Celebrations Galore

Today is Cat's 22nd birthday!  After the men's meet last night some of us met up at Skoly's house for a little pre-celebration before the young-ins took Cat out downtown.  Skoly made her a cake and people definitely enjoyed the food and music; it was very relaxed and gave Abhi, CJ, and I some time to look around and reminisce about the best times we had with each other at school.  I think it started because some of the gym guys were there and everyone kept saying that they wanted to go back and re-live those happy moments.  It was fun for us but we pooped out and so when everyone else left for Palo Alto we went home to our nice, warm beds :)

Earlier this month was Weedge's 25th birthday...the first one of our class.  This year we decided our group gift was going to be a photo book so I put that together on my computer and she opened it while we were all (well, minus Blair) at Thaiphoon for dinner.  Blair sent her love when we got her on the phone as well as some flowers which I heard were beautiful.  Luckily for us we'll all be together next weekend for Shelley's wedding.  We were talking last night about how we can't believe she's going to be Mrs. Shelley Jo Whalen; at least her "Shelley Jo" nickname will stick.  I think we've (T, CJ, and I...we're all flying in together) have everything together except for the rental car.  It's really unfortunate that we're going to have to pay an extra fee because we're not quite old enough yet.  If the wedding was just two weeks later T would be in the clear but that's not how it worked out.

The nice weather has continued and today I took advantage of it by walking around downtown Menlo Park.  I strolled through the farmers market, stopped and read the paper while eating brunch (which was awesome by the way...don't get to do that too often), and did a little grocery shopping.  The door to our apartment is wide open right now and the enticing aromas of my cooking are wafting through so even though I'm still full from brunch my stomach is grumbling.  I have a couple of hours before I have to leave for my second session in the Spirit of the Flame Challenge.  My level 8 team, consisting of only three girls, competed Friday night and came away with a win!  In addition one of the girls also won all-around, floor, and bars so it was a successful evening.  The level 7's practiced with me yesterday and looked great so it should be a close competition tonight...I'm suspecting Airborne will be bringing their A-game and with Maya (Kristen's daughter) on their team and her parents in the stands it's going to be a good time.

Spring Teaser

This past weekend was the only one this month in which I was home and it happened to coincide with some of the most gorgeous weather of the year so far.  Megan and I took advantage and walked The Dish, I played some tennis with Alex, and of course what would the weekend be without a little gymnastics on the side?  Both SWG and SMG held competitions in Maples Pavilion and both were broadcast on the Pac-12 Network which is a pretty big deal.  Friday night was alumni night for SWG so all that were in town were introduced before the event began and were invited to a reception put on by the team afterwards.  It was my first time in Maples since coming back from Australia and being back there reminded me most of my own Senior Night in 2010.  It's hard to believe that my freshmen are now seniors and will be going through the same process in a few weeks.  The team had a season-best performance to beat out Arizona State and SMG came in and followed suit two days later, defeating Cal by ten points in a most spectacular fashion (except pommels, haha).

We had some rain and cloudy weather yesterday but it's back to the sunshine and happiness today.  It definitely lifts my mood when the it's bright and cheery outside.

I have a local competition this weekend, with sessions on Friday and Sunday evening.  It's going to be one of the most competitive meets of the year but the girls are looking great in the gym so I'm excited to see how they're going to perform.  Allan won't be there because he's traveling with SWG to Utah so it'll just be Ericka and I.  After this week comes Malibu, San Antonio (Shelley's wedding!), and then local jaunts for a few weeks before regionals in Phoenix.  It's going to be a whirlwind and season will be done and over before I know it so I'm just trying to enjoy the days and weeks as they come.  With this fabulous weather and good spirits, it's hard not to!

Viva Las Vegas

Another whirlwind weekend is in the books.  This time the Twisters family went out to Las Vegas to take on the other teams competing in the Vegas Cup.  Allan, Ericka, and I left Friday afternoon and after a small delay we got to our hotel (Mandalay Bay) right around dinner time.  Ericka said she wanted to dress up so we took some time to do so and then donning our nice clothes we found a great Asian restaurant for dinner.  As we were finishing up, Corey (the athletic trainer for SMG) met us and brought tickets to Le Réve with him.  Three of us enjoyed the show while Allan fell asleep.  Afterwards Brett (assistant Stanford men's coach) joined the group and somehow we ended up in a limo on the way to the MGM.  Allan wanted to spend some time with his buddies that were in town from Cal so we all kind of did our own socializing pretty late into the night before getting back.

Yesterday we got up and went to the local outlet stores so Ericka could pick something up for Remi.  We spent longer there than we anticipated and kind of rushed to the meet site, but made it.  I taped up one of the girls and then it was go time!  We had five level 7's and three level 8's and the meet director split us so we were in two separate rotations; the 8's started on vault and the 7's on beam.  There were some definite highlights to the competition including one of the 8's standing up a huge pike tsuk for the first time, having a level 7 vault champion, and seeing the how clean and prepared our girls look in comparison to some of the other teams.  In the end the level 7's won by three points while the 8's took second, which is pretty good considering there were only three of them and it takes that many scores to make up the final team total. Each of the 8's won floor in their age group too so we were definitely dominate there.

After the competition we made it back to the hotel, quickly changed, had an amazing steak dinner, and went off again to Winter Cup.  Brett got us our tickets ahead of time which was great because by the time we made it there it was pretty full.  It was weird to be back in that arena after going with Cale last year.  It was very different for me because while I wanted the Stanford guys to do well it just seemed like there was a lot less on the line.  Overall it was kind of a rough competition for everyone, though of course there were a few standouts.  Senior Eddie Penev made the national team for the first time as did one of the incoming freshman for next year.

We didn't last long after Winter Cup and ended up having a late night snack at the sushi bar at our hotel before going to bed (because of course we hadn't eaten enough on the trip up to that point).  It was up bright and early this morning for our flight which didn't even leave on time.  That left us approximately five minutes to make our connection in Ontario so it's a good thing all three of us are quick.  It was a rather bumpy ride back and I'm glad to be home.  We hit the ground running again tomorrow in preparation for what will most likely be our toughest competition yet at the Spirit of the Flame Challenge, held in San Jose so it will be nice to be local.  My travel schedule will be getting even crazier heading into March so taking advantage of the down time is a definite must.

Roseville Invitational

What a weekend!  I can't believe it's already Sunday night and another week will be upon us in a matter of hours.

I started my weekend by going up to San Francisco with Alex for a tennis tournament (which he won) and then finishing my journey up to Sacramento.  The drive from SF was actually really easy because of the pit stop and I made it in about 90 minutes...perfect!  My brother was also home when I got there and he brought Amanda with him (apparently they're back together?) and they were watching Star Trek.  It was getting late so I didn't take part and went to bed instead, a good choice given the fact that I woke up around 5:30am Saturday and couldn't go back to sleep.  Instead I got up, started a load of laundry, and got ready for the first session of the Roseville Invitational.  I arrived around 7:30am and my level 8's were already there.  I found out we were starting on vault which scared me out of my mind but we ended up soaring through that and the rest of the meet.  At the end of the day both girls easily qualified to State and Avery won both vault and all-around (my first vault champion!)!!

Saturday afternoon and evening was spent with my family and after a late dinner and movie I went to bed to wake up this morning and do it all over again.  Four of our five level 7's showed up and brought their game faces; the last one was plagued by the flu but still came to support her teammates.  We started on floor and right away knew that we would be in the running for the team title.  Vault improved greatly from our outing two weeks ago and after a crazy bar warm-up the girls gathered up and put together some great sets.  It all came down to beam and in the end we threw in the girl that was out sick because we needed her for the team and she rocked it!  We were so happy and knew that we had done everything possible to win...it was just time to wait.  We ended up with two all-around champions and individual event titles on bars, beam, and floor.  It all culminated with a team win by 1.5 points and a score that was 0.6 higher than our best score last season, woohoo!!!  :)

I came back to Menlo Park soon after the meet was over to a Super Bowl party being held in the upstairs apartment.  They set up a projector, played the game on the big wall in their living room, and had lots of food to go around.  It was an exciting game from halftime on and I actually thought the 49ers might pull it off but unfortunately they came up just short.

It's going to be another crazy week this week as we prepare for a competition in Las Vegas.  We leave on Friday and it's going to be especially exciting because we're going to the Winter Cup competition as well where I'll get to cheer on the Stanford delegation that will be there.  Five days and counting...