KG's Hideaway

... THE TEXAS 4-A STATE HIGH JUMP CHAMPION!!!!

OMG I can NOT express how proud we are of her! She's worked so hard for this and I was really afraid that it wasn't going to happen. It just sort of seemed too much to ask for, and watching her warm up scared the pidoodly out of me. She looked stiff and it was soooooooooooo hot! It was 95degrees out and they estimated it was 107 down on the track. To top that off, they opened the event at 4' 6" What the hell were they thinking?

Ryan didn't enter until 5ft and had no misses until there were only two jumpers left at 5' 8". The silver medalist didn't clear 5' 8" so after Ryan cleared it she went to 5' 10" and cleared it on the first try. Instead of going to 6ft she decided to make an attempt at 5' 11" but her legs were pretty tired at this point. She almost cleared it on the second attempt, but it wasn't meant to be.

Wanna see her jump? This is the winning jump (5' 8" because my hands were shaking on the 5' 10" jump and the camera really shows how bad it was) You might wanna turn down the sound because not only is my accent working overtime, but I scream pretty loudly at the end! Consider yourself warned.

She came over to talk to her coach between jumps. Looking at her face I think it's easy to see she is very relaxed.

The girls' backs are to us in the medal presentation because they present them to the crowd on the field, then turn them for the pictures. (the third place girl is JUST A FRESHMAN!!!)

Here we are cutting up afterwards. Think it wasn't hot? Just look at my face!! Look at my right hand. The way I'm holding the program AND holding up one finger make my ring finger look like its missing. Lovely.

And lastly, a close up of the gold medal...

She has the invitational track meet (nationals) the first weekend in June. I think she's going to do it but since she has no way to practice between now and then, I'm not expecting much.
This seems like more than enough.

Here is a write up in the paper on the DFW area kids who won medals.

Posted by at 1:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm nervous! She wants this sooooooooooooo bad, but I'm worried that is what will do her in. This is in today's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Ryan's part of it is about half way down the page.

If you have room in your prayers tonight, please include a little one for Ryan to do her best... where ever that puts her.

There are only 8 girls in the state eligible to jump so it shouldn't take them but maybe an hour or so to do. They start at 4pm and they are starting the competition at 4ft 6in. Ryan isn't entering until 5ft so its going to feel like an eternity waiting for her to start.

Yay!!

Posted by at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I received an email yesterday from Ryan's coach, one today from her Gov't teacher and one this morning from the mother of a student in Ryan's class. This is regarding Ryan's special relationship with this boy in her class who is austistic. I've taken out the identifying information but the emails make me feel so proud. This is far better than any gold medal she might win!

This first one is from the teacher telling me about the email from Brian's mom...

Kristi, I wanted you to see what BG said about Ryan. We all know how talented and beautiful she is. She also has a heart of gold. This made me cry and I am so proud to know her. We all can learn so much from her. I hope it is ok that I shared this with Mr. Crosby and Coach Arnold. You have raised a wonderful young woman. She must have had a great example in her mother.

I appreciate you,

B G

Posted by at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Craig and I had taken a break from working on the house for a couple of months but we're starting up again this weekend. I went and bought a texturing sprayer and a spray gun for paint. We'll be retexturing every ceiling and wall in this house over the next few weeks. In many ways I'm really looking forward to it. Craig and I really enjoy doing the stuff, plus once I'm done the new flooring can be installed. Yay!!!

Ryan leaves tomorrow for Austin. She jumps at 4pm on Friday so we're aren't heading out until Friday morning. We'll be coming back Friday night. She has the highest jump for any 4A school in the state (and 2nd if you throw in all the A, 2A, 3A and 5A schools) and she's tied with three others for the 3rd highest jump in the nation. Only 8 girls in the state qualified for the meet so we'll be happy no matter what, but I REALLY WANT A MEDAL!!! She took fourth her sophomore year because she was so distracted with the whole, "OMG I'm at the state track meet!!!" thing that she forgot to stretch and go through everything she was supposed to do.

So that's about it for what's going on around here.

Posted by at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woody...

... and Jade...

... are home! Jade, as you can clearly see, was just wiped out from the whoe thing... poor little girl! Woody just seems his normal happy self.

I was pretty much falling apart, worried that the dogs weren't really there, but they were and it only cost me $50 in penalties. Both dogs are due in two weeks for their shots and wellness exams, and the animal control officer told me that she's worked in Crowley for 27 years and has never had an animal show positive for rabies... until this week. Two skunks they caught both have it so in some ways this terrible event this weekend served some purpose. I might have waited until mid June when we go to Boston and Rhode Island to get their shots when we board them at the vet but because of this they have an appointment Wednesday to get it done. My god, I'd never forgive myself if they got sick and died because of something like that. I felt guilty enough about them getting out!

Gotta run to Target for stuff... including dog shampoo because they STINK!

Now, I can just focus on all the fun we had this past weekend (below).

Posted by at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This weekend we took Ryan down to San Antonio to play in the TABC (Texas Association of Basketball Coaches) All-State All-Star game. I am so proud of her, but I'll give the details shortly.

We decided to take Kyra and our niece, Rusti as well. Craig's exwife (Laura) her husband (Paul) and their daughter (Enara) came down to SA to visit with Kyra. Kyra hasn't had much of relationship with her mom in the last several years and we're really trying to encourage it. In the past, when we've tried Kyra just fights harder and makes things impossible, but this visit really went well and we had a great time with them.

Friday morning we met up with them at a mall and had fun shopping. Ryan had to check in for the event at 12:30 so she and Craig only stayed for an hour or so. We only bought a couple of things but the best part of the mall was seeing David Robinson!!! Holy cow, we walked right past him and NO ONE NOTICED!! I was like, "OMG Craig that's David Robinson. 'The Admiral!'" Craig didn't say anything but turned and looked at him. Then he acknowleged the recognition and said, "Yeah, thanks!"

Anyway, Craig took Ryan then made it back about an hour or so later... just in time to save me from purchasing THE PERFECT PURSE. I will own it, watch! It was really funny watching Rusti and Enara. Rusti is about 5 months older and really didn't want to share the balloons they got at Nordst0ms, but Enara was great about it and just went along. Rusti is the biggest toy hoarder, according to her babysitter and we now have the proof!!

Then the girls played on the playground for a while.

Friday evening was the banquet and while it was OK, I just wasn't feeling it. Ryan had fun and Rusti looked soooooooooooooo cute in the new dress I bought! Kyra ended up hanging out with Paul and Laura and had fun with them.

Saturday morning, all of us except Ryan headed out to the zoo. The girls were perfect and seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Kyra was great with both girls and very attentive.

After the zoo it was time for the game.
Here are the girls before heading to the court. Ryan is in the back on the far left.

She had a good game defensively...

... but offensively she was fantastic! Truthfully, I didn't expect her to do well because she hasn't touched a basketball since March because she's been focusing on track. Anyway, she ended up being the 2nd highest scorer in the game. She even made another 3!!!

I think this weekend was great on all levels. I didn't touch on the one bad part yet. It's really bad. Austin got home from work on Friday at about 5pm and my dogs weren't in the back yard. The police wouldn't tell me if animal control got them and said I couldn't find out until Monday morning. Luckily, Austin went down there and they were both there. I bawled my eyes out alot of the weekend but thankfully they'll be home tomorrow morning.

Posted by at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last Wednesday when the big storm blew in, I guess we had some type of power surge. I had turned off the computer but I didn't unplug it We just bought this new one back in November and we bought a big power surge protector with it... all to no avail. I guess the surge kicked the crap out of my hard drive. I didn't notice it at the time because I was sound alseep when Craig went to turn in back on, but it took almost 20 minutes for it to come up. He left it on after that (we never turn this one off) and I didn't notice anything until the next evening when I was shutting it down because we would be gone all weekend. Then, I realized I needed something out of my email so when I re-booted it took almost 20 minutes again.

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with some chic from India (candy corn is NOT a sprinkle!!! LOL) only to have her finally tell me that my hard drive crapped the bed. Everything is under warranty so the tech called me yesterday morning to tell me he's picking up my new hard drive today and could fix it this morning. I actually had to tell them I'd rather do it tomorrow. Can you BELIEVE that? I've never had an issue where I needed someone else to slow down!!! Luckily, the computer still runs but I don't dare shut it off. That would SUCK.

I was going to clean today but I think I'm going to just blow today off instead. I'm very tired and haven't slept well lately (I did in Lake Tahoe) and I want a nap.

blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Posted by at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaack!! This was, without a doubt, one of my favorite weekends in the last few years. Everything just fell into place. My husband didn't miss a beat and planned for every detail that would make the weekend easier, including valet parking AT THE AIRPORT!!! and first class seats. He's pretty amazing, really!

I want to start by saying that I felt TERRIBLY guilty for planning this trip before I knew when Ryan's Regional Trackmeet was. I don't like missing her events if I can help it. Saturday morning she was supposed to start jumping at 11am (her time) and we were on the boat so I wasn't sure that the phone call would come through. FINALLY, she called and I answered the phone by just asking, "So how'd you do?" She sort of sighed deeply and I felt horrible in that moment. Horrible. Then, she said, "I won!" She tied her record of 5' 10" and no one else cleared over 5' 4" except the 2nd place girl, but she still only got 5' 6" This is significant to me because Ryan has yet to set a new record during the year, then come back to jump that high again. This time, she did AND she had absolutely NO misses until she attempted 6ft. The college championships that also went on this weekend only had their girls champ jumping 5' 10" as well. So, now we have the State (4A) track meet in two weeks. Yay!

We left on Friday morning... quite early and landed in Reno about 11am (1pm our time). The first thing we did after getting the rental car was... In-N-Out. OMG how I've missed them! I ordered a double-double even though I could only eat about half of it, but if I could have found a way to cram it all in, I would have.

Then, we were off on the scenic route to Tahoe. It was only about 40 miles to our hotel, but we just took our time and stopped all along the way. We found "our spot" and sat out there on the rocks where we sat on the way back to the airport when I flew in the first time. I knew that day that I was in trouble because the feelings I had for Craig were so strong, yet that day I was leaving to go back home and I had no clue how we'd manage while living 2000 miles apart.
These massive rocks are down from the road a little ways and right on the water. Perfect.

Then we continued on around the lake, arriving in Heavenly about 2:45 to check into our hotel. We stayed at Emb@ssy Suites. Our room opened up to a view of the mountain and was perfect. We hung out for a couple of hours getting our things put away then headed out to gamble. The weather was amazing (lows of 35 and highs about 65) so we left the car and walked to the casinos about two blocks away. We actually found a non-smoking casino and decided that's where we'd stay. (I'd forgotten how cigarette smoke is) We had a really nice dinner at Cecil's Steak House, gambled a little more then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we got up around 7. We had decided the night before that we'd take a boat cruise out on the lake so we headed to Zephyr Cove for that. I can NOT tell you how amazing this trip was! The water in the lake is crystal clear and you could see down about 100ft. The water was the bluest I've ever seen, except for Emerald Bay where the water is green.

Saturday night we had dinner at Fire & Ice. It's sort of a take on Mongolian BBQ, but with a pacific twist to it. Fantastic! They have one in Providence so we'll be eating there in June for sure. Anyway, we gambled Saturday night and ended up crashing hard, falling fast asleep by about midnight. God, we're old!!!!

Sunday morning we packed up and headed back to Reno. We took the long way around the lake, seeing the opposite side from our drive in. It has a totally different feel to it but it was still a lovely drive.

Of course, just before hitting the airport we had to have another one of these!

Posted by at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)