All Cheered Out

We are home from Indy and we are all cheered out!

Chad and I took all 4 kids to Indianapolis this weekend for the Jamfest Nationals Cheer competition. Both of Leanne's teams were competing, so we thought it would be a nice family weekend. Not so much! Thousands Cheerleaders in one building is not my idea of family fun (there were over 500 teams with between 15 and 35 girls each). I think Justin said it best this weekend when he said "this is the stupidest vacation I have ever been on!" I would not call it stupid, just crowded, noisy and hot. The kids were cranky from the lack of sleep and there was honestly nothing for them to do except argue with each other and watch cheerleading. We all know how much I love cheerleading, but it was even a bit much for me.

We stayed a Mar*iot Res*dence Inn and while the room looked nice I am pretty sure the walls were insulated with toilet paper. It was so loud at night we could not sleep. I am sure the fact that the hotel was over run by teenage girls (more cheerleaders) didn't help. We started our Sunday at 6:15 AM. That was when we turned on the lights. The kids were all up at around 2:20 AM having a "party". At one point we walked in on Justin standing on the bed on top of his pillow "surfing". The other kids though it was hilarious. I threatened them with grounding and losing Ds's among other things for several hours before I gave up and just turned the lights on. We were up so early they were not even serving breakfast at the hotel yet. That is not right!

The rest of the trip was nice. We borrowed my friend Lisa's pink GPS. It was great. At one point however it did start yelling at me:) It was saying "turn right", but it was not giving me the directions until it was to late to make the turn. Finally it started saying "turn right, turn right, turn right...Turn LEFT!!!" It was so funny. I am pretty sure I confused the thing. We finally arrived home around midnight last night and boy was it nice to sleep in my own bed.

I guess I should mention how our teams did. Leanne's youth team finished 11th and her senior team finished 9th. Both teams had great performances. On the second day the youth team had the best performance ever. So even though the girls didn't finish as well as we hoped in the standings.... they did wonderfully. The looked great, had a ton of energy and most of all had fun. We could not have asked them to do better. I am so proud of all of them!

Here are a few pictures of Leanne throwing her back tuck. The second one is her moments after she landed it. She is very proud:)
(These are pics I copied from a website. We bought the CD but it takes 4-6 weeks to receive. I will replace them with the correct ones when I get my CD)



This is what happens when a tuck does not land. The poor girl fell on her face this summer when she was learning her standing back tuck. She broke her thumb and her nose. She faced her fears 4 weeks later by getting back on the mat and perfecting that tuck!