Good Morning Friends,
I didn't want to take away from letting you know of Pyper's passing so I didn't tell you about Tori-bug's gymnastics meet in Panama City Beach Florida last Saturday. I had hoped that I could post earlier in the week, but didn't get around to it. We had a great time in Panama City, despite it being brutally cold at the beach on Friday. It was sleeting and windy on Friday like I have never seen at the beach before. We had 4 inches of snow at home so it was bound to be cold. After all, it is February!!! haha
Tori-bug didn't compete until Saturday morning, but she had to be there at 7:30am and I found out Ms. Pyper had passed at 4 am that same morning. When I woke Tori-bug at 6am to start getting ready for the meet she said she was going to try to get first place in honor of Pyper. I was already emotional about her passing and thought that was so sweet. I teared up. We got out to the parking deck and Tori-bug fell on some ice and busted her knee. It wasn't bad and she was fine, but then she started crying. She got okay and we made it to the meet. She started out on vault and had a really good vault with a score of 8.825 (which is really good for her. She has never been strong on vault b/c she is so long, lean and lanky too :-)
She didn't medal on vault but it was still a good score for her.
She went to beam next. She has a really pretty beam routine, but she fell on her full turn (which is a level 6 skill anyway) and she is only technically a "level 4". They are not doing levels this year so she is on the silver optionals team. Do not think I am making excuses for her b/c I definitely am not. She has landed the bigger skills repeatedly and can definitely do it so there was no excuse for her falling off. She messed it up. I will go ahead and say that the other teams present at the meet were doing very basic skills and getting huge scores. Our coach won't accept that for our girls so we didn't get as high a score, but were blowing the other teams out of the water with our skills. Tori-bug scored an 8.6 and that was 7th. place. She didn't medal on it either. She went to bars then and had a beautiful routine. She isn't getting her underswing very high and is squatting on her dismount, but it looked great. She scored 8.750 and that was 7th. place as well. Still not a bad score, but the other teams were getting higher scores by doing a level 3 dismount and routine. This probably makes no sense to a lot of you with all this talk of "skills, scores, levels, etc" but a lot of you do know what I am saying.
Anyway, she went to floor. She has a great floor routine when she tries her best. She scored a 9.45 and tied for 2nd. place!! Not first for sweet Pyper, but still awesome!! I was so proud of the skills she was doing and her routine looked beautiful. Needless to say, I was so happy for her. She had an all-around score of 35.625. This has been the best all-around score thus far this season. We are headed to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee next weekend. It is about to break us this month with all these out of town meets, but we are having fun. Perhaps she will score high and get a first place win, but if she doesn't I will still be proud of her if she does her best. She is having fun and loving it still so we keep on.
We had a blast swimming in the indoor pool, some at the outdoor pool, and crazy Lindsey even swam in the freezing cold ocean!! I kept my coat and gloves on the whole time at the beach and the kids had on bathing suits!! Crazy, silly girls!! Sunday we had a beautiful day with highs in the low 60's. Our best day at the beach. The picture below is of Tori-bug acting like she was going to eat a shrimp off my plate at Dirty Dick's. She didn't eat it by the way, but thought it was hilarious looking. Now, on to Tennessee next week.........
Wendy
