Way to go O!

When a tiny pink-faced baby girl is placed in your arms after many, many hours of labor, you are overwhelmed with love, joy, and happiness. A decade later, when that same baby girl sets out to accomplish an amazing goal, and "sticks it" as they say in gymnastics, you once again are overwhelmed with that same sense of love, joy, happiness, and a whole lot of pride, too.

So for today's post, I step up on my soapbox and boast about my one and only daughter, Miss O!

1. Top vault score! In gymnastics, female athletes compete in four events: vault, beam, bars, and floor. During this year's regular competition season, the vault proved to be Miss O's nemesis, causing her a bit of apprehension and anxiety at each meet. With determination, she nailed it at Nationals, scoring 9.300!



2. All-around third place - Level 5/Junior. For her first showing on the National level, this was an awesome accomplishment. All in all, she ranked third in her group of 24 gymnasts, and 11th among 114 gymnasts at her level and age group. All those hours and hours of practice surely paid off!

3. Daddy's girl. Besides me, T is probably Miss O's biggest fan. He is secretary of her team's parent booster club, drives her to and from practice, and cheers the loudest at meets. He coined the phrase, "Way to go O!"



A bouncing baby girl.
An award-winning gymnast.
Two proud parents.
All good things!

1,700+ Gymnasts in the House

Or in this case, Fifth Third Field, home of the Toledo MudHens baseball team!

This post will feature Day 1 of our awesome trip to the YMCA National Gymnastics Meet in Ohio last week where Miss O and seven of her Flyers teammates "Rocked the Gym!"

After about five hours in the car, with just one brief pit stop, we arrived in Toledo just in time to check-in at our hotel, pick-up our meet passes and tickets, eat a quick bite (in the car), and head on over to the line-up for the opening ceremonies.

Here are three highlights from the opening day festivities:

1. The venue: Fifth Third Field. It's located right in the heart of downtown Toledo. The atmosphere was fun and festive with a steel band and the MudHen mascots entertaining the crowd before the spectator gates opened up.

2. The gymnasts: Aside from a torrential downpour during the middle of the march-in, it was awesome to see Miss O, her teammates, and nearly 2,000 gymnasts from 18 states parade into the stadium Olympic-style. (Please excuse the choppy video, and note how Miss O doesn't even notice that we are cheering for her - typical tween!)



3. An inspirational Olympian: 1984 Gold Medal gymnast Peter Vidmar gave an excellent key note address filled with enthusiasm, motivation, and appreciation. One of my favorite parts is when he asked the gymnasts to stand up and applaud their parents because "Mom could be doing something else" instead of driving you to practice.

Afterwards, Peter signed autographs and took photos with the gymnasts including Miss O. Awesome - especially to us as parents who strive to find good role models for our kids.



Three good things from one great day! More highlights of our road trip to come. Stay tuned.

3 Good Things about Daddy!

Today's guest bloggers are Miss O and her little bro A sharing three good things about their daddy, my hubby T.

#1 "I play soccer. Sometimes my dad cheers from the sidelines, and sometimes he helps coach." ~ A






#2 brought to you by Miss O:



#3 "Our daddy always enjoys doing things with us like going to the water park, taking us on vacation, ice skating, and riding bikes." ~ O & A



We love you Daddy!
Happy Father's Day!
XXXOOO

TGIF

It's funny how a four-day week looks inviting on the calendar, but when it's jammed packed with appointments, activities, and obligations, Friday can't come soon enough!

Here are some random good things from this week:

1. Wacky Hair Day! Please note: any similarity of these photos to a police line-up is merely coincidental.



2. Ooohhh, Ahhhh! Ooohhh! My daughter the divine Miss O performed a gymnastics routine to Katy Perry's Firework at her school's talent show. She was THE bomb!




3. One day, I had a root beer, fries,
and this for lunch:

and Brian did not!