Level 6 State Championships

This year, the level 6 State Championships was hosted by Byers Roseville so the meet venue was driving distance from my parents' house in Sacramento.  I came up on Saturday and spent the night with them after going to Alex's tennis tournament in the morning, which was held in Fremont.  It was a very good day for him, as a side note, and he advanced out of the first round and into a very competitive match in the second round.  Even though the final score of that game wasn't what he was hoping for, I can see big improvements from the last time I watched him play and it was fun to cheer him on.  When I finally made it home (the traffic on the way up was terrible) I went to Macy's to see my mom.  It's so nice to walk in, tell someone Janet Carter is your mom, and have them go on and on about how great she is :)  I already know that, but it's awesome when you find that other people think that as well.  We had dinner together and chatted while she finished up her work and then we headed home where we met up with my dad and watched Star Trek.  It was a very nice surprise for me when I found out that we were to set our clocks back and gain an extra hour of sleep...one of my favorite days of the year!

This morning I got up bright and early because our first meet session was at 8am.  The drive took about 25 minutes but it was easy and the facility was awesome.  We only had one girl in the session because they divide it all up by age and we very soon found out that we were to start on beam.  After march-in we got going and she did well on her first event.  We went to floor and she had her best routine of the season but the judges did not reward her for it.  Michaela and I submitted an inquiry form and watched the video but nothing was changed so we were left to stew on our thoughts.  Vault is typically her weakest event but she stepped it up and took two great turns.  We then had some down time and were spending it sitting behind the bars when a scary accident occurred.  I took Emma out of the arena while the poor girl was being tended to (the ambulance had to come and she was taken away but we found out later that she's going to be fine, luckily) and when we came back the entire place was a little on edge.  We still had bars left to go so I tried to get her mind in the right place and she looked good during warm-ups but had a silly mistake in her competition routine.  Overall it was a good day for her but of course we were hoping to finish on a little better note.

When the session was over Michaela and I went our separate ways and I met up with my parents for lunch.  We went to The Habit which apparently is a popular chain but I've never heard of it.  It was good but all too soon my parents had to go off to run errands and I was left with a few hours to kill; I went back into Roseville and shopped around for a carry-on size piece of luggage.  Unfortunately I didn't find one but I did end up with some winter-appropriate running clothes, woohoo!

The second session we were part of was the final one of the entire competition.  We had two girls going at the same time which was nice because they could keep each other entertained, cheer for each other, etc.  My coaches from Byers have a daughter and she was also in the session so it was fun to see them and to watch her compete.  I remember when Eli brought her into the gym as a baby during the long days of summer training and we would have to build her a playpen out of panel mats, and now she's a level 6!  Time flies.

Bella and Kai also started on beam which proved to be great because Bella was the very first kid up and set the bar with a 9.5.  Kai followed with a 9.525 and we were off and running.  They both had very good meets (could have been more aggressive on bars but were nervous after finding out what had happened in the other session) and ended up second and fourth all-around, respectively.  As a team, we came in 17th out of 59, which is great given that we only had three girls.  It was a very fun experience and I'm sad that they're season is already over.  Next week will be the end of the road of the level 5 team and the level 4 kids are the weekend after that.  Then it's off to optional season for me, yay!