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...

Old Dogs Learn New Tricks

Today I had a breakthrough in my Stanford gymnastics class...I taught two people front flips!!  It was awesome to see because these kids have never done gymnastics before at all and then in 30 minutes they flipped off a block into the pit (looking a bit crazy at first), moved to the tumble trak, and then to the floor!  I actually couldn't tell that they had never done it before because they really looked like pros and the expressions on the faces were just priceless.  They're really excited to tell their friends they can do a flip and I can tell that everyone else in the class is anxious to get to where they are.

It's been a tough week at Twisters so this was a great way to lighten my mood and remind me why I love teaching people about the sport.  Hopefully there will be many more exciting times in the next six weeks before the quarter is over; you can never have too many happy moments in your life.

Pike's Peak Cup

Optional season 2013 has officially started for Twisters!  Allan, Ericka, and I left SFO yesterday, flew through LAX, and landed in Colorado Springs at about 8:05pm last night.  It's a very small airport in comparison to others I've been to recently but that didn't make the rental car desk any easier to find.  We unfortunately missed it the first time, spent some time looking for it out in the cold, and then finally went back inside and successfully found it.  Hertz gave us a Chevy Malibu and we began the short trek to The Broadmoor Hotel (our accommodations as well as the meet site); we plugged the address into the GPS and were first taken to a museum before we were rerouted to the correct place.  By the time we arrived and checked-in we were tired and hungry so made our way to one of the very many restaurants this place has to offer.

Before I go any further, I must emphasize how amazing this hotel is.  It's very grand and there are people around every corner ready to help you with anything you need.  We are actually staying in the west-side building, across the lake from the front.  Right now the lake is frozen over and is a beautiful site to see, especially in the morning.  Anyway, we finally got to dinner at a place where there was live music and some dancing.  The band was playing covers of some older songs and it was a pretty good time.  Allan did not skimp on our orders and ended up with oysters, wine, fish, meat...it was great (and $170).  We took our time eating but found ourselves exhausted so we went to bed only to get up early this morning for the first session of the competition.

Our level 7 team consists of five people at the moment and they came in full of energy and ready to go. It was quite cold at the meet site but the girls handled it well, warmed up, marched out, and began on floor.  We had a very strong showing there as well as on bars (surprisingly).  We didn't have a missed routine all day and that took the team to a second place finish!!  We also had a floor and bars champ; we were very happy to kick off the year this way and are proud of the way the girls competed.  In the second session we had one level 8 who had a bit of a rough week at practice but seemed like she was confident when she arrived.  She started on vault and put a tsuk on the hard ground for the first time...successfully!  This allowed me to sigh with relief because I really was worried about it and I was able to relax a little bit more for the rest of the competition.  She was really aggressive on bars but ended up falling on a free-hip handstand (props for going for it though!) and was severely robbed on floor.  She definitely had some of the best tumbling in the meet but the judges didn't care for some of her dance so took away points on petty things like her starting pose (who knew judges actually did that).  In the end she was fourth all-around, again a great place to start.

We are going to find another, probably fantastic, place for dinner tonight and then it's early to bed because we have a flight to catch at 7am tomorrow morning.  We'll get home around 11:45am, enjoy the weekend, and then it's back to work.  I'm excited to see where this season will take us because we were very successful last year and we definitely started off better this time around.  I think congratulations are in order for the girls and for my first travel meet as a coach, I can't think of a way in which it could have gone better!

365 Days Later

Well, today is the one year anniversary of my arrival back into the United States.  It's hard to believe that I touched down in San Francisco 365 days ago, but each of those days since have been full of memories that I cherish.

Flash forward to this past week and let me tell you how crazy it's been!  I started "teaching" at Stanford which has been awesome.  I have my class twice a week and the kids in there really want to learn gymnastics and are fun to work with.  The first week is always crazy because there are so many more people enrolled than are allowed so you have to balance 35-40 people at once but I think I've got the class list down to a reasonable limit now so we can really get going on things.  I was told to use conditioning as part of my "weed out" process and I think it worked...I had less kids on the second day than I did on the first and even more have dropped out over the weekend.  I still have some formalities to take care of like getting my ID card and everything, but I'm looking to have that done in the next couple of days.

One of the many perks of the job is that I can take PE classes for free.  I signed up for a cross training class as well as tennis and both have been a lot of fun.  Cross training is a good change of pace from all the running I've been doing and tennis is teaching me a lot.  I like the teachers of both classes and I'm really hoping that the weather holds up so we can attend as many sessions as possible.

In the gym we're getting ready to head out to Colorado.  I checked the weather this morning and it was 30 degrees colder there than here...brrr!!  I'm excited and nervous all at the same time for our first competition; I think the girls are prepared and ready but you also never know how things will go on the floor of a meet until you are actually in that situation.  Well, ready or not we leave on Thursday, competition on Friday.

Today was the first meet of the 2013 season for Stanford Men's Gymnastics.  It was held in Berkeley and so Alex and I drove up together this afternoon.  He was dressed and ready to go out onto the floor if they needed any help, but he ended up sitting in the stands with me and the rest of the cheering section for the time he was there (he had to leave early to get back to campus and open the AARC).  It was a little strange for me because it was the first meet ever where I watched with him by my side instead of on the floor (or vice versa when I was competing).  As much as I loved watching him compete, it was nice to have him there to talk to :)  I wasn't as nervous for the team as I used to be because I don't know as many of the guys, but of course I still wanted them to be successful.  Even though there were some rough patches, they pulled out a win against Cal (425.00-411.15) and have a lot to look forward to this season.  It was also great to see and catch up with some of the alum in the audience; the love and support for this team is contagious and it's always nice to be around others who care so much about the members of the team carrying on their legacy.

#NCAAGym2013

Another year and another journey is officially under way for Stanford Women's Gymnastics.  The team had their first competition Friday night at San Jose State; it was the NorCal Quad Meet against San Jose, Sac State, and UC Davis.  It's always interesting to see the team at the beginning of the year and watch as they progress towards NCAA Championships.  They performed well with a couple of little bobbles but were not really rewarded for their efforts, unfortunately.  We were quite frustrated with the judging but that's not something anyone can control and the team did a good job staying within themselves and doing what they could.  I only really know the seniors now, as they were freshmen in the 2009-2010 season, but the traditions are all still familiar which is comforting to old alumnae like my classmates and I.

Speaking of my classmates, we were all in town this weekend!  Blair came out to see the Rose Bowl and then decided to hop up here for a couple of days before going back to Virginia.  I didn't get the chance to run into her until the meet, but once there we all sat together to watch and cheer on the team.  Afterwards we came back and I wanted to go to bed but ended up being dragged out with them.  It was nice to spend that time with everyone since we don't get the opportunity to do so very often at all but being the grandma that I am now I wished it had been in the comforts of my living room instead of a bar downtown.  The combination of being out late and having to get up early for work yesterday morning did not go over too well for me but I got through and then was able to come home and relax for the rest of the day.  I'm not too sure what's on the agenda for this afternoon but it's kind of gloomy outside and I don't want to move.  However, I do have my new Nike+ SportBand and iPod shuffle that I want to try out so I think a run is in order.  I didn't make it to campus to do the loop yesterday so maybe today's the day for that; it would be a nice inaugural route for my new toys  :)

Out With The Old, In With 2013

"Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."

As I sit here thinking of the upcoming year, I'm nothing but excited for what lies ahead.  The beginning of a new year just exudes the sense of endless possibility, like the world is your oyster.  The goal is to keep that feeling going throughout the entire year, not just for the first few days while everyone adjusts.

Last night was pretty awesome.  I ran around all day getting errands done and then got dressed and ready before heading to Alex's house.  Once there we "ooo'd" and "ahhh'd" over our outfits and the fact that we were all dressed up and then the three of us (Alex, Cale, and I) piled in the car and went to Reposado's.  We sat at the bar for a little while and had a drink while watching the end of the LSU/Clemson bowl game.  In the end, Clemson won by one point, a field goal saving them in the final seconds.  It's always fun to see a team get so excited after a close game or match, though being on the other end can be pretty painful.

The original reservation we had was for 9:15pm but the boys played their cards right and were able to get us seated around 8pm.  We had a rather interesting waiter attending to us but in the end we enjoyed wonderful food, which was actually more like a 5-course meal.  I was honestly pretty full from my drink plus all the water I was consuming but the boys were giving me a hard time about my eating habits.  They made me "sign a contract" saying I'd be getting dessert after dinner and even though my meal more than satisfied me I found a way to enjoy the chocolate cake I ordered.   I originally wanted to get a pumpkin bread dessert but unfortunately it was pre-made with pecans already in it and with the possibility that I'm allergic I had to stay away.  Upon learning that I didn't want something with nuts in it the waiter suggested I try the almond wafers...needless to say Alex and I kind of stared him down for a few seconds before just shaking our heads and picking something else.


After dinner we walked to Walgreens on University to grab some champagne for the big new year celebration.  Of course we always had perfect timing when crossing the street and the light would turn yellow as we were just entering the crosswalk or halfway through it...great for me in my heels, haha.  We made it in before the store closed, made the purchase, and went back to Alex's house.  We have sort of become grandparent-like when it comes to staying up; we were ready to crash and still had almost two hours before the ball dropped.  After snapping a couple of pictures we all changed into sweats and sat on the couch talking and trying our best to stay awake.  Finally it was time, Alex popped the champagne, and we brought in the new year together.  Shortly after I was driven home but I was so happy to be there with those two and I know that 2013 will be good for all of us.  Apparently this was only part one of my Christmas present ("pre-emptive" I think Alex called it) and I'm super excited to see what part two will include.

Here's to the official start of 2013.  Let the good times roll :)
And oh yes, Stanford is playing in the Rose Bowl this afternoon...Go Card!  #proudSUalum