California Fun

Last weekend was CRAZY! All three girls had meets in California which sounds great except that Kacey and Kami had to be in Bakersfield for three days while Kennadi's meet was in Universal City--way too far apart to get one hotel to accommodate both meets. So...Jason took the simmers to Bakersfield while I took Kennadi to Universal City. We all met up on Valentine's Day before Jason had to drive all the way back home by himself. The girls and I stayed over an extra day for some girl fun!

Kacey's and Kami's meet was a JO (junior olympic) meet which means swimmers need qulifying times in order to swim. This was Kami's first opportunity to swim out of town, so she was thrilled! She dropped two seconds in each of her backstroke events (50m and 100m). Way to go Kami! Kacey is already so fast, it's hard to drop too much time in her events. She was happy to keep her existing times. Grandma Gypsy, Grandpa and Grandma Smith all came to watch the girls swim.

Kennadi had an interesting meet. She fell on beam for the first time this season! She was disappointed, but she got right back up and finished a great routine. I was especially proud of her for brushing it off and moving on. She managed to get 2nd place on beam which tells what a great athlete she is. Bars also proved challenging this meet, and Kennadi placed 6th. Kennadi got first with a spectacular vault, and 3rd with an awesome floor routine.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was the fun day the girls and I spent at Universal Studios City Walk.

Champion..Again!

Kennadi blew everyone away at Lady Luck again this year! She got first place on beam with 9.45, first place on floor with 9.4, first place on vault with 9.4, third place on bars with 9.050, and first place all-around with 37.3! Her rankings were for her age group at level 7. Including all age groups at level 7, there were 280 gymnasts. Among all 280 gymnasts, Kennadi still placed within the top three for floor, vault, and beam, and had the 4th highest all-around score.

In addition to Kennadi's awesome-ness, her level 7 team took second place! So that you realize how amazing this is, team scores are calculated using the top scores from each team on each event. Obviously, the larger the team, the greater the pool of scores to draw from. Twelve level 7 teams competed at the same session as Brown's--most teams having at least 10 gymnasts. With only three girls on Kennadi's team, that means all their scores had to count--no room for error. What a terrific team!

She's our champion!

My Champion!

Kennadi and I flew to Reno last weekend for the Nevada State Gymnastics Meet. I love to go to Kennadi's meets. I love the time we get to spend together, and I love to watch how all her hard work pays off. The last meet Kennadi competed in was in Long Beach, California where she competed on a broken foot. Even with her broken foot, she took second place on vault at that meet. Since Long Beach, Kennadi has been in a funky "boot" and enduring physical therapy in hopes that her foot would be healed enough for State because this is the final meet of the season for Level 7 gymnasts.

Kennadi didn't disappoint! Although her vault was not up to her personal standards, she placed well. The most exciting part of her meet was the incredible 9.70 that she pulled off on beam. Not only did this earn her the title of Nevada State Beam Champion for Level 7, it was the highest beam score awarded!

Needless to say, I am a proud mom! Thanks for a great weekend, Bubby--I love you!

Lady Luck

Kennadi's gym hosted the annual "Lady Luck" meet at the South Point Hotel last weekend. This is the first meet of this competition season, and it's a biggie! Over 1200 girls from 25 states compete at this three day meet. This is Kennadi's first season competing at level 7 as an optional gymnast. Basically that means she has her own routines choreographed for her on each event. Here's the lowdown on how she did:

Starting things off with a bang, Kennadi earned a whopping 9.35 on floor which earned her second place on floor. Next came her least favorite event--vault where she blew the judges away and nabbed first place with 9.45. On uneven bars, she kept up her streak and took second place with 9.25. Finally...it was her final and typically best event--beam. Unfortunately, she didn't do quite as well as usual and took fourth place. We were so proud and beaming that we hardly noticed the lower-than-usual beam score, and it was still good enough to earn Kennadi 2nd place all-around.

Equally exciting was the girls' team score. For those of you less familiar with gymnastics, the team score is calculated using the three highest scores of all the gymnasts on your team. Due to injury and illness, we had only three girls competing level seven. It leaves little room for error when you have to count every single score! Most teams had at least six girls' scores to use. Needless to say, it was thrilling when the girls pulled of a second-place team score that was just .5 of a point behind first place and more than 3 points ahead of third place.

WAY TO GO KENNADI!!!