January 2020 Recap

Please scroll back thru January as I have made some additional posts for the month.
This is a summary post.

Taking Selfies is a as always a thing. And Ally is getting resistant to me taking pictures of her - it only took 13 years so I've started taking pictures off her phone and social media!

The 3 pictures above are from school. They staged these pictures in the morning before school. 

Clearly she has some silly friends. Luis is the boy giving the picture his middle fingers. He has been a nemesis of Ally for several years now. But finally in 7th grade he is getting more tolerable. 

 Saturday morning sunrise on the way to 7AM gymnastics practice.

Ally and I took Kavi to a college gymnastics meet and met up with Eliana and Dahlia at the meet. It was a fun way to spend a Saturday night and its really fun how these girls like to spend time together in and out of the gym.

The largest donut we have ever seen.

A quick before school picture to show off some earrings that her friend Carly made. 

The 7th grade concert happened. Ally was in the second row so I could not see her. I saw her arm moving as the music played so I guess she did alright. 

Proof that she was there!

Pet pictures are always fun.

And in some news. Ally has a new boyfriend. His name is Max. That picture was taken off Tik Tok. They started spending time together in the Bahamas. He competes for the boys team at the same gym as Ally.

Below - after practice I took them to Shake Shack to eat and hang out. That is them walking into the restaurant.

Typically they text daily - and hang out for a couple of hours on the weekend. Boys are an adjustment for Becky and me and we are trying to give Ally the space to mature and grow up. But sometimes we miss little Ally.

Little Ally - from 12 years ago. WOW how did time fly by so quickly.

Still love her just as much and I am still so very lucky I get to be her mommy.

Manhattan Classic Day 3 in NYC

Actually it was just the morning in NYC but we packed in a couple hours of fun.

A family selfie before the adventures started. 

We took an Uber to Rockefeller Plaza. We had planned on checking out FAO Schwartz but it was not open even though online it said it was. So we looked at the skaters and I suggested a trip up to the Top of the Rock. The girls enthusiastically agreed.

It was pretty cool we could see all the way to the Statue of Liberty

We stopped at a Milk Bar food truck for hot cocoa. It was pretty cold at the top of the Top of the Rock and the girls needed to warm up.

On our walk to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) we saw St Patrick’s Cathedral!

And 2 blocks later we were inside MoMA on a quest to see Starty Night by Van Gogh and some of Monet’s Water Lily paintings. 

It was amazing to see this in person. The texture of the paint was incredible. 

We were in a room FULL of Picasso’s and the girls were so tired they just sat for a bit.

In another room was Dancing Women by Matisse. The girls were so embarrassed by the nudity they refused to be photographed with it. Becky had no such qualms. I was surprised at how large it was.

This is a self portrait by Frida Kahlo. She wrote a caption to the painting at the top in Spanish and Ally read it in Spanish and then told me what it meant. 

Finally the Monet Water Lily paintings.

They were HUGE and amazing.

Train ride back to Boston.

Ally before school on Monday. In her new high top Nike sneakers and new black Nike hoodie. Gotta love 13 year old fashion.

It was a great weekend.

Manhattan Classic Day 2

Competition Day! Ally's Meet time was 11:20 so we had a leisurely morning. Breakfast from room service, the girls watched Sesame Street, and we all got ready to go.

I took the picture above off Ally’s Instagram page. Because the picture the below is so typical of 13.





All lined up with teammates. The last 2 years Ally was the tallest. I kept telling her to wait. Now she is 3rd and soon she will be 4th and then 5th. But what a great team:

Katherine, Stella, Ally, Eliana, Dahlia, Autumn, Mia and Mari

I always love when they stand like this for the National Anthem. The meet had a singer who actually sand The Star Spangled Banner live.

The woman in the red sweatshirt is Svetlana Boginskaya. She is a former USSR and Ukrainian Olympic gymnast. She is friends with the owners and some of the coaches at Ally’s gym.

Ally had a good meet. She had her best scores all season on Floor 9.2, Balance Beam 8.25 and vault 8.825 and on bars she did a different routine than the other meets with a HUGE skill but did not score as well as she usually does because she replaced a basic skill with the big skill so her start value was lower. It was an error in coaching and one of her other teammates had the same issue. So her bars score was 8.6 Ally was disappointed because if her coach had known better Ally would have done both skills and scored higher. But mistakes happen. And she was proud of doing the skill. She got a medal for bars. 

After the meet it was back to the hotel to shower and rest before an early dinner and shopping in Times Square.

It is a tradition to take her picture at the Foot Locker’s athlete height chart. 

Without shoes Ally is still not yet 5’ but she was happy to appear taller than Gabby Douglas!

Ally used her Christmas money from Grandpa Frank for a new pair of sneakers. She loves them.

Then at Champs the girls started Tik Toking in new sweatshirts. 

Becky went back to the hotel to unload the bags while the girls and I walked thru Times Square.

People cheered and clapped for Ally’s handstand.

Tik Toking in Times Square!

After a successful stop at Sephora. Where Ally spent her gift card from Great Aunt Martha and Uncle Phil, they all collapsed at American Eagle. Ally used her Christmas gift card from her cousins there.  But it was exhausting all this shopping after the meet!

On the way back to the hotel Colette saw Elmo. She so wanted a picture with Elmo and was incredulous when I explained it was a racket and we had to pay for it. But I did give the guy $5.00 and they got their picture with Elmo! Which they thought was so fun since they watched Sesame Street with Elmo that morning.

It’s now a tradition to stop and get a picture with the giant stuffed bear.

And one last look at that Times Square Handstand.