Summer recital

Level 3 came and went for Bug, before we knew it she was preparing for level 4. Summer started off with a recital at the gym. Everyone from team participating in the recital would perform on all 4 events, bars and vault were to be the USGA routine for the appropriate level and floor and beam were to be routines made up by the girls using skills from their level. Bug was pretty excited in the fact that she had all of her level 4 skills including the round off back handspring without spots. The weeks before the recital were pretty good weeks for Bug, it seemed that every week she was getting something new that she needed for level 4. Here is the video of the recital: (Sorry for the quality--the sun was bright). Jay and Jen were great with the recital in that everyone received medals for the events that they did, and a trophy at the end. "My first trophy" was Bug's comments.

Salto Invitational

Here are some pictures from Bug's last level 3 meet, Salto Invitational. Again, thanks to Kathleen for the pictures.

Midwest Challenge

Here are some pictures from the Midwest Challenge that Bug competed in, in January of 2008. One of the girl's on the teams mom is a professional photographer, thanks Kathleen.

Trying something new/level 3 meets

I have decided to create this blog to document the journey in the world gymnastics that my daughter "Bug" is on. She started in the sport in August of 2004, at the age of 3, in a preschool class. She stayed in the rec program until Sept of 2006 when she was asked to join the "elite program" at her former gym. Being an "elite" meant that she was in the lowest level of the team pathway. In September of 2007 we followed her best friend to a relatively new gym in town, Air Force Gymnastics Academy http://www.airforcegymnastics.com/. That was the best move that we could have made. She started to compete that year as a level 3, doing three meets. The first was in November at Scamps in Kenosha. She brought home with her a blue ribbon on vault, yellow ribbon on bars, red ribbon on beam, and a yellow on floor. Her comment after the meet was " I was not even scared after I vaulted." Next we moved on to the Midwest Challenge in January, hosted by M&M gymnastics (home of Olympic Silver Medalist and World Champion Chellsie Memmel). Bug and I actually went down to the meet the night before so that we could watch the "big girls" of the gym, and to also get out of town as the Packers were in the Championship game against the Giants. It was a fun weekend. As far as the meet went, Bug received a white on bars (she made her mill circle during the warm-up--first time ever, but missed it in the meet), yellow on beam, blue on floor and blue on vault. Lastly she competed at the Salto Invitational in February. This was the first meet that Dad got to attend. Here she received a white on the bars (still missing that pesty mill circle), red on the beam (with a fall, nice beam judge), blue on floor, and red on vault. Not a bad way to finish off level 3, from this point on it was straight ahead to level 4.