McKenzie had her first level 3 meet this weekend, and as a bonus it was a travel meet! We drove up to Steamboat Springs and stayed in the same hotel as a lot of her teammates. I was having all sorts of flashbacks to my swim meets. We arrived really late so we didn't realize just how many gymnasts were up at the hotel with us until morning. I started the day with a gorgeous sunrise run with Lena, Evelyn's mom (we used to run club together). Then it was gymnastics all day.
At breakfast we were surrounded by girls with their hair braided and up in buns. I had a chance to talk with some of the moms a bit, and learned that I need to officially get a "gymnastics mom" T-shirt. Back in the room we did McKenzie's hair up in it's sparkly bun and Anabelle came over so I could braid her hair too. She has a lot more hair than McKenzie but it was a lot of fun having the girls there.
Her new team ready to go!
At the meet I wasn't really sure what to expect the differences from silver to level 3 to be. I expected the judging to be a little tougher, and I expected to see more complicated skills.
McKenzie's first event was the beam. A lot of the girls on her team were falling off and I was afraid that it was going to mess with McKenzie's mind. She didn't let it. When she got up there and nailed her routine I was really proud of her. The beam just makes me so nervous! I was shocked when her score popped up as a 7.0. I tried to let it roll off, and we later learned that the judge-for lack of a better description-wasn't quite awake yet. Her scores were really inconsistent and didn't make sense at all. We were really happy when on her floor routine next McKenzie pulled off a 9.0! Her smile was all over her face and I could see her blushing. The rest of the meet went like like. She had a 8.9 on vault, and a 8.25 on bars. She has learned a lot of new skills in the three short months she's been on this team. She competed all her new skills, including her round-off back handspring on floor, and did amazing. Even with the really goofy beam judging she still took 4th overall! I have to say that we were pretty happy with her introduction into this new level of competition.
With McKenzie's no candy challenge, we couldn't really get her a candy-gram, but Cambrie made her sister a daisy chain crown. I loved it.
After the awards ceremony we all headed back to the pool where the girls swam and swam. If you've never see gymnasts at an unsupervised pool, it's pretty wild. I'm just glad we had no cracked skulls with all of the flipping going on.
We decided to drive back that night instead of early the next morning. I had some company on those mountain roads.
I can't wait for her next meet because this has been an amazing experience so far watching her grow.
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