Spring madness has begun!

The craziness of spring sports has begun.  Last weekend was an especially busy one with a soccer tournament for Drew and big competition for Alison!

Alison’s gym was the host gym for the Derby Classic, which was held at a large sports facility here in Louisville.  The Booster Club funds all of the meets, and all families of competitive gymnasts are expected to volunteer for at least 4 slots at the meet: everything from admissions to timing to set up to decorations.  I was a member of the clerical committee, which entailed stuffing all the coaches packets with the score cards and general information about the meet.  On Friday, I worked admissions for one of the sessions, which this year was all done with electronic tickets and included having everyone scan a QR for contact tracing!!  I enjoyed that session because I was able to meet a couple parents of girls on Alison’s team.  And it involved a lot of chatting.

Alison’s time slot was at 7AM on Saturday morning, so it was an early start.  Brad and Drew had an early start as well; they left about 6:30 to head up to Northern Kentucky for Drew’s first match.  There were about 1200 gymnasts in all levels at this meet, which is definitely the biggest meet so far.  In Alison’s flight were several girls that she competed against earlier in the season, who are a bit older and very good gymnasts.  Alison did very well; the floor judges were especially tough on everyone, but Alison came in 5th in her division and 4th of all the Level 3 Champion gymnasts.  She is unreadable in her emotions of her scores, but I presume she was happy about her score.  Unfortunately, they did not do awards at the event this year because of COVID, although the did set up the awards podium.  This meet was the first one that I had attended where the scores were shown on the a screen, which I liked because it helped me to get to know some of the names of more of the girls on Alison’s team.

I am so thankful for gymnastics for Alison; I think it has helped ease her anxiety and has given her confidence, and she has made some good friends at gym.  At this point, she spends more time with her gymnastics team than with her classmates at school.  She has improved immensely in all of the apparatuses, and continues to amaze me with her determination and work ethic.  When she is not making fidget toys or playing with Archie, she is down in the basement doing gymnastics.  I am so grateful we have the space to allow her to have a bar so she can practice.

Drew’s team lost their first match; they later found out the team they played in the 40th best team in the country which made the 6-0 loss seem not quite so bad.  Drew had a good attitude about the loss, and was a good sport about it, which is all part of the process of playing sports.  They had the afternoon to relax at their “luxurious hotel” (Drew’s opinion); Drew also played with his good buddy Coleman and he and Brad had lunch at Texas Roadhouse.  The evening game was also a loss; however their team was ahead 2-0 at halftime so it was a bit more of a heartbreaker.  Drew played defense, a position of which he is not too keen.

Saturday night, I had my third volunteer slot, which was a timer on the beam.  The beam timer is one of the most nerve wracking jobs I think.  I was responsible for ensuring that each gymnast did not exceed her 1:00 time limit; at 50 seconds, I had to ring a bell and then at the minute mark, I had to ring the bell twice. Thankfully, I only had to do that once because it felt very disruptive when I rang the bell at 50 seconds.  Alison didn’t seem bothered by it, she said when the bell rang for her it was almost always at the same part of her routine, and she had more than enough time to finish her dismount.  It was pretty full-on though; some of the other jobs on the competition floor are not quite as attention-necessary.  I do enjoy watching all the different gymnasts and seeing the coaches at their support of the athletes.

Mom stayed here with the girls, and they had a good time making pancakes for dinner as well as rolos and pretzels.  We played Hearts, when I got home as well.  It was weird sleeping in our bed on my own; Brad definitely has not done much traveling the past 12 months.

The boys got back about 1:30 on Sunday, after Drew’s team was finally able to achieve a victory!  He was in good spirits, and I think he throughly enjoyed playing soccer all weekend and spending time with just Brad.

My final volunteer slot was teardown of the event, which was quite involved and gave me flashbacks on PTA events in England; it was a welcome change to just be a doer rather than being the one in charge.  There was a lot to do, and it took about 3.5 hours; I didn’t get home until nearly midnight.  All of the equipment was rented from a company and had to be loaded into the truck in a very specific way, which I appreciated completely.  The guy who was in charge said that all he does for 20 weeks in a row is load, set up, tear down and reload all this equipment; he knew what he was doing!

Drew had his first match yesterday, and they lost 2-1; however, they have moved up a division so it is expected it will be a bit tougher.  Not always winning is a good lesson in being a good sport.

Alison’s final match, state is this upcoming weekend.  They had some judges come into their practice earlier this week and critique their routines.  She is ready; I am thankful that Brad and I can go together to a meet for the first time since it is Saturday evening!