Wednesday and Thursday were also spent skiing.  

This is what the ride home looks like after three straight days of skiing!  Not to mention that Thursday morning she also had her private gymnastics lesson to fine tune her new floor routine before the next meet on January 5th.

Speaking of gymnastics, there's a change coming next week.  Emily will start practicing with the next level up on Wednesdays and Fridays.  She was invited to join them on Mondays as well, but that is when she has horseback riding.  She will continue competing as a silver for the rest of this season, but since she has all of the skills, the coach wants her to start working on the gold skills.  It's going to be a crazy schedule until the end of February when ski school ends.

Monday - horseback riding 4-5

Tuesday- gymnastics 4-7

Wed - gymnastics 4-7

Thur - night off!

Friday - gymnastics 4-6

Sat - ski school, if no competition

Sun - ski school, if no competition

We'll try it anyway to see how it goes.  She has been so excited to ski and she is thrilled to add another day of gymnastics to her schedule.

Those thank you cards will come... eventually!

Christmas - The Day After

Here's what she chose to do the day after.

Luckily Sun Valley is able to make snow because we really don't have any otherwise!

Christmas

Christmas morning came at 5:45.

Santa left Emily a sack full of new board games, card games, and a jump rope.  Her big gifts from us included a ski season pass and a new Tactical Solutions rifle.  After telling her all fall that with a packed gymnastics schedule she wouldn't be getting a season pass this year, the best word to describe her reaction when she saw it was relief!  The rifle is only one of 40 left handed ones made and will work for the shooting competitions she started last summer.

Grandparents and a family friend gave her legos, and her aunt and uncle gave her Beanboozle with the most awful tasting jelly beans!  She used the gift card from them to buy a lava lamp, and she finally got a mermaid blanket.  The money received is going into the gymnastics fund!

 Another family friend gave her the new hat and new ski socks.

 We spent the entire day sitting at the table playing games.  Clue became her new favorite, as well as this gymnastics game.

She thought it was a fabulous day!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent at Sun Valley Lodge.  It started off with an ice show, followed by a torch parade down Dollar Mountain, and the evening ended with a fireworks show.

The Final Countdown to Christmas

This past week went by quickly, but the highlights to the week for Emily would be getting together with friends to decorate sugar cookies, her Christmas party with her gymnastics team, and seeing Star Wars.  Most of the week was spent playing several rounds of SkipBo.

The other excitement came from waking up (early as always) to see what mischief Elfie was into.  Yesterday Elfie was in a jar so that she could be safely carried around.  The day before that she left skittles on a plate with directions to add hot water. 

This morning Emily started watching the Norad Santa Tracker before 6 AM.  We stayed indoors and played many more rounds of cards while Christmas treats baked.  However, we cheated on Santa's cookies this year!  Emily wanted the Ugly Sweater Cookie decorating set from Trader Joe's.  

Christmas Classic In Sun Valley

Today was a meet hosted by Emily's team!

Emily is third from the right with her silver team.  The
bronze team are in the other line. 

So last night the team girls got to hang out at the gym while the parents were at the high school unloading a truck full of equipment.  I left after three hours and all we had was the floor assembled!  But it was already after 8 and Emily was competing in the first session this morning.

First was the floor event.  And after scoring low in this event for the last two meets, she scored an 8.950 and won third place.

Then it was over to vault and she got an 8.8 and didn't place.

warm ups

Next was bars and during her first warm up, her palm tore and she missed the rest of the timed period.    She had a rough dismount but still scored a 9.0.

Last was beam and she took first place with a 9.55.  She was fifth overall.

 But the highlight of her day was handing out awards to the upper level girls!

Traditions

Slowly we are getting through the Christmas to do list! 

This year's gingerbread house. 

 And this year's Nadia ornament.

And one more handprint on the tree skirt!

Santa

On the 9th we went to Sun Valley to see Santa, decorate a gingerbread cookie, and participate in the scavenger hunt around the village.

Teddy Bear Meet

Last Friday Emily and I headed to Boise for her first big meet of the season - The Teddy Bear Meet.
At the end of the day she was third in vault and fourth on the beam.  She didn't score in bars, floor, or all around so it was a tough day for her.  Actually tough is an understatement. She was devastated.  But there is a plan.  Her floor score was the lowest, so over winter break she will start over with a new song and a new routine.  And with this plan she was happy.  These photos are from warm ups.

vault

beam

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Maybe it was being gone for Thanksgiving.
Maybe it is the fact we don't have snow on the ground right now.
But it has been a little hard to get in the mindset of Christmas!

But on Saturday after open gym, we finally decorated the house.  And on Sunday we went and got the tree.  Then Emily and I joined up with friends to shop at the holiday bazaar and got a start on Christmas shopping.  While we were there, Santa happened to stop by.  She didn't tell him what she wanted, however, because she still doesn't know.  She'll get another chance this coming Saturday.  

Homeward Bound

We left Friday morning for home.  This time The Adventuredome in Vegas was open so we stopped for a couple hours so Emily could ride.  She had a great time, and then slept most of the way to Salt Lake where we stopped for the night.  All of us were happy to be home (and out of the car) on Saturday afternoon!

California, part 3

Our reason for our California visit was to see Marjorie, but there was other stuff to be done as well!
Emily was able to go flying again with Roger.

And rock climbing at Hangar 18.

And Thanksgiving was spent with great friends, most we haven't seen in at least 10 years.  Emily enjoyed playing with the other kids while Aaron and myself got caught up on all the latest news.