Regionals

Mattea competed in Regionals today for gymnastics and she knocked it out of the park!  First, a little background.  Mattea had a fantastic season this year.  She did well in all of her events in most of the meets and ended up with high all-around scores which earned her the title of "Super 3".  Super 3's are gymnasts competing at the Compulsory 3 level that earn an all-around score of at least 34.00 twice during the season.  She was the only Super 3 from her gym, Achieve Gymnastics.  During the season, she competed against the other 9 year old's at the Comp 3 level.  At Regionals, since she was a Super 3, she competed against all of the other girls that earned the Super 3 title no matter what their age.  There turned out to be only four Super 3's out of the roughly 195 gymnasts that competed at Regionals, but it was a competitive group.

Mattea's scores from the season so far...

Today at Regionals, she was super consistent scoring 9.5/9.6 each on floor, bars and vault and then had a little bit of trouble on beam, but ended up scoring 8.5/8.55.  She placed 1st on floor and vault; 2nd on bars and 3rd on beam.  Her all-around score ended up being 37.2 which is quite phenomenal!  We kept our eye on one other gymnast today that we assumed was a Super 3 because we had been impressed by her in earlier meets.  Jeff nicknamed her "Fierce".  We knew she would be great competition for Mattea and she was!  Her and Mattea were neck and neck (Jeff kept track of her scores during the meet), but I am immensely proud to say that Mattea took 1st place in All-Around which basically means that she beat out every other gymnast at the meet and she's going to STATE!!!  (That also means that Jeff nicknamed Mattea "Super Fierce"!)  It was so awesome watching her compete today.  She was focused, determined and pretty much amazing!!!  The State competition is next Saturday, so we are hoping to have a similar report for you next weekend!

Driving... he is DRIVING!

A week after school ended, Alex went to driving school for a week. He recently got his permit in the mail.  YAY!  We took him out driving last night. He is a great driver and I'm pretty calm sitting in the backseat while he's driving. Last night, Jeff, Mattea and I went out with him and we ended up in some neighborhoods in a more rural area. We saw lots of deer which was good practice for him to make sure that he is paying attention to everything around him. No deer were injured in the filming of this video.

Camping in Canon City

We had such a great time this weekend camping in Canon City.  We stayed at the Royal View Campground.  They had a pool, Frisbee golf, mini golf, basketball & volleyball courts plus walking paths.  We arrived late Thursday night, got set up at our site and hit the hay.  I woke up early on Friday and took Cody for a walk before anyone else was awake.  It was glorious!

For most of the day, we hung out at the campground.  We played Frisbee golf, swam in the pool, took Cody for a walk to the Royal Gorge lookout and Mattea even found a beam to practice her gymnastics!  On our way to the lookout, we spotted this crazy looking cactus that we were sure Grandpa Pete would love!  We headed into Canon City for dinner & ice cream and then we drove as far into the Royal Gorge Park as we were allowed.  It was sad to drive through and see all of the burnt trees from the wildfire that had spread through the area.  When we got back to camp, we sat around talking about our favorite memories of Indy since it would have been his 17th birthday that day.  We totally miss him and I'm sure Cody misses his buddy, too.

 

 

On Saturday, we had a busy day planned.  First, Josh and I took Cody for a long walk before everyone else was awake.  I love having one-on-one time with the kids.  Later, we had lunch aboard the Royal Gorge Railroad.  We spent most of our time in the open air car.  The kids thought it was great to be able to be outside while riding on the train.  Obviously, it didn't go as fast as a locomotive, but it was still really cool.  The scenery was amazing and when we first saw the Royal Gorge bridge, we were all amazed.  After the train ride, we headed back to the campground to grab Cody for our next adventure.  Unfortunately, we had locked ourselves out so Jeff had to pull a McGyver move and bust into the camper.  He picked the lock like a pro!  Well, not as fast as a pro would have, but fast enough to completely impress the kids.  I was just glad we didn't have to call a locksmith or break a window.  We headed out to this place that rented out Segways that you could drive on a moto track.  The owner gave instructions and then took us out to the dirt track which had hills and bumps or bypasses if you wanted to go the flatter route.  The kids were absolute naturals and quite fearless, so there was no bypassing for them.  I had a hard time getting my Segway to go over the hills without spinning around and going back down.  It was quite comical.  We ended up letting the kids ride twice since they had such a blast the first time.  Jeff and I enjoyed watching them.  Alex had permagrin pretty much the whole time as he whizzed past us like a boss.  Josh covered every square area of the track including all of the tough hills.  Mattea was not to be outdone by her brothers and totally held her own doing whatever they did.  All of the kids had at least one wipeout, but successfully bailed off the back of the Segway like the owner had instructed.  Although the kids wanted to ride "just one more time", we decided to quit wanting more.  After some burgers at our campsite, we headed inside to watch a movie since the wind really picked up and the weather was a bit sketchy.  We all had such a great time camping in Canon City!

Random

We are driving down I-25 on our way to a campground near the Royal Gorge, so I thought I would post some random pictures from my phone since I haven't posted in a while.  Enjoy and stay safe this 4th of July weekend!

Camping in Estes Park

One Republic and The Script concert for Alex's birthday

 Gymnastics meet

 Last day of school
 

Junior Pops Concert

The Men's Choir performed at their last concert of the year on Monday.  It was a super fun concert because the men's and women's choirs got to perform pop songs which can be more fun than the challenging arrangements that choir directors sometimes come up with for songs the kids aren't as familiar with.

 

He got the job!

After a 5 month long hiatus that included a 3-week journey of self discovery, job searching, interviewing and quality family time, Jeff landed the job he truly wanted.   He is now the Employee Relations Director for the City of Lakewood.  As I am posting this after he has been with Lakewood for a month, I am happy to report that he is extremely pleased with his decision, his boss is fantastic and he is loving his new gig!!!

Gymnastics meet

Mattea had her first regular season gymnastics meet on Saturday.  She is competing as a Compulsory 3 gymnast and, along with her teammates, will be performing on the beam, floor, vault and bars.  There were about 8 other teams at the meet.  For her age group, Mattea ended up taking 2nd place on beam, vault and bars and 3rd place on floor... PLUS, she placed 1st in all-around!  She is anxious to move to the next level, but I keep telling her to just relish all of this success as a Comp 3 because it only gets harder from here.  The problem is that she loves gymnastics so much that, although she only goes to practice once a week, she is constantly doing handstands, cartwheels, front & back walkovers and even practices on the bars during school recess!  With all of this practice, she keeps getting better and she already has the skills necessary to move to the next level.  Even though the meets are long, she is so much fun to watch when she performs.  We are so proud of her abilities and her determination!

Floor routine

For the Comp 3 beam routine, the gymnasts are supposed to start on a certain side of the beam so they have enough space to do their skills and are facing the right way for their cartwheel (some do it left-handed, some do it right-handed).  Unfortunately, Mattea's coach told her to start on the wrong side, so you will notice her looking down at the beam during her routine.  She was trying to figure out how to complete all of her required skills from the wrong side.  I had been wondering why she had spent so much time on one end of the beam until she told me afterwards what had happened.  I'm very proud of her for just  dealing with it on the fly!

Comp 3's do a very simple vault.  Mattea is SO ready to do something more challenging!