Gymnastics Runner

Kali was invited to be a runner at the University of Utah's gymnastics meet against Oregon State. A runner sits down on the floor with the judges and when the scores are given, they put them up on the signs and rotate them around for everyone to see. It was such a cool experience for her to be so close to the gymnasts.

When we first arrived at the Huntsman Center to watch the meet, we ran into Swoop. Emma was terrified and didn't want to get anywhere near him.

The meet was a little long for the girls, but they got a few things for free from spinning a Ford advertisment wheel (scarves, bags, chapstick) that kept them entertained.

And when the meet was over, Kali got to go around to all the gymnasts and have them sign a poster for her. It was a pretty cool experience.

Gymnastics Meet

We went to a University of Utah gymnastics meet tonight and had a fun time. Kali gets to be a helper with the scoring during a meet next month so her coach wanted her to come watch a meet to get a feel for what she'll have to do. Unfortunately we were so high up that Kali was having trouble seeing, but it was still fun to go.

Emma had a blast because she spent the entire time walking along the seats. Sadie, on the other hand, was bored out of her mind. She didn't like the fact that she had to just sit there. She wanted to be down on the floor. She was, however, infatuated with the U sign. She wanted to know why everyone kept holding their hands in that position and decided to give it a try. Josh was pretty horrified to see what she was doing. What did he expect when we were at a University of Utah meet?!

And for some reason we always luck out at sporting events and end up near the mascot. The U's red-tailed hawk, Swoop, came up and gave the girls a high five. They were pretty stoked.

Gymnastic Meet

Kali had her first gymnastics meet today and did an amazing job! She was so nervous going into it. She never really got to practice the vault routine in class and only practiced the uneven bar routine twice. We went over the floor routine and beam routine a ton at home and her hard work payed off. Her coach said Kali was the only girl to remember every detail of the floor routine without any help. I only wish she would have chosen to do her beam routine on the lower beam. Her coach let the girls pick for themselves and Kali wanted to challenge herself so she picked the higher more narrow one - always an overachiever!

Beam

Floor

Uneven Bars

Vault

Gymnastics

Kali just loved doing gymnastics and did such an amazing job for her first session. As a matter of fact, she was invited to move up to the next class which is an invitation only class. Her teacher said that it will be hard for her because she is so new to gymnastics but she feels Kali is ready because she's such a quick learner. I really debated what to do because it's so expensive and we were only planning on doing the one session. But after seeing how much Kali loved it and how good she was at it, I decided that if she wanted to do it in place of dance, I would pay for her to do every other session. I talked with her teacher and she said that would be okay but she probably wouldn't progress as fast. I figure it's worth a try for the year and Kali was all for it.

Gymnastics

I finally found a gymnastics class for Kali that's a relatively reasonable price. She has been wanting to do gymnastics every since we watched a U of U gymnastics meet a couple of years ago. The only problem is that most places only do tumbling unless you want to spend a fortune. And tumbling doesn't do the bars and beams which is the reason that Kali wanted to do gymnastics in the first place. I knew she'd be amazing at it because she's such a monkey and has no fear of heights and twisting and tumbling, but it was even better when I saw her at her first class. It was like a light went on in her. They split the girls into two groups based on their cartwheels and she was put in the more experienced group. Since then, she has been asked several times if she has done gymnastics before because of how well she's doing (all the other girls in her group have done gymnastics previously). It'll be fun to see where she's at after the seven week session is over.