Level 6 State Championships

What a difference a year makes!  Last year, Kaiya narrowly missed qualifying for the state meet and this year she qualified in every meet and then went on to earn a silver medal on uneven bars.  

The state meet was in Colorado Springs, so Kaiya and I made a weekend of it.  As luck would have it, Kinley had her first basketball game of the season and since her dad is her coach, that ruled them both out as spectators.  I hated missing Kinley's game, but am grateful that each kid had a parent there.   

The state meet was broken into 3 sessions and Kaiya's was the first one on Saturday.  We then stayed and watched her other teammates and enjoyed a night in a very nice hotel with one of her old teammates and her mom, which was such a treat to reconnect with them.  Kaiya's team placed 5th overall, so they were quite pleased because the competition was stiff!

Kaiya started the meet on bars and did a beautiful routine.  It wasn't until the very last rotation that someone beat her score of 8.95, so she earned the silver medal.  She did very well on floor and vault and stumbled a bit on the dreaded beam, but had a good meet overall.  Considering she was in a cast from June until Sept, I am totally in awe of how well she did.  She learned the true meaning of hard work and what it meant to put blood, sweat and tears into something. 

And, now there's no time to waste.  She was told early in the season that it just didn't look like she would be ready to move from Level 6 to Level 7 right away (the seasons are back-to-back).  She cried herself to sleep after hearing that and then had tears many nights to follow.  She then put her tears into action and worked as hard as anyone I've ever seen.  We decided to revisit the issue with her coaches and they couldn't deny her progress.  The answer became "maybe".  So she worked harder.  The answer became "probably".  So she worked even harder . . . to the point that her body ached from head to toe.  And then the answer was "Yes!" and I've never seen anyone so happy.  She is not sure if she will be ready to compete by early January when the season starts, but I wouldn't put it past her at this point.  So proud of this young lady!!