New Orleans Travel Meet

The girls got to go to New Orleans for their travel meet this year - so fun! I've never even been there before - lucky girls. They left on a Thursday and got back on Monday, President's Day. Thursday was basically a travel day - flying, renting the cars, driving to the hotel, etc. 

Friday the girls (about 14 team girls and 2 coaches and 2 adult chaperones) all went to the French Quarter and walked around, etc. That afternoon they went to JAMNOLA. Some funky New Orlean's "Fun House." Afterwards, they drove to Baton Rouge, LA - which was a couple of hours away. They were going to a LSU (ranked #2) vs. OSU (ranked #1) gymnastics meet. How awesome is that?! They walked around the campus and even saw the LSU tiger mascot. The girls LOVED the meet - it looked pretty hyped and just super fun. And LSU ended up winning - yay! It was a long day as the girls all had to drive back to their hotel a couple hours away, but it was my girls' favorite thing of the whole trip.

Saturday was competition day. They got to sleep in and then it was the girls getting ready, going to the mall, eating, and competing. Emmy's diamond group competed first and Lucy's platinum group competed afterwards. The different groups went to a mall for a bit while the others were competing - but caught a little of each groups' meets.

Emmy had two really great events: bars with a 9.2 and floor with a 9.3. She's been wanting some big scores and so that was exciting. Beam (8.0, with a fall) and vault (8.25, fell on both attempts) weren't what she was wanting and dropped her All Around score. But overall she still did great and improved overall from her first meet of the season. She ended up taking 2nd place on both bars and floor - yay! Emmy's meet videos. (I don't have her beam routine)

Lucy did great. She was pretty steady and solid on everything! She got 8.95 on vault (8th), 8.875 on bars (7th), 9.0 on beam (4th) and 9.15 (4T) on floor. Then she ended up rocking it with a 3rd-place on all-around - yay! Go Lucy! Lucy's meet videos.

On Sunday the girls went on a swamp-boat tour and saw lots of alligators and cool swampy land/waters. :) They enjoyed that. Then they made their way to a different hotel - closer to the airport. I think they ended the day and trip at some arcade thing. Then Monday it was up bright and early (like 4am) and they made it back to Montrose by noon. 

Here are some pictures, totally out of order because they girls sent me them randomly . . . 

At JAMNOLA.

LSU's mascot. :)

On the swamp tour.

More swamp obviously, ha.

Lucy rocking her 3rd all-around!!

Lucy's platinum teammates.

Gracie, Lucy, and Alaina.

Cha-ching.

Some weird statue-people in the French Quarter area.

Cuties Lucy and Keira. (Keira's dad is my "doctor boss" at the cancer center.)

Emmy's 8th AA.

Emmy's 2nd on the floor.

The beginning of the LSU gym meet - cool!

Emmy and diamond teammate Audrey.

Both girls had a really great time and I am glad they had such a cool experience!

Last Weekend was a Doozy

Well if good parenting was graded by the amount of time spent in the car for your kids, last weekend Ben and I would have gotten an A++. (Sadly, if good parenting was graded by if your kids lie to you, Ben and I would have gotten an F this weekend . . . but let's not talk about that right now. Or ever.)

Lucy had her Winter Formal at the high school. What made it extra-special and fun (and lots of time in the car), was that one of her best-friends, Lila, came down for it. Lucy and I drove out almost to Wellington, Utah on Friday night and met Lila and her dad Aaron. Then, of course, drove back home to Montrose. The girls had fun on Saturday getting ready together - and they were joined by Ruby (another of Lucy's besties) and Aubrey. After getting all dolled-up at our home, they were off to a house for group-pictures. From there it was to Denny's - where it was all ready for them at one big table thanks to Lucy's reservation. :) After Denny's, to the dance. From the dance to Kolter's house. From Kolter's house to our home - Lucy, Lila, and Ruby got to have a special sleepover . . . fun for them. On Sunday, after church, we took Ruby home and then drove to Green River, Utah and met up with Lila's mom, Heather. Then we came back home. Whooowheeee. The girls had a great weekend and loved the dance and everything involved with it. It was a lot of fun for them for sure.

Sorry, not sorry, but I have a ton of pictures . . . 

Here we go . . . 

Lila, Lucy, Ruby, and Aubrey all ready for picture-time. 

Patton, Lucy, Lila, and Kolter.

The girls (I will try my best at naming them): Aubrey, Sadie, Bray (Brae?), Brooklyn, Elizabeth, Emelye, Lucy, Lila, and Ruby.

The boys were so proud of the pose they came up with on their own . . . :)

Patton posing with her sweet mom, Amy, grabbing a picture. I love Amy!

I'm not even going to try to name the boys, ha. But a fun group of boys.

The step-sibling pose - I don't know why, but I love it ha.

I stole this from another mom's post. :)

Oh good ol' Denny's. :)

Then for Ben and Emmy's weekend . . . if you remember, Emmy had asked Aidan to the dance, but ended up deciding not to go as it was just too much for her with her gymnastics meet the next day. So Ben and Emmy left around 2pm on Saturday and headed up to Littleton. They went first to Joe and Britt's and had a good visit with them. Then on to Ben's parent's home for the night. Church on Sunday, then getting ready for Emmy, then on to the meet. It was Emmy's first meet with her new skills and so that was fun - but it also didn't go as she was hoping. But, overall, I think it was a good meet for her! She competed in olympic order, so vault, bars, beam, and then floor.

Her first vault she kind of fell on the landing and then her second vault she had lots of extra steps on her landing and even ended up running into her coach, haha. But it was a good vault, all things considered, and her score was good - so yay. Then she went to bars. She's been so excited to compete her giants . . . and unfortunately she missed it on her first try. But she got back up and did it again and it was one of the best giants I have seen her do (even though her coaches just told her to get back up and not do her giants, she decided to try them again, yay!). Next was beam. The big thing she's been working on in this event is her connection - so her back-handspring to back-walkover. She's been hitting them pretty solidly in practice, but unfortunately missed it at this meet. But, again, she went back up there and nailed it the second time around. She did really well on floor and so that was a good way to end the meet. She ended up getting 1st (!) on vault and 4th on floor. Not too bad!

Emmy and her cute teammate Nicole. These girls were the only Diamonds competing from their gym at this meet.

YAY.

She was pretty mad about her meet, but not overly so. Appropriately so, maybe?! I hope her next meet she can nail her bars and beam on the first-go! Here's a video of all her events (in the order of vault - 2 -, bars, beam, and floor). 

January - Spoiler Alert, It was Boring

Wow, was January ever a bust. I mean, it started out with a bang at Kendall - but definitely that was the highlight of the month sadly. Especially as it occurred on day one, haha. The weekends were painfully boring for me. So, I'll do a little update since I have like three pictures or something!

Ben - He is happy to be done with "active" reserves as he finally and unexpectedly got approved for the IRR (individual ready reserve - which I like to call the reserve-reserve unit). Without that and taking call at the hospital, he is back to having his weekends free and that's been nice for him. He bought a guitar and is practicing on it and seems to like it. He'll be doing the Spudman triathlon with me this July, but has yet to fully commit (or not) to the Half Ironman in St. George this spring.

Me - I've started working at Ben's work - the Black Canyon Surgical Center. It's a great place to work, but seeing as I haven't ever done PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) nor floor-nursing in a while, it's intimidating. But I like it and the people - I just need to feel more comfortable and confident. I still work at the cancer center, and then pick up an extra shift or two a week at the surgery center. I was out of running for a few months due to what I will call a lateral meniscus tear. I was just about to get an MRI on it when two things happen: 1. We found out we had lost our health insurance (when Ben got placed on the IRR, we lost it - however, the government failed to notify us of this until after that fact) and 2. It (my knee) dramatically improved. With our new insurance, no way was I going to do the MRI (way too much money seeing as our deductible is like $6000/person, cry cry). (I already miss our Tricare insurance so much . . . ) But I am so grateful my knee is much better - not perfect, but I am running two days a week in addition to my other exercises (swimming, biking, and CrossFit).

Miles - Pretty much the same. Loves Mexico and his mission and the people and the food and his companions, etc. :) He'll be coming home July 23rd!!

Jonas - Pretty much the same. He still likes to get out on his mountain bike. He did get to go to Tucson and was able to see his buddy Kolter there - fun! They enjoyed some Top Golf together! He's still managing the gun range for the border patrol and, as of yet, has not seen any changes with the new administration. Except for a raise, I think. But we'll see in the next coming months if things do change for him.

Emmy - She found something she likes about high school - her "teacher cadet" course. This semester the students in the class go to schools and work with a teacher. Emmy chose her P.E. teacher, Mr. Warren, from Northside elementary and is absolutely loving it. Yay! She's gotten some big skills in her gymnastics routines this year (front handspring full on the vault, giants on the bars, connected back handspring to back walkover on the bean, and a front-front and layout-half on the flour). She and Lucy get to go on a travel meet/trip with gymnastics to New Orleans in mid-February. Lucky them! She loves hanging out with Aidan and we love her hanging out with Aidan because she's much nicer. :)

Lucy - She is still liking high school a lot. She organized the winter formal dance night for her friends - including calling Denny's and getting a reservation for 20. :) She has fun with Patton and her friends. She went skiing last Monday (and got to miss school, lucky girl) with Patton and his dad. They had a great time. She is starting the "pre-track" season and is really liking it so far. The girls had a gymnastics mock-meet (i.e., a practice meet) last week and Lucy looked so solid!

Pretty boring, eh?

Jonas and Kolter at Top Golf. :)

The Winter Formal was a girl-ask-boy dance. So Emmy was excited to ask Aidan. But, another spoiler alert, in the end Emmy decided not to go because she had to drive to Denver that night for a gym meet the next day and it was just too much. Aidan was only going because he knew Emmy wanted to. Aidan doesn't usually do the dance-thing, but he was a good sport to say yes to Emmy anyhow. :) Oh well, at least Emmy got her poster-picture and that's half the fun of the dance ha!

Happy New Year, 2025!!

Well New Year's turned out to be a pretty fun day - fun-ish for me, but definitely fun for the kids and even Ben, I think! We ended up taking the girls' boyfriends to Kendall Mtn. in Silverton for a day of skiing or snowboarding or cross-country skiing for me. Aidan had never done a snow sport in his life and so we thought this would be fun to teach him to snowboard - his choice over skiing. Patton snowboards and so he and Lucy had fun going up and down together.

To make a long story short, Aidan was an incredibly fast-learner and had picked it up 1/2 way down on his first run. Boys! Poor Emmy was a bit bummed because this was maybe her third or fourth time on a board and Aidan had already surpassed her. Being married to Ben, I am well-aware of how Emmy felt, ha! But Emmy still had a great time and loved being there with Aidan. Ben was pretty much on his own, giving tips here and there to both Aidan and Emmy - mostly Emmy haha.

As for me, I would have actually liked to have skied (I mean, Kendall is such a pleasant place to ski), but Lucy now has my snow-boots and I cannot find another pair that will fit my fat stubby calves. Cry, cry, cry. Not because I can't ski, but because I have fat stubby calves. :( So I just cross-country skied on my own, but the trails there weren't really great. And I am pretty sure there were mountain lion tracks and being on my own made it a bit sketchy. But I did it because there wasn't much else for me to do. I mean, I did watch the kids and Ben come and go and that was fun because they were happy.

I made them to promise they wouldn't eat lunch without me, then I headed out with the car keys and so they wouldn't have been able to eat anyways, ha! (I didn't plan that, but it was pretty smooth nonetheless.) So we had lunch together and then everyone was back at it. I did try one run on the ski lift in my XC gear, but it did kind of suck and so I just headed back out on my own.

Anyways, I adore Kendall and Silverton and so it was just a fun day and fun to have friends join us!

Emmy and Aidan on the their butts. A common occurrence when learning to snowboard. :)

Check out this awesome video of Emmy and Aidan getting off the lifts . . .  Love it.

Lunch!

Sporting my awesome new sunglasses from the Hubands. :)

Whoops, all-star snowboarder and snowboard instructor Ben was left out of the photos. Whoops. But he was a crucial component in our awesome adventure!