On Wednesday I picked up Cale so he could spend the night at our place because we had a very early morning wake-up call Thursday; we both set our alarms for 4am and were up bright and early. Megan was nice enough to drive us and we arrived at the airport and began boarding by 5:30am. Our first flight was easy and we actually got "upgraded" to the emergency exit row so we had extra space for our legs. I also got to check my bag for free because they asked for volunteers once they realized there were too many carry-on bags for the overhead space available. We left on time but arrived in Houston and had to rush through the terminal because our next flight was less than an hour after we landed and the airport there is huge!! We stopped to grab lunch and by the time we took it to go our second flight was already boarding. Little did we know that the next two-hour leg would be on a tiny, tiny plane and that we would be sitting in the last row right by the bathroom. It was a little bumpy but we arrived safely into St. Louis around 3pm local time and met Cale's dad who was there to pick us up. He took us to our hotel in Cahokia, IL where we checked-in and met up with Ashley, Mike, and Annaliese (Alex's sister, brother-in-law, and niece).
It wasn't long before we showered, changed, and were off to the competition. The meet site is about 20 minutes away from where we're staying and there was a bunch of rush-hour traffic. Coupled with construction, the going was slow but we made it with time to spare. I was actually driving because Ashley wanted to sit in the back with the baby and Mike had to take a work call. We found free parking on the street around the arena and Cale and I left to get our tickets from will-call. Alex had a big cheering section (I met many members of his family) and we took it all in as the boys finished their warm-up. Once the meet got started we were yelling and screaming (well, Cale and I were) to try and release some of our nervous energy. Alex and the other Stanford boys (Ryan, Eddie, and Sean) started on high bar; Alex stayed on and it was pretty clean but there were some missed connections that I know he'll want to get in the next go-round. Floor was awesome, only one fall on pommels, a steady rings routine, a landing vault, and a hit pbar set capped off his night. We were all happy to see him stay on the equipment but he has very high expectations for himself and I know there are things throughout the night that he had hoped had been better.
We waited around for a little bit afterwards but finally met up with Alex and the whole family went out to dinner. At that point I was beyond exhausted and can't actually remember much of what we were talking about but it was fun anyways. Cale and I left with Ashley and Mike and made the trek back to Illinois. It was very long day but I'm so happy to be here and excited to see what the rest of the weekend has in store for us!
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