Finally!

I probably had y'all excited at the beginning of the month, right? What, with my two posts in one week! You probably thought I had made a New Year's resolution to get better at blogging. Well, I didn't make that resolution...but, apparently I should have!

I haven't really had anything going on that's been blog worthy over the last few weeks. But, I was at a skating competition yesterday so I FINALLY have something to blog about.

The competition, which was held in Prescott, was the first competition of the year for two of my girls - Hannah and Alyssa. And, due to some changes that Skate Canada made this year, both of these girls had to move up TWO levels this year. They went from competing at the Stage 5 level of CanSkate, to competing at the Pre-Preliminary level of STARSkate - that probably doesn't mean a lot to most of you, but that's a pretty significant jump!

A pre-competition picture, this was taken as the girls waited for their warm-ups. Alyssa is on the left (she just went south on vacation, so her hair is in braids) and Hannah is on the right.
Alyssa was the first to skate, and she had a really good skate - she had fun and was happy with how she did, that's always what I am concerned about. She ended up placing 5th out of 7 - to which she shrugged her shoulders and said 'I'm OK with that'. She's a mature little girl!

Hannah struggled a bit with her skate. She had a rough warm-up - first, she stopped in the middle of her solo, thinking that the warm up was over, and then she took a fall when practicing her grab - those two things threw her right off, and as a result, she forgot the second half of her solo! She was the first to skate in her flight, so when they announced that the warm-up was over, I only had time for a quick pep talk - she was freaking out because she was afraid she was going to forget the whole thing, I told her that once her music came on, everything would come back to her...and then I hoped for the best?!?! She ended up forgetting only a small section, and she was smart enough to put in a jump and do some turns with arm movements - I was really proud of her for that!

As we watched the flights after her, we saw two other girls go out and forget their solos! However, neither of them handled it as well as Hannah - one just quit and skated off; the other stopped, started to cry, skated to her coach, remembered what she was supposed to do, went back out and finished her solo...all while crying! So, Hannah was able to see for herself that she handled the situation VERY well.

But, despite that, she still placed 7th out of 7 :( It breaks my heart, this poor little girl just doesn't have great luck at competitions.

So, it wasn't the greatest competition, but, it's part of skating and I'm still glad to be a part of it with these girls.

And another pre-competition picture - I told them to be goofy, and this is what I got? They're both doing the started position of their solos. I guess they were 'in the zone' and didn't want to be too goofy :)
We have a 'fun' competition coming up in a few weeks, and these two will be doing a similar pairs number together...I will start choreographing that with them later this week, so we'll be able to have some FUN with that. They deserve it!

Just Call Me 'Skip'

Last night was our curling night; due to a little scheduling mishap (meaning a recent change to the schedule that a few people didn't notice) our skip didn't show up for our scheduled game. So, we were down a guy...since you have to alternate players, one of the girls had to be the skip...our other girl, Maria, made it clear that she didn't want to do it, so that left...ME.

I was pretty nervous at first, but the skip from the other team was very helpful. We played this team earlier in the season, so they knew that we were all relatively new to curling and were willing to help us out a bit. So, the first two or three ends, she helped me call the shots and gave me pointers along the way.

Then she realized that Curt really knows what he is doing, so she stepped back and let Curt call the game. Curt made all the decisions, and just told me where to put the broom :)

We all played really well, and managed to keep ourselves in the game. It also helped that their skip wasn't playing as well as she could have been - every time she missed a shot, it was like she was giving us a little gift.

And then, in the last end, we were down by one and I have to throw last rock...Curt tells me to throw take-out weight - if I make the shot he wants me to, we will score three...the pressure is on, right?

So, do you think I cracked?

NOPE, I made the shot! We scored three and won the game 8 to 6!

We were pumped, to say the least!

Our skip showed up after the game (he thought we played the late game), and we gave him the play-by-play. I think he was jealous that he missed it.

Twenty-Twelve!

Happy New Year - so long 2011, it's been great, but here's to 2012 being even better!

Curt and I rang in the New Year with some friends at a small house party this year - there were nine adults and six kids! The friends who hosted are Jane and Brian, and whenever I say their names together it seems weird because those are my parents names! The evening was pretty low key, lots of good food and conversation, and wasn't really all that exciting...until we broke out the game Taboo! ha! I haven't played that game in ages, but it was a lot of fun and we all laughed A LOT!!!

Considering that almost everyone at the party has kids, it was a pretty calm night, and it ended relatively early. Apparently it was too early for Curt, because when we got home he decided to join our neighbours party! I was too tired, so I just stayed at home - but that decision led to drunk phone call from one of the neighbours, wondering where I was and why I hadn't shown up for a drink! :)

So that was Saturday, and Sunday and Monday have been nice relaxing days.

Sunday, we didn't even leave the house!

Today, we went to see the movie 'We Bought a Zoo' - it was a great movie, and I would recommend it to anyone! Be prepared though, it's a tearjerker.

So, it's going to be hard to face reality when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning.

Speaking off the alarm, it will be going off for good now...I received an early Christmas present at work, I am now a permanent employee with the Ministry of Community and Social Services! The hiring process is referred to as a competition, and involves two parts, a written test and an interview - I wrote the test the day before we left for California, and I had my interview two days after we returned. I felt pretty good about both parts, but there were 32 people competing (including five other internal people), so I couldn't be too sure. I was told the good news on December 22nd, and needless to say, it was pretty exciting. No more worrying about whether or not my contract will be renewed!

I guess that shows that 2012 may be even better then 2011!