WSF Louisville 2015

Last weekend was the WSF All Star Cheerleading Competition in Louisville, KY.  This was the largest competition we have been to with Aubrey, and the teams were incredible!!  There were teams from all over the eastern U.S., like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and all the southeastern states.

Aubrey had a mandatory practice in Louisville at 7:00 pm, so my friend Kristie checked her out of school to make sure she was there on time.  Madelyn's gymnastics team was doing a little gift exchange at the start of their practice, so I allowed her to go to that and participate.  I picked Madelyn up at Let It Shine and we got on the road about 5:30.  I've never been to Louisville, but it was a pretty easy drive - only 3 hours and no issues.

We arrived in Louisville at about 9:30 and Aubrey was just finishing up her practice.  By the time we got checked in to the hotel the girls were both starving.  I ordered some room service which didn't come until 11:00, then we went to sleep.

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00, showered then got the girls up and ready.  Our hotel was downtown and several miles from the competition site.  However, the hotel offered free shuttles to the site and we decided that would be better than paying $10 to park.  The girls and I arrived at the convention center about an hour early.  I couldn't believe how large the place was and how many cheerleaders there were!!  For Aubrey's level, Youth 2, there were 13 teams in her division.  They also had another Youth 2 division of an additional 14 teams!!

I'm not going to lie, practice the week before was a disaster, so we didn't have very high hopes going into the competition.  At practice, all of the flyers were struggling to stay in the air and the pyramid just looked like a hot mess!  The girls met with the coaches and went for warm-ups.

When it came time for the team to preform we were BLOWN AWAY!  the girls hit everything and looked better than they ever have!  I think all the parents about lost their voices from screaming and cheering so loudly during that 3 1/2 minute routine.  It was an awesome way to start the competition!!

My friend Kelly was working at the competition, so I offered for her girls, PJ and Abby, to hang out with us all day.  PJ was on Aubrey's team last year, and Abby is on her team this year.  They are an incredibly sweet family and all the girls get along fabulously.  So we all piled on the shuttle bus and headed back to the hotel.

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Lousiville.  Having never visited the city before, I had no idea what to expect so I just booked a room at the host hotel.  When we checked in and opened our curtains, we were overlooking the downtown Christmas tree and a ton of shops and restaurants.  There is an area calle 4th Street Live that was less than a block from our hotel.  The girls and I changed clothes and walked down to the area to find a place for lunch.  We settled on a TGI Fridays, then went back to the hotel and they changed into swimsuits.  The hotel had an indoor heated pool, and they swam and played for almost 2 hours.  We went back to the room, changed clothes and went back down to 4th Street to explore. it was a really nice area near the Christmas tree, with little shops and lots of areas for the kids to play and run.  They even had a Santa set up with free pictures.  The girls all told Santa they want a bid to Summit :)

The view from our hotel room.

Ready to go!!

Always posing!!

Telling Santa about Summit

A treat for these hard-working girls

After playing all day, we walked to dinner at a local Mexican place and then Kelly came to pick up Abby.  I was able to get the girls settled to bed, and we finally went to sleep about 9:00.  It was a fun, exhausting day!!

Sunday morning we woke up early, got dressed and checked out of the hotel.  We drove to the convention center and met the coaches and other parents.  We learned that the girls had gotten zero deductions the day before and were currently in 5th place!!!  We were super thrilled, and the girls went into their day 2 competition with more confidence and excitement than ever!!

Sweet teammates

The girls and I had been saying all day Saturday that we wished Clint was there.  He always tries to go to all the girls competitions, but having just started with Franklin PD this year, he doesn't have enough vacation time to attend everything.  I was walking with a friend Sunday morning at the competition site when she was like, "Look, there's your husband."  I couldn't believe it, but Clint got off work Saturday night, slept a few hours then drove up to Louisville to surprise us!!!  We were all SOO excited to see him!!

Aubrey's team performed even better on Sunday than they had on Saturday!!  They had another day of zero deductions and finished up the competition in 6th place out of 13 teams.  We are so incredibly proud of these girls and how hard they have worked!!  Overall, I would say that Louisville was a HUGE success!