Blues and BBQ 2014

Ok, so I'm late in posting.  The last couple of weeks have been CRAZY!!!  At work I moved to a new office building across town, and we have been busy as ever with gymnastics and cheer practice.  I apologize.

Anyway, Madelyn had her first gymnastics meet, Blues and BBQ, January 10-12.  I'm super glad this was her first meet, as it was local, and River City was the host gym.  All week we tried not to say too much about the competition to Madelyn because we didn't want to make her more nervous than she already would be.  Her coaches had told the girls that a score of 8 or 9 was good, a 7 means they still have work to do and below that wasn't good.  Knowing how hard Madelyn is on herself I was PRAYING she would get at least an 8.0 on each event.

We decided Thursday night that we would let Aubrey miss school as well that Friday so she could go and cheer on her big sister.  We explained to her that the weekend would be all about Madelyn though, and she was fine with that.

Friday morning I woke the girls up at about 7:30 and we had a big breakfast cooked.  Madelyn ate 3 scrambled eggs and some toast, and really didn't seem nervous AT ALL.  I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck.  Madelyn was competing in the second session, which had general stretch at 10:00.  We decided to go ahead and go down to the Cook Convention Center early so she could see the venue and ease some nerves. 

We got downtown and parked by about 8:30.  Madelyn seemed totally calm the whole morning, and was excited when she walked in and saw her teammates.  A friend of mine met us thee and fixed Madelyn's hair and we all just chatted and watched the other girls compete.  My mom, Don, Clint's dad and Kelly all came out to watch Madelyn!  She was so proud to have her supporters there.

Finally at 10:00 her team took to the floor and began to stretch.  My stomach was in knots.  We looked at the rotation schedule, realized her first event would be bars (her favorite!!) and moved close to them to watch.  After stretching, introductions and warmups the competition started.  Madelyn was first to go on bars!  She looked calm as ever, walked up to the bars, saluted the judges and began her routine.  I think I held my breath the whole time.  She did really well, and actually nailed her stride circle, which I've never seen her do before.  I was SO proud!!!  We all cheered for her after her dismount and waited.  I felt like it took 10 minutes for the score to appear - 8.825!!!!  I was PUMPED!!!  Luckily, the girls didn't even notice that the scores were being displayed on a big electronic board behind them.  Madelyn looked happy after her routine and that was all that mattered!!

Unfortunately, I didn't get many good pics of Madelyn on the bars.  I was so nervous, and she moved so fast it just wasn't possible.

We watched the other girls on her team, who all did fabulous!!  Next event up was beam.  Her beam coach told her at practice that if she performed at the meet as she had been doing in practice, she should get at least an 8.8.  Madelyn has always felt very confident on the beam, so I wasn't too nervous. 

The beam was located on the corner of the arena.  I noticed that no parents were standing up front, so I decided to so that I could get a great shot on my camera of Madelyn, who again was up first.  She saluted the judges, mounted the beam, stood up and looked straight at me.  All of a sudden I could see her face go blank.  SHE FORGOT HER ROUTINE!!!!!!!!  I didn't breathe.  Luckily, she handled it like a pro and made some steps, pointed her toes and finally picked up in the routine with very few mistakes.  The coach and I knew she left a decent portion of her routine out, and so did Madelyn.  This was my biggest fear - how she would react when something went wrong.  But she just shrugged her shoulders and went to the bench smiling to watch her teammates.  She scored a 7.50 on beam, which really wasn't bad considering she left a whole section out!!

By the way, I didn't take the pictures :)  They had a photographer there, but he only took pics of the beam and floor routines.  They're great though!!

After beam was the floor exercise.  This is probably Madelyn's weakest event, and after what happened on the beam I was SUPER nervous.  Instead of going first this time, she was the last person on her team to go.  She rocked it!!!  She stayed tight and did really well.  And her scored showed that - 8.75!!!  WOOHOO!

 The last event was vault - which I have always thought of as her strongest event.  When it was her turn, she ran with more power than I've ever seen her run and completely nailed it!!!  I could see her coach was super excited.  She did awesome on her second vault as well.  She scored a 9.2 on vault, giving her an all around score of 34.275.  We were all so incredibly proud of her!!! 

This weekend Aubrey has her first cheer competition on Saturday morning.  As soon as it's over Madelyn and I will leave for Tuscaloosa, AL for the Crimson Classic gymnastics meet.  I'm praying it goes as well or better than her last one!!

Until next time....