New Orleans and Austin

There are so many wonderful things about being a parent.  Then there are the not so great things about being a parent.  I always thought it was vomit, the bickering, the laundry and those things are pretty bad.  I think two kids in the same sport might be worse.  Emma and Jonah are both competitive gymnasts and rarely do their schedules coincide.  Emma competes mainly in the fall and Jonah's meets are in the winter.  Except this weekend they both had a meet in different states on the same day.  Oh, the joy and I am being really sarcastic.  Initially Emma was not going to compete, but New Orleans is fun.  So, Drew and I decided to split the meets, record the routines, and text each other scores.  Thank goodness for the iPhone. 

Drew, Samuel, and Emma left for New Orleans on Saturday.  Emma competed Sunday morning at 8am.  They arrived in time for a very fun dinner.  Drew introduced them to shrimp po-boys, which they both loved.  Being the party animals they are, they all returned to the hotel and went to bed early.  (I was very proud of Drew for taking all these pictures!)

Emma had a good and bad meet.  For some reason Emma will perform her beam dismount in practice, but not at meets.  Hello, bad score.  She did well on the floor (her best score for floor this year) and vault.  Bars and beam were okay and bad.  Emma had to come to the realization this weekend that she is the athlete who must perform the skills, not her coaches.  She has goals to move to higher levels and so she also realized that if she does not do the dismount upward movement will not happen.  I am hoping this was a good learning experience for her.  Time will tell.   It was hard to watch her cry talking about her routine.  Emma knows she should have done better.  It was a tough lesson for her.

heading to the meet

Two of Emma's teammates and Coach Ashley

Emma with her medal

All was not lost.  Drew treated Samuel and Elena to beignets after the meet.  Samuel liked the "beignet powder".  Emma liked to remind him it was just powdered sugar as only a big sister can. 

Samuel loved the cruise ship

Eating their beignets

While they were enjoying New Orleans, Elena, Jonah, and I drove to Austin on Sunday.  Jonah did not compete until 4pm so it was a LONG day.  Austin is 3 hours away so we left around noon.  We arrived in plenty of time to watch Jonah's level 5 teammates receive their awards and then it was Jonah's turn.

Jonah had a really good meet despite two falls.  On the mushroom Jonah completed his circles and then fell.  It was a little silly.  On the parallel bars Jonah was swinging so beautifully.  I was so amazed and excited for him.  Then when he prepared to do the handstand dismount, he fell hard to the ground.  In mommy time I would have sworn he was on the ground for at least 10 seconds.  However, he actually immediately popped up and saluted the judges.   I am sure this will  be one of many moments of me holding my breathe waiting for him to get up!

Jonah placed 3rd overall on vault in his age group and 7th overall in his age group on floor.  He was so excited to be on the podium. 

7th place floor

3rd place vault

Elena was wonderful at the meet.  I had visions of horrible behavior, but no!  She watched her shows, looked at books, played with her babies, had some snacks, and chatted with me.  Thank goodness!

While the boys were waiting for the awards to begin I managed to capture this sweet moment between Jonah and Coach Bill.  I wish I had been closer so the picture was clearer.  They sat and chatted just like that for 10 minutes.  That is a long time for Jonah!