had seen some people who we're pretty sure were high and a man being arrested while we were on The Strip. I could see Tessa was very concerned about the people we were seeing out our windows, and asked if she was okay. She said she was fine, but as soon as we got into our room she took the notepad and pen from the desk and started writing about how much she does not like this city! Damon was searching around the room and said he found a Holy Bible in the drawers by the beds. Tessa asked if she could have it and read for a bit. I snuck a picture of her reading. After about 10 minutes she put the book away and said she felt better now. We were able to have a good little discussion about what we felt on The Strip and what we feel when we read the scriptures. We all agree we prefer the feelings we get from the scriptures. 

We got some dinner at The Shake Shack in our hotel and then went to bed early since the meet started at 7:45 the next morning.

It's been interesting to see how differently judges score things at different meets. These judges were very stingy! You could see the girls were frustrated each time their scores were posted. I don't think they watch other team's scores, or even their teammates scores, so they didn't realize that all the gymnasts received very low scores on every event. Morgan came over at the end and I told her she looked great (which she did!), and she was like, "Thanks. But I mostly got 8's and a 7, so I didn't do very good." I told her all the scores for everyone were in the 7's and 8's, so she shouldn't take her scores to heart. There was a mom standing nearby who must have heard us because she said, "These judges took away every single point they could from these girls!" I'm not sure why they took so many deductions, but I think the girls felt much better at the medals ceremony when they realized everyone's scores were much lower than they were used to. So comparatively, they were still placing pretty good.

Tessa did so great on her beam routine. She was the closest to sticking her cartwheel as she's ever been at a meet. We all really thought she had it, but fell off at the last second. That was a lot of improvement though!

She did great on bars and actually scored in the low 9's on that!

She tried a new vault routine for her first pass. She did a half-on, and then did her front handspring the second pass.

And she looked great on her floor routine.

They didn't hand out score cards at the end of this meet, so we don't remember what her scores were. Beam, vault, and floor were somewhere in the 8's and bars was in the low 9's. I don't know which event she took which place on either. We usually get that info to take home, but we didn't this time. Oh well. She took two 6th places, a 4th place, and a 3rd place.

Her score totals had her tied for 3rd place in the all-around. She and the girl she tied with are standing in the 4th place slot in the pic below. She was moved to the next grouping up, so she went away really happy with her bronze medal for the all-around after feeling like she didn't do her best based on the scores she kept getting.

And Arete finished in 1st place for the teams. It was a good way to end a frustrating morning.

We're proud of you Tess!