A coach's life....

Lots of people (friends included) don't quite grasp the joy that comes with being a coach, being with kids and teenagers every single day and traveling to random places (some better than others) A LOT. I thought I would take the opportunity to point out why I love this so much at this point in my life.....

1. The girls are hilarious.
2. I have the opportunity to watch them grow up right before my eyes and possibly have an impact on them.
3. I get to see improvements every single day....whether its gymnastics, school, or life in general
4. I see a side of them that most of their friends don't even see
5. I get to help shape their future....either by helping them do gymnastics in college or by teaching them basic fundamentals of life that they will find themselves using on a regular basis as adults.
6. I get to be a role model of sorts for some of the girls and a shoulder they can always lean on no matter what is bothering them.
7. I get just as nervous as they do before competition and like I tell them, it shows that I care about them and what they are doing
8. I see a little bit of myself in every girl.
9. I get to share my passion for gymnastics.
10. I get to share my passion for being a good person and how being committed to gymnastics (or any other sport) helps shape that.
11. I get to travel to little po-dunk towns and big cities (or countries!) almost every other weekend from January to May.
12. The girls get to travel to the same places and what a wonderful experience that is as a child.

This weekend the Level 5's - 10's competed in their state meet. This is the biggest meet of the year for the Level 5's and a stepping stone to Regionals and Nationals for the other levels. Our girls did AWESOME. In all, I think we came home with 92 medals. 22 of those were gold medals! Our Level 10's also won 1st place as a team. Now, to let everyone know before they find out on their own.....the Level 10's didn't have any other teams to compete against. It takes 3 people to make a team and we are the ONLY gym in the state that could manage to put a Level 10 team together. I will also add that not only do we have 3, but we have 6 level 10's. And they are all teenagers, which makes the committment even harder. We are so proud of their dedication, perserverance and of course their committment to the sport at this very high level. There are a total of 18 level 10's in the state of SC and we have 6 of them on one team.

Level 5 - Cassey, ME, CC (Cecilia)

Level 5 - Angel, Savanah, China, Aneesah

Level 7 - Winning 3rd place as a team

Levels 9 & 10 - Waiting for awards to begin

Level 8 - Olivia, Marla, Ana



Our gold medalist from this weekend are as follows:
China James (Level 5) Vault Champion (8.975)
Marci Hogue (Level 7) Vault Champion (9.525)
Hannah McKinney (Level 7) Floor Champion (9.450)
Brittany Smith (Level 7) All Around Champion (37.100)
Casey Pyatte (Level 7) Vault Champion (9.450), Floor Champion (9.350), All Around Champion (36.175)
Madison Knight (Level 7) Beam Champion (9.350)
Marla Thomas (Level 8) Beam Champion (9.225) All Around Champion (36.025)
Olivia McKinney (Level 8) Beam Champion (9.250) All Around Champion (36.875)
Faith Burns (Level 9) Beam Champion (8.925)
Nicki Bindewald (Level 10) Vault Champion (9.375), Bars Champion (9.300), Floor Champion (9.400), All Around Champion (36.725)
Gilly Hogue (Level 10) Beam Champion (9.425) Floor Champion (9.275) All Around Champion (36.325)
Breanna Gawron (Level 10) Beam Champion (9.275)
Courtney Turner (Level 10) Beam Champion (9.025)

We have 14 gymnasts moving on to Regionals this year.....
Level 7 - Brittany Smith, Hannah McKinney & Madison Knight
Level 8 - Olivia McKinney (regional team), Marla Thomas & Ana Smith
Level 9 - Faith Burns & Brianna Graves (Monkey)
Level 10 - Nicki Bindewald, Gilly Hogue, Courtney Turner, Breanna (Breezie) Gawron, Emily Fisher & Hannah Owens

Level 9 & 10 Regionals will be in Nashville, TN April 16-19
Level 7 & 8 Regionals will be in Atlanta April 24-26

Wish the girls lots of luck! The Level 9's & 10's have the opportunity to qualify to nationals at their regional competition.

Fit for a Queen

The Queen City, that is. This past weekend, the gym girls had their state meet in Rock Hill, SC.....so of course, I made my way to Charlotte to see my neice, Liza, Jennifer & Soo Soo. I left gym Friday and drove into Charlotte (I would like to insert here how incredibly frustrating the Monroe - Matthews drive on 74 is!). Anyways, Liza is growing up fast and is SO smart. I had fun hanging out with them, catching up and watching Liza entertain us. Shortly after Liza went to bed, I drove down to Rock Hill because we had a FULL two days of competition.



After the competition on Sunday, I had made arrangements to spend another night in the Charlotte area and went over to Beth's house. Joy also went over there to watch the Carolina game and they grilled out and waited for me to get there (God bless them, they didn't have to wait!). I was SO ready to get there and relax and catch up with the girls and Beth's parents. We had a great time eating with everyone (Joy, Beth, Michael, Tom, Karen & Aunt Mag) and they even had an ice cream cake with "Happy Birthday Becca" on it for dessert! I was so suprised but it was SO good. And one more thanks for Michael for the "last minute" pick up. :) We chatted for a while before everyone heading off to bed (they had to work really early the next morning while I slept in). I was pleasantly suprised in the middle of the night by Mya (Beth's dog) opening my door and joining me in my bed. She is so sweet and such a little cuddler. I was even more suprised when I woke up and went to the bathroom and Beth was home! She was in workshops all day and the second one got canceled so we got to do breakfast together! It was a long drive home (partly because I was tired, but also b/c its just long) but I was so happy to get to see Joy & Beth (and family) while I was in the area. Hopefully they will take me up on my offer to visit me at the beach this spring/summer!

Oooh, Oooh, Pick ME!

And I did....Maddie has been BEGGING to get her haircut ever since Jackson's high and tight military shave. She was a little jealous of the quality time Jackson and I had for those hours I was trimming his bod. SO, today, I picked her. We drove out to the farm to take the pups their treats and I managed to cut Maddie's hair out there. She looks precious as always and MUCH better than Jackson. I used a 7F blade instead of the 10F and it worked way better. She was a good little girl for the most part except when trying to trim her toes and when I got a little too close to her womanhood. No harm with my trusty "professional" clippers but she doesn't like the buzzing noise, especially when I get near sensitive areas. BUT, she did great and although she looks like a baby, she's precious. Oh the things we do to save some pennies. Can you imagine if we had children......"come on now, lil fort.....sit really still while I try to shave around your ear." Funny thing is, that wouldn't be too far out of the question.....and if you don't believe ME, ask Matt about Dad cutting his hair. His ear was never the same......

What a man....

I have to take a moment to brag on how wonderful David is. It isn't often that I tell him but he mentioned today how he has earned lots of "husband points" this weekend. I laughed at him for saying it (as usual), but in all honesty, he really did take his weekend and did whatever I wanted him to. I already mentioned the Comedy Cabana which was lots of fun.....Louie, Janice, Danny, Sue, Bobby & Steven Warbutton, Bobby's girlfriend Tara, Suki and his wife came out with us. Our buddy Charlie and his girlfriend Alicia also met us out there and luckily there was room to add them to our reservation so we could all sit together. Good times. Saturday we woke up and hit the farm. After that, we came back and I was really wanting to ride to Charleston to ask some major questions to the Apple guru's about purchasing a MacBook. Of course we could have called but I need little/no reason to drive to Charleston and love every second of it. So we did! We stayed downtown about an hour then came on back to the beach. On the way back, we would pull off on any side road to just to see where it would lead. We learned a lot about what is off of Hwy 17 between Charleston and Georgetown. We found the OLD Episcopal Church that Lindsay W and Britt stumbled across (with the ridiculously old tombstone...ie...1700's).


So we were walking around the church grounds (which is spooky in itself) and I decided to see if we could get IN the church. I pulled on the latch on the door and the dang thing opened. I wish I could have taken a picture of David's face when the door started creaking open. Priceless. So we went in the church (a couple feet in the church) before deciding that was really creepy.


We didn't get to do any of the state parks/plantations b/c they were all closed but that is in the works for our next trip to Charleston. We drove on up to Myrtle to eat dinner at Liberty Taproom and came home to crash. Result of the trip.....I want a MacBook. Perhaps the Birthday Fairy will deliver. :) So, many thanks to David for entertaining my desire to go to charleston and using a new computer as the excuse. AND for not complaining when I took every interesting turn OFF the highway on our way back home. A 2 hour trip turned into 4. Nice.

So now it is Sunday and let me run through this day for you. Slept late, ate breakfast and I decided that since I could see dog hair on our now-carpet-less steps, that I needed to clean. So i pulled out the swiffer to take care of the now-wooden steps (yes, we removed the carpet from the stairs) and started swiffering away in places that our vacuum can't get to (under the bed, etc). No sooner than I got done with the steps, David had pulled out the big vacuum and started vacuuming all that I wasn't doing! What a man! Then we parted and I ran errands (stories from that later) and he went to the farm. When I got back home he had brought the trailer home (like I hinted we needed to do) to clean out the flower beds in front of the house. SO we raked, piled and dumped TONS of old leaves, weeds, dirt, the occasional dog poop, etc into the trailer so we could get started on having a decent looking yard (I must insert here that I REALLY want Julie James to come over and give me a clue). Then we started on project that turned out to be MUCH harder than I thought. This is where the "other stories" comes in......

So on my errands, I decided that the dogs needed to be groomed (ie- CUT). Everytime I go to Petsmart to get them cut and washed, it cost me over $100. Yeah, makes you sick, huh? Well, since I'm slightly OCD and really don't like a dirty house, the sight of dog hair makes my skin crawl. Why I have a dog (or 6), I don't know, but seriously, the shedding and hair makes me crazy. So what better way to cut down on the hair? Cut the damn hair! However, today, I didn't have the dogs with me so I bought CLIPPERS. Yes, I was going to take on the daunting task of cutting my own dog's hair. All I can say is POOR JACKSON. He was such a trooper and let me tell you.....I sucked. And I will never take for granted what a professional groomer does. Jackson looks okay now (from far away) but I was beginning to think that we were going to be making a trip to Petsmart tomorrow morning for them to make my dog look somewhat normal. David was actually better at it than I was (crazy I know). He wasn't uncomfortable with the clippers and could get a smoother finish. Me, on the other hand, VERY uncomfortable using clippers and therefore left Jackson looking like a mountain range on a textured map. He has SO much hair and its very thick....so when we were cleaning up the shop, I realized that I had dog hair in places that I didn't even know existed on me! Needless to say, the clippers are a work in progress and Maddie's haircut will happen at a later date. Enjoy the pics and just know that this was a first for us and all in all, it ain't that bad! Atleast Jackson is a dog and can handle the embarrassment....I'm totally blaming the bad haircut on his groomer when someone asks me what happened to him....."His groomer must have been hungover or something..." Hehehe. I told David I was going to buy him (Jax) some clothes and David said no. However, if I shaved David's head like I shaved my dogs, David would surely be wearing a hat....all the time. Anyways, laugh it up and have a good time....just know that hair grows back (that thought is the only reason I slept last night). Toodles.....

Three girls & a boy.....a BIG boy

So I haven't been around very much (or doing anything too terribly interesting) to blog about but this weekend, I finally got to go see my precious dogs. Yes, I used to refer to them as puppies and although they still act very much like puppies, they have GROWN so much and Hank is a BIG BOY. I had the luxury of having the weekend off this weekend and David didn't have major plans either! So after a fun night out Friday night with the gym crowd (we went to Comedy Cabana to see Josh Blue...won Last Comic Standing), David and I woke up Saturday and took the dogs to the farm. We took Maddie & Jackson with us so they could run around but most of our time was spent with the hunting dogs. The reason I say 'three girls and a boy' in the title is because Steve's dogs (Hank & Reba's mom and grandma, Sally & Ginger) are currently being housed at the farm with Hank & Reba. SO, there were three girls and a boy to catch up with, love on and feed before leaving. David has done a great job working with the puppies and I can see them starting to really love being obedient. When he whistles, they come to him (most of the time), when he says "Sit", Reba sits....hank, not so much. I really wanted to get a picture with all 6 dogs and us but that was virtually impossible. Getting Hank & Reba to sit still longer than 5 seconds was a feat. At any rate, here are some pics of the growing pups.......

Time Passed with Amazing Grace

This past weekend, I took advantage of having a free day and drove up to Clinton, NC to visit some family. My cousin, Tommy & his family (I think he's gone to Tom as an adult, but that just doesn't roll off my tongue when I see him), were in NC for three weeks and I finally got to see them. Tommy lived in Okinawa, Japan for 8 years and more recently in San Angelo, TX for 3-4 years. His wife Kozue, son Kaine and daughter Maya will live in Okinawa for another 3-4 years before coming back to the states. It was a great time catching up with them, really meeting their kids and hanging out with them and also getting to see Ann, Ray, Granddaddy and my parents. David was sick so he didn't join me but he was missed. Travel plans to Okinawa are in the works over the next 3 years so if anyone is up for a long trip, let me know! Also, I was very pleased to watch Maya (who is 21 months), climb, bend, jump, flip and fall all over the place without a teardrop. She is so flexible and strong and will make a great gymnast!! Time flies and I know we'll see them again before too long but I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with anyone in my family who I don't get to see very often. Until next time.....

Quail Hunt

Saturday we went to the farm to work Sally & Ginger (Steve's hunting dogs) and see Hank & Reba. The puppies have grown so much!! They are as cute as ever though! Enjoy the pictures by clicking on the title!

Becca & Talley take on Charleston.....

And all we really got was a lot of pictures of Hadley Tate....sore hips from all our walks....belly-aching laughs at Talley's old emails.....desperate searches for Prunchetta.....political and religious conversations amongst 3 girls drinking wine, one of which works in politics.....good talks to catch up on three totally different lives....poopy diapers.....middle-of-the-night wake up cries.....great food.....catching up with Laura Hart and her new life in Charleston.....watching Lauren entertain Hadley and being so happy that Hadley is constantly amused by her mother.....and the list goes on. One & a half days in Charleston is never enough but this trip was well worth it. I always love going there and seeing Klug & Hads, but to catch Talley and Laura Hart made it even more special. Not to mention the fact that although we've known each other 10 years and we are 4-5 years removed from our college days, we can reconnect like no time has passed. Good friendships are a lovely thing......So, par for the course, I took a lot of pictures, but mainly of Hadley....So I condensed them into a collage.

Snow....for the second time!

It snowed again this morning and for the life of me, I can't remember the last time it snowed twice in one winter at the beach. The first snow (a few weeks ago) was definitely bigger with more accumulation but this morning we had huge snowflakes that stuck to our decks and our yard. I think David used all the milk this morning so I decided to venture out for a bagel and a coffee and packed up the dogs for the ride. On the way to eat, they told me they wanted to stop by the beach to see if the snow was sticking on the sand and perhaps play in it. Lucky for them I packed the leashes and we made our way to Cherry Grove Inlet. Jackson & Maddie (our only 4-legged residents at this point) had a ball playing in the sand (not much snow on the shore) and came home with a light layer of sand all over them. It was FREEZING out on the beach as the wind was whipping like crazy. It took a while for my buns to thaw out. During the first snow the little puppies were still here but for this one they were out at their palace at the farm. David built them great dog houses (with 2 rooms!) so they were (hopefully) curled up in their houses and toasty for today's snowfall. Jackson & Maddie are loving the new puppy accomodations mainly because they get their house and yard back. Things around here are pretty normal for us. I'm gone every other weekend for meets and David is here and there with work and play. He went to Arkansas two weeks ago and had a great time with Curry (bro in law) and some of Curry's friends. On my weekends off, I tend to get involved in projects and my most recent project includes re-doing a bedroom. I painted the walls and replaced the bedding and had fun doing it. I also went to a class at Pottery Barn and got a discount on everything for the day and came home with some great pillows, pillow covers and lampshades. It adds some color and a needed update to our living room. I guess my life really isn't that exciting since I'm talking about lampshades and pillow covers but no news is good news in my life......

Before I get to posting pictures, I wanted to touch on Louie's (my boss) newest dream....and I wouldn't mind being a part of it.....its this property in the Bahamas that is for sale. It appraised over 1 million dollars but because the seller is very anxious to get rid of it, he's selling it for $800K (give or take). Its in the Abacos and on Lubbers Quarters. It looks awesome and we want to go visit it. We found a youtube video of ANOTHER property on Lubbers Quarters and these folks probably did exactly what Louie dreams of doing (living on the island, fixing up the accomodations and renting it out to vacationers).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwq3h1RD2fk

Check it out....and while its 30 degrees outside, imagine waking up to this....

okay, now for the pictures....enjoy!

The Odd Couple

This is one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. yes, I'm an animal lover but we should all learn from this.......
Watch CBS Videos Online

Growing like weeds....

Oh how times are a-changin'! This post was originally to update all the faithful readers on the "puppies" that are soon to lose that title. HOWEVER, upon signing in to dear old Blogger, I noticed Carly and Matt (sis-in-law & brother) updated their page with the exciting news that they are having a BOY in July. Carly went for her 14-week appointment and sure enough, the little guy was cooperative and showed his stuff for a nearly certain assumption that it is in fact a boy. That excites me beyond belief because A. I knew they wanted and were trying to have a boy and B. this will be a very entertaining 6 more months of the name game. Truly, these two aren't even in the same solar system when it comes to boys names. Perhaps its the blood relation or perhaps its the simple fact that matt and i have remained good friends through sibling-hood, but we are typically on the same page with baby names. We talked about names we did and didn't like for as long as I can remember. Family names are always great and Matt has had a strange liking for typical "western" names.(I use 'strange' because he's not very western...aka - wyatt). Now that its the "real thing" and he's discussing potential names with his wife and mother of his child, its probably a lot harder than when you are 24-28 and talking about it with your sister. Recently when I ask about any common names, I get a response of "uh, no." I can only imagine how exciting it would be to find out that you are having a boy only to sit down and list 100 names of which neither can agree on. I will love anything they pick and can't wait to get to know the little nugget regardless of what his name is! AND, it should be noted that regardless of what his legal name will be, I'm sure he'll generate a nickname or two before its all said and done. I'm thinking Peanut or Catfish.....Catfish Raynor. That doesn't have a bad ring, does it? Anyways, we are so excited and cannot wait for them to live in Chapel Hill so I can see the whole family more often!

So now I will get back to MY babies...Hank & Reba. They are 4.5 months old and continue to grow, much to my dismay. There is something ridiculously cute about little puppies and although these dogs take the cake on being cute, they are getting bigger. Therefore, the cute puppy antics are not quite as easy to deal with (ie- jumping up). I got a nice paw-in-the-face yesterday when Hank wanted to give me a hug. The nature of these dogs is so wonderful and they are so loving and playful, but they haven't mastered the obedience training just yet. They are getting better at "Here," "Sit," and "Kennel" though. Anyways, I got a new lense for my camera from Santa Claus and decided to play with it using the dogs as subjects. Click on the title of the post to link to the album on picasa but a couple of shots for instant gratification are below.

Life is good in Mexico

We just returned from our annual Team Gymnastics trip and this year we chose Cancun, Mexico. It was quite a good choice considering we had perfect weather, great activities, ocean front condos for $100 per night and wonderful people to travel with. I organized this trip and all the stress that went into that was worth it. The girls had a great time, as did our staff and parents that joined us. We ended up taking 13 of our optional team girls ranging in age from 11-17. There were three coaches (Louie, Sue and me), Janice, Mary Ann, Ricky, Jackie & Ryan. When we flew in to Cancun we immediately put on our bathing suits and walked to find a place to eat. There are so many all-inclusives that we ended up at this local fish hut (literally a hut) that definitely doesnt have any kind of sanitation inspection. I'm not saying it was dirty, but it was authentic. The food was amazing, however.

After that we went back to the hotel and down to the beach. The water was pretty rough and there was actually someone who drowned the week before b/c of a rip current. We fully explained how to get out of a rip tide to the girls and anytime they wanted to go in the ocean, they had to be with an adult. We stayed out as long as we could stand (it got chilly in the water when the sun went down) and made our way back up the rooms and my roof-top terrace for pizza. Some of the adults braved the unknown bus system (which turned out to be amazing) and went to the store. A few people ventured all the way out to Walmart but Mary Ann and I were not interested due to time and wanting to get back to feed the kids pizza.



We bought plenty of breakfast and lunch foods for the girls so we wouldn't have to go out for every meal. After dinner, the girls had free time in our section of the hotel (there were leftover NYE celebrations this night so we decided not to let the girls roam). They had to stay in groups of atleast three and luckily all of our rooms were very close to each other. Friday morning, we woke up early and met for practice. Took the bus over to the gym and worked out for a couple of hours. After that, we came back to the hotel, did the beach/pool thing again before heading back to the gym for the college competition. We got to see UNC, Michigan, Boise State and LSU compete in each of their first meets. After that we all went to Margaritaville (duh) for dinner. We got the girls on stage to teach all the waiters their Cotton-Eyed Joe dance.

We shopped a little bit after that before coming on back.

Saturday morning the coaches took the Level 7's and 8's to the meet and the upper levels girls met us there later. The Level 7's all placed on something and the Level 8's rocked by winning 1st, 2nd & 3rd all-around and the team competition.

That afternoon we did more beach/pool time before heading back to the gym for the Level 9 & 10 competition.


Everyone in those levels came home with medals as well! We were very proud of how the girls did this early in the season.



That night, the parents stayed at the hotel with the girls while the coaches/staff got a chance to go out in Cancun. We were supposed to meet some other coaches at a restaurant/bar but it ended up being closed and since no one had good cell phone service, we couldn't find them. We ended up at Senor Frogs with every other college age student there. We actually had a great time....our waiter, Ury, was awesome.

Sunday morning, we woke up and gave the girls a chance to have some free time before heading on our adventure to Selvatica (meaning "Citizen of the Jungle"). At Selvatica, our guides (who were amazing) led us on a 2-mile zip line course with about 12 different lines. Most everyone got the chance to go upside down which was a lot of fun. After that, we (us and our guides) loaded onto mountain bikes to ride to a cenote (sink hole). They had a zipline, a cliff jump and ropes to hang onto in the cenote. It was a pretty cool sight and the kids all had a good time. Poor Ana did a back tuck off the cliff and over-rotated it straight to her back. Luckily she was fine but she was not without a lot of pain for a couple days. After our time at the cenote, we biked back to Selvatica for a great lunch of chicken fajitas, beans and rice. German (pronounced Air-Mon), Alex, David, Carlos and the rest of the guides were amazing to us and made the trip to Selvatica a wonderful experience. I highly recommend it for anyone of any age.





After that, we got back to the hotel and decided to "pool-crash" the Hilton. Ana's parents were staying there, so we hopped on the bus to the Hilton. Once we got there, we had to strategically walk in the hotel in groups of 4 or 5 and make our way to the pool which was AMAZING. Not quite amazing enough to pay for 9 rooms there but amazing enough to pool-crash. It was 5-acres of connected pools and hot tubs, beach beds, hammocks, swim-up bars, etc.




We stayed there through dinner and came on back to Solymar and our condos. Once we got back, we had a Dance-Off. Each room was supposed to make up a dance (they've been working on it for a month) and that night we had a competition. We threw some kinks in the girls plan as we told them they also had to do a "blind dance" (didn't know the music) and they had to pick a solo dancer. It was extremely entertaining and Bree, Gilly & Haley's room won the grand prize. Brittany got an honorable mention for her solo dance.



On Monday, we had to go relunctantly. No one was ready to leave Cancun but after our four hour layover in the Fort Lauderdale airport, we were all ready to be back home. The experience for everyone in Cancun was great. I think we would all go back again in a heartbeat. The place we stayed (Solymar) was great for us. Michelle & Peter Hermick, who I've worked with for 6+ months live right on sight and own a few condos as well as managing a few others. They were there for us whenever we needed them and nothing was over-looked. I highly recommend them and their condos as well. It isn't right in the hustle and bustle area of Cancun which was perfect for us. It is close to everything though! All in all the trip was amazing and I'm already thinking of what to do next year.....New York, Chicago, Vegas, Hawaii anyone?