May

May held our last practice as Midwest Explosion.  All the red would soon be gone and be replaced with blue and green!  The kids all sent a balloon off with a goal written on Sharpie. 

School mornings got progressively nicer, and progressively more difficult to show up for!

Sof had teacher appreciation week at school and decided to write a star for her second grade teacher.

Mother’s day came and Sof had my spot all ready for me. 

Em and I were kinda unenthusiastic about the whole day, but decided to let the dads cook dinner for us anyway.  Well, about two martinis later we had such a fun night!  Adrienne was coming home from Chicago and we concocted a plan to scare her.  She hates Natalie’s babies.  Especially the creepy lifelike ones!  So we put one in the cupboard and then I asked her to get me a glass.  I cannot convey the amount of laughter that ensued after.  Except Adrienne.  She was not laughing.  But we were.

Despite my mean trick and laughing, she still gave me a gift.

The obligatory Mother’s day picture.

This is how I find them every morning.

We went and supported Allie at one of her softball games. 

Still working hard at school…

even though it started to feel like summer.

Adrienne came home from school for the summer.  She said one night that she was gaining the freshman 15 now that she’s home. 

Sof had field day at school.  They were able to make their own t-shirts and Sof very humbly called herself Super Sof C. 

This was the first year I was able to help.  Since Sof is in 3rd grade this year it means she goes out in the morning, and I’m not at work!

The girls had cheer try outs.  We go straight from one season to the next!  Sof has been struggling for a couple months with a mental block on her tumbling.  She has slowly stopped throwing some of the skills she has always done.  We’ve done a lot of different things to help her, but the bottom line is that she is moving down a level next year to give her time to regain skills without the stress of having to perform them.  We already see great results and I’m confident she will be a stronger tumbler in the end!

Adrienne went to a wedding on Memorial day weekend.  She looked super cute!

It was actually very warm (which doesn’t always happen in Michigan) the whole weekend!  The subdivision pool opened up and we (Sof) braved the craziness for a dip. 

My friend(and teaching partner) came over with her family so we could put together memory books for our class.  The dads took the kids for the day and treated them to laser tag, bumper cars, trampolines, and arcade.  Then we all had dinner and hung out for the night.  I have not one picture from the night!  The only reason I remembered is because I have a picture of my clean kitchen that I sent to Amy after she left.  It was such a disaster, but cleaned up quick!  I texted it to her and said “It was like you were never here”.  If not for that pic it really would be like they were never there!

We spent a day at the Kaplan pool hanging out with that group of friends.  It’s always a great day there!

The next day we went to the parade.  It’s the first time in 16 years that Adrienne wasn’t dancing!  Luckily we still have Livy to look for! 

We were having such a great summer.  Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window and saw the school bus Monday morning.  Shit.  We’re still in school I guess.

The One

Both girls’ teams got bids to compete in the National Competition “The One” in Orlando.  We had another send off at the gym and the whole family came to watch!

Just the girls and I traveled this time.

We had a couple of days free before competing and they were lovely!  Our first morning there happened to be a Skype morning, so Sof and I snuck down to the pool to talk to our girls.

Sof went ahead and started swimming because it was certainly hot enough!

We spent the whole day by the pool soaking up all the sun we could!

The next day we started at the pool early again, and were able to get in on a game of Bingo!

We did some shopping in the afternoon that day.  There was a great outlet mall and the girls cleaned up at the Lululemon store!

The Lulu outlet also carried some Ivivva stuff for Sof.  I would normally never pay those prices for a kid that grows so fast, but it was pretty cheap there!  Sof thought she was very cool in her “big girl” outfits and took my phone to take a selfie and send it to Adrienne!

All that fun was exhausting!

Finally it was time to actually compete!  Sof was up first!

They had an awesome first day performance!  They scored in the top 4, which qualified them to move on to the next day!  There were some happy girls!

Like usual, Lexi competed late that night.  So back to the convention center for us!  We were able to pass some time waiting in one of the restaurants.

Lexi’s team did fantastic as well!  They hit zero, and also qualified to move on to the next day!

Next day was the same thing all over again!  Sof up first!

There’s no other way to say it, they bombed this performance!  It just was one fall after another.  It was still a huge accomplishment to get to the second day, and as you can see, they had fun!

And then there was Lexi…

Finally, this team nailed it two days in a row!  It earned them the title and rings! 

There was a lot of tears, because not all the girls are coming back next year.

This was an amazing win for our coaches and owners.  This was the last team to compete as “Midwest Explosion”.  From here on out they will be Stingrays.  Exciting, but still bittersweet for these dedicated owners.  To go out with a win like this feels awesome! 

Ring fitting!

With all the hoopla of winning, we barely made it back in time for the uniform retirement!  That means-Jump in the pool with your uniform on!

It was such a fun tradition to be a part of!  Sof swam quite awhile in her uniform!

All week we kept talking about getting ice cream, but never did.  So for our last night we found a yogurt place!

The girls wanted one more late night swim!

When we got back I was packing up a few last things and turned around to see Sof was out!

The next morning it was back to reality.  I thought I was ready to go home, but once at the airport I realized I wasn’t super excited about work and school!

The benefit of being so far behind with blogging is that you already know the outcome of things you did months ago! 

When you get a bid to compete at Nationals there are a few different venues you can go to.  So “The One” actually has 3/4 different locations they hold nationals in.  However, when all the events are finished, the winners from each event go into a virtual competition.  So a new panel of judges reviews the taped performances of all the restricted level 5 winners from each location, and declare one team “The One National Grand Champs”!  Lexi’s team all gathered for lunch to wait for the announcement!

We were so excited to learn that these girls are the grand champs!!

They were sent jackets and everything!

Couldn’t have asked for a better end to the season!