First meet at Chow's

Yesterday was a BIG day in Katherine's life. It was her first meet at Chow's and she couldn't wait to get in the gym and give it her all.

They had the kids broken down into 4 groups that rotated around the gym -- bars, beam, floor and vault. All of the girls in her TAG class were in her group as well as some much older girls on the recreational side that could do similar skills.

Now... the perfectionist in me would have preferred to have the girls all wear the same leotard, like they did at her previous gym. I like the unified look. Katherine liked how "special" it made her feel. However, that's just not the way Chow's does it. They can wear any leotard they want. It's much more relaxed, much more fun really.... It was set up like a real meet -- designed to give the girls a feel for what could lie ahead for them. Each of groups was led around the gym by the girls currently on the competitive team (level 5 - level 10), and then judged.

Now -- I will say this... I have NO idea how the girls were judged. I'm not sure if they were judged based on number of skills completed, how they executed those skills, etc... In any event, at the awards ceremony each girl was given a medal for competing and then a score sheet with the four events listed below. A ribbon was attached for each of the events indicating their place i.e. blue, red, etc, but it was possible for more than one girl to get a blue (or red) ribbon on each event. Any guesses on how our little Katherine did???

4 events, 4 blue ribbons. She was the ONLY one to get all blues. When she went up to the podium to collect her hardware, she was beaming and I didn't think she was ever going to put her hands back down to her side. I was so proud of her!! It was definitely one of those proud Mommy moments.

Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot this..... After the meet was over, the older girls did several tumbling passes to illustrate how the skills progressed. It was incredible to watch.... how the basic moves our girls are perfecting turn into the twisting, flipping, high passes you see in competition. Katherine's eyes were bugging out of her head. It was so great for her to see. Then..... there is a guy who used to train and coach at Chow's (his mother will be one of Katherine's coaches this summer) who is currently training at the men's "Olympic hopeful" gym (I'm not sure what it's called....) in Colorado. He did a demonstration on the rings and then showed off his tumbling passes. Oh. My. Goodness. Incredible. Who knows if he'll make it, but it'd be incredible if he did. Chow's could have kids going to the Olympics in back to back years.

I have a ton of pictures of the big day which I'll upload and edit soon. Matt also got each event on video, so if I figure out how to upload it, I'll post that as well.