Everyday Antics

Life is pretty fun with an adorable kitten who loves Ally and a fiesty pug.
I am sad to say that Ally's fish Spotted 3 died this week. He had a long life of 3 years with us. Ally took the news well - she said she had seen he didn't look too good in his bowl. She hasn't asked about a new fish yet.

These two keep us on our toes!

The kitten thinks Cloey's house leash is toy and she loves to chase after it and pounce when Cloey is wearing it. 

Both animals like to hang out in Ally's room when she is gone, which is a lot.

The kitten cries for Ally. She is quiet unless Ally is home, then she cries for Ally to come to her. Within minutes of Ally coming home from practice or school the kitten is at the top of the stairs crying for Ally. Ally calls to her and the kitten tentatively scurries down the stairs to Ally. Then Cloey goes crazy all jealous. But as you can see Cloey is getting along with Daisy much better than she did with our older cats. 

In the morning Cloey is usually in her crate while Ally eats breakfast and the kitten cries out all sad and pitiful because Ally left her. Then the kitten makes her way to the kitchen and up on the table until Ally picks her up. 

I told Ally she looked like the quintessential tween and I had to take pictures.
Long straight hair, distressed jeans, crop top, black warm up jacket and black sneakers.

Ally got her starter ear rings out!!!! We agreed after the state meet she could so we made an appointment at the piercing place and they took out her starter ear rings and she put in some new ones.

 Sometimes at home Ally and I Facetime from floor to floor. I know - lazy people and it is a sign of the times. One day recently Daisy wanted in on the Facetime. Or maybe she wants Ally to get off the video chat and pay attention to her.

 Who knows. But it was so cute I had to screen shot it.

Snow Day Sleepover

We finally had a snow day! It was the Monday after the state gymnastics meet and Ally could not have been more thrilled. Especially because she had made some plans with friends that if there was a snow day they would come over for a "snow day sleep over". The girls waited anxiously Sunday evening at their own homes for the snow day to be called. Ally kept asking me again and again.
Finally it was called around 6pm and the fun started at 7pm.

The picture above is from a Saturday birthday party. Xela (In the red shirts they are holding up) turned 12 and had a party at a local trampoline park. Lizzie, Daniela, Cata, Colette, Ally, Penelope and Willow were there. I drove home Ally, Lizzie, Daniela, Colette and Willow - and it is in the car they hatched their plan for a sleepover.

They watched a really sad movie, Everything, Everything and they all cried.

In the morning I went to work, Becky made them pancakes, they watched a second movie - a little more upbeat Midnight Sun and then Becky took them sledding. They were all lazy and didn't feel like making the trek to a large hill so they went to the small one right near our house.  And they had a blast.

They all tried to pile onto one sled. That is Ally's very first sled - we used to pull her around the neighborhood on it. Hard green plastic - I think its 10 years old and still going strong.

But it turns out 1 sled doesn't  fit 4 girls

So they used two sleds and held on to each other.

 I think the sheer glee and happiness is clear on all of their faces. They might be firmly tweens at 12 years old but still young enough to have fun on a dinky little hill in the fresh snow with friends.

They took turns burying each other in the snow. Becky took snow motion videos of them each break out of the snow which the girls all loved and Instagrammed.

They even lined up and rolled down the hill. Having fun old school style.

Then it was back home for hot cocoa.

It was a delightful time had by all.

Happy St Patrick's Day

I may not be Irish (and neither is Ally) - but I like a good green bagel when I see one. And Ally loves Shamrocks shakes.
So it was a plain green bagel after gymnastics practice and a Shamrock shake after ballet class.

Level 5 State Meet 2019

Ally had her final meet of the season a few weeks ago.
It was not her highest scoring meet but I have never been so proud of her at a meet before.
It was states, and for states they divide up the girls by age group and schedule the all day meet into sessions based on age group. Ally is the oldest girl on her team so she competed by herself at 8:00am.
She really doesn't like to compete with out her team mates and was really nervous.

 

At home getting ready to go and below - trying to calm her nerves by listening to her play list in the car. 

We've had a lot of talks about the meet - fun is #1, doing her best is #2 and the scores and placement are #3 in priority. 

The thing is its hard to have tons of fun by your self and when you don't score well. So the pressure she was feeling was pretty intense. Add to that she Ally had not done a clean beam routine all season and she was stressed. 

 



































Warming up and marching in all by herself.

Her coach took this picture right before competition started.





















Vault 8.675
Bars 8.625
Beam 7.950
Floor 8.750
All Around 34.00

Her lowest score of the season on the final meet. States is tough here. Its the hardest judging of the year. Ally's coach said meets like this is part of why she gave up gymnastics as a competitor when she was younger - sometimes even if you have the best performance of your life / season. The judges don't agree and your scores are low. It can be frustrating. Ally was so relieved and happy to be done.
This level 5 was the end of what are known as compulsory levels - 3, 4, 5 are required in her track of gymnastics and every girl performs the exact same routine on all 4 apparatus.
Now that states are over she will compete level 6 next year and gets to design her own routines for beam and floor - and pick her own music. She is pretty excited.





















With her coach Vicky above.

Ally placed 6th on Floor was delighted with that one medal. As we left the awards a couple of coaches not affiliated with our gym were talking about a few gymnasts who were crying because of their low scores and lack of awards. They said state judging is extremely difficult and told Ally she should be very proud of her one medal.
She is.

And as soon as she got home she curled up with her kitten.

Middle School Dance

Ally had her second middle school dance tonight. The theme was Red Carpet so the girls all got pretty dressed up and fancy.

The issue we had was that the dance and the theme was announced a week ago and Ally didn’t have a dress. She’s grown since Italy and none of her dresses fit. We had absolutely zero time together over the weekend since I was working at a gymnastics meet all weekend. So Sunday morning I went online at Amazon. I ordered 7 dresses. They arrived Tuesday afternoon when Ally was home with her friend Willow. Ally tried on all of the dresses. Picked one and Willow helped her style it. She wore the dress with shoes and jewelry she already had.  Later that evening Becky and I sent back the 6 rejected dresses back to Amazon. Gotta love free shipping and free returns. 

Getting ready to go.

Posing, I made her show all sides of the dress for Great Aunt Martha.

She was so happy with how she looked. 



Some fun phot editing.

Downstairs ready to finally leave. We had friends over after the dance but all of her close friends had made plans before the dance. So she went by herself.

She is loving natural light for pictures so she agreed to some shots posed in front of the fence. 

Two and a half hours later she was back home with this group of girls:

Maya, Colette, Lizzie, Juli, Catalina, Willow and Ally.

Lizzie has gone home to change before coming to our house. 

They chatted and ate pasta and carrots and ice cream.

And by the time they all left at 10:10 Ally was so tired she could hardly walk. And she has practice tomorrow at 7:00am.

We do feel so grateful that she has so many nice friends.