Utah Gymnastics Meet

Today is Hailey's birthday and she is SEVEN years old! I blinked and now she's a giant.

Tomorrow we are actually doing her family celebration because today was so busy, so it's like she gets to have a birthday all weekend long!  Tonight we had a girls' night out and went to the Utah Red Rocks gymnastics meet.  It was a four school meet between Southern Utah, West Virginia, Oregon, and Utah.  We didn;t get to ride the train there because it doesn't run on Saturdays, and the girls were pretty disappointed by that.  But we got there plenty early and got super good parking and were there in enough time to enjoy some of the pre-game activties.  There was a clown making animal balloons, the dance team and cheerleaders were running a kid booth with fun stuff, and the food lines were very short.  So we got food, found our seats, and watched the teams warm up.

I knew our Red Rocks were good, but until seeing them against three other teams at once, I didn't realize just HOW GOOD they are.  Amazing!!  The took first place in the meet and it was so fun seeing them do so.  Possibly my favorite part was seeing how the teams really encourage and uplift each other on the team.  Maybe I am just so used to watching football and seeing how guys interact with teammates, but girls are different.  As a girl was doing a routine in the floor, her teammates were there on the sidelines doing HER routine right along with her...as encouragement.  And when a girl would vault, the others would rush to the other end and smother her with hugs, almost before she had even landed!  And when a girl fell, (like one girl on Oregon who fell off a bar and face planted on the mat) and was sobbing before her routine was finished, her teammates rushed to hug and comfort and cry with her.  You just don't see that in football!

We had a blast being together!  Toward the end of the meet the dancers made their way over to our section to mingle with the fans and the girls wanted their picture taken with one of them.

I told Cody that even more than being at the event or activity on our girls' nights, I like the getting there part.  I love the car rides and the conversations and listening to their little jibber jabber about everything they think is important and cool in life.  These are the days!