KG's Hideaway

So yesterday morning we got up briiiiiiiight and early and headed down to Houston for the Southland Conference Indoor track meet. It's a four hour drive, and with it being a weekday we just didn't want to take any chances. Ryan's event wasn't scheduled to start until 3:30, but she told us she wanted to be there by 2. Taking NO CHANCES we left at 7:30 so that we could get to the University of Houston (making sure we knew where she had to be) and buy our tickets then we'd take Ryan to lunch (at Pei Wei- her fave) before going to to the University so she could take her time warming up. Her legs were killing her so we weren't expecting anything. In fact, less than 12 hours earlier (Thursday night) we were pretty sure that she wasn't even going to be allowed to do. Here's the story:

As I've mentioned three billion times before, Ryan's scholarship is for basketball so they control EVERYTHING regarding her. She isn't allowed to miss any basketball practices to do track. So everything was fine until the UTA women lost their game Wednesday night. The problem isn't so much that they lost as much as it is Coach Morrow being unhappy with how they played. Oh shit, that is going to mean lots of running. LOTS.

To top all of this off, they get their travel itinerary for the next game. They were scheduled to leave at 10am Friday morning to head to Lousiana for their next game. BUT, Coach Morrow found out that Louisianna had scheduled UTA's practice time (you get court time at the venue of every away game) to be 6pm on Friday night (the game will be Saturday). But Coach Morrow doesn't like them to have to practice that late the night before a game so she changes it so that the girls have practice at 10am Friday morning BEFORE THEY LEAVE!!! This really puts a monkey wrench in things for Ryan. The track team had left Thursday, but Ryan couldn't go with them because of Thursday's practice and we planned to take her Friday morning. Now, even THAT won't work in the schedule. But there is a slim chance Ryan can get what she wants... but it will cost her.

So Ryan goes into practice Thursday knowing its going to be brutal. According to her, "Brutal" is much too mild a word to adequately describe it. She said it was the worst practice all year. But she knew she had to work her ASS off and give it every single ounce of energy in her body. MAYBE if she did that, Coach would allow her to miss Friday's practice. (I want to clarify here that Coach isn't just trying to be a hardass. She needs Ryan at practice because they only have 10 girls if you include Ryan, so practicing with an odd number is more difficult and after all, Ryan IS there on a basketball scholarship so we're not bitching!) Anyhoo...

She approaches Coach Morrow after practice and tells her the deal. Coach tells her to try and find out if there is anything she can do to change her jump time (she can't, but it was worth asking) Craig picked Ryan up after practice and brought her home but we had to wait on the call to Coach Morrow. FINALLY, I guess about 7:30 Ryan said Coach Morrow told her she had worked her ass off at practice and it was noticed. She was going to let Ryan go to the meet but ONLY because this was the conference meet. If it was any other meet, she'd be SOL.

So, we get to Houston at noon, eat and head back to the track. We're way early but Ryan needed to try and get her legs massaged to see if there was any help for them. My ex-husband and his mom showed up so we all just sat and chatted until it was time for it to start. I have to admit I rather enjoyed talking with them and just having a nice day.

The event started and Ryan was ranked 3rd (because of the last track meet) so she was jumping 3rd to last. It didn't take too long to get through the girls but Ryan didn't enter at opening height, so she came in on the 2nd round. By that time there were already 8 girls out. She takes off for her first jump and it was clear from about the 5th step that it wasn't going to be good. (The picture quality is HORRIBLE... not sure what we did, but you still get the idea, I hope!)

... yeah. Probably THE ugliest jump I've ever seen from her. Period. Needless to say, she missed. I just got a really bad feeling all of a sudden. Pretty soon, she's up again. Takes off... better form, same miss. Sonofabitch! She's going to be MISERABLE if she "no heights" for the meet!

Oh Lord... this is going to be painful. It's clear that there just isn't any spring in her legs. They are dead. So, she takes off for her third (and final) attempt... I nearly threw up! I mean, I didn't need her to win or whatever, but I just wanted her to be happy with whatever results she got and I KNEW this wasn't going to make her happy. And as I exhaled... she cleared the bar!!! Yay! So at least she'd be on the board even if she didn't clear any other height.

Alright, you know the drill... the bar goes up how far??? (Altogether now!!) TWO INCHES!! And we're right back where we started. Missed the first attempt. Missed the second attempt (in fact, I don't even think her shoulders made it above the bar because she just couldn't jump... I mean, at ALL) But somehow finds the energy on her third attempt and clears the bar. Whew!

Yes, yes... two more inches. Now, it's just Ryan and three other girls left (the #1, #2 and #4 ranked girls in the conference- Ryan is #3) but Ryan has all those misses! One other girl had one miss along the way but the other two were perfect. It was clear that this was the end of the road for Ryan. I don't even know how she ran up to the bar for those last three jumps but she did. But missed them all. One of the other girls missed here, too so technically Ryan tied for 3rd but was awarded 4th by virtue of having missed more attempts. 4th place!!!

So 4th place in the NCAA Southland Conference track meet as a freshman (who isn't even there for track) doesn't seem so bad to me. She said she was disappointed that she didn't do better but she can honestly say she gave it everything she had. That makes me happy. If you do your best, then the resulting score or place isn't top priority (in my book, and I'm a hard core sports enthusiast. I don't like those kids sports where they don't keep score. The object of a game is TO WIN. Not "win at any cost" but to work hard, play fair and give your best effort. Hopefully that will propel you to vicotry, but if not you did your best any that's whats important)

So, we snapped a picture out in front of the facility and hopped in the car for the 4hr return drive. Only it wasn't a 4 hr drive coming home because...

.... it was 5:30pm. On a Friday. In downtown Houston. Ugh So we resorted to what we always do when traveling. Every summer we drive all over the country for Ryan's basketball (always twice a year to Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham, Oklahoma City, Kansas, Chicago, and even Oregon... and we LOVE it but last summer was the last year they can play AAU or on the Nike and Adidas circuits if they have secured a scholarship so we didn't get to travel like that this summer...) Anyway, Craig has Sirius satellite radio, plus I brought my iPod and Monster cable and Ryan had her iPod so we turn up the music LOUD and we all sing at the top of our lungs. Oh yeah, Craig also plays the air drums... ALL THE WAY BACK TO FT. WORTH! It was a blast. We play everything from the Cars, Styx, Kansas, Neil Diamond, NSync, the Carpenters (LOL) and Disney songs (Ryan's favs). We're pathetic, but we have fun.

So, all in all, we're quite pleased! Happy weekend!

Posted by at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tomorrow, well since its after midnight I guess that means it's TODAY, is the Southland Conference track meet at the University of Houston. Ryan is ranked 3rd going on but she beat both of the two girls ahead of her in last weekend's trackmeet at A&M. However, high jumping is notorious for "I don't care how high you've jumped before... how high can you jump TODAY?" Ryan got in one day of practice this week but was too busy with basketball practices to be able to get more track in.

And to top that off, their basketball coach has run them HARD this week. Ryan said today's practice was the worst- run, run, run was the name of the game, so her legs are not 100%. We'll see... hopefully she'll have a good meet. I don't especially care if she places. I mean, of COURSE I'd love to see that, but I'm more concerned with her doing her best. If she does that, then it doesn't matter if she wins or not.

We shall see...!

Posted by at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... ESPECIALLY when we found out that this meet had big schools from the big conferences there. UT, Tx Tech, Baylor, TCU... Oh boy.

We left the house about 9:30 this morning so that we could just take our time getting down to A&M, which is about 3 hrs away. I texted Ryan on the way (they were on a chargter bus) to see how she was feeling. She said she was excited, nervous and every other emotion you could think of. I asked her what her goal was and she said that all she really wanted to do was to make sure she cleared something so that she didn't "no height" for the meet. I thought that sounded fantastic, considering she'd only had two days of practice and hadn't jumped for height in more than 9 months. I said we're already so proud of you so just go out there and have fun.

So, we get into the facility and buy the program. And saw that 35 girls were entered. Shit! Plus, the #1 ranked high jumper IN THE NATION was there (Destini Hooker- Univ of Texas). Oh boy. This girl has a personal best jump of 6ft 5in. Yeah, she's good.

This was going to be torture and I just wanted her to enjoy it. She was seeded 10th (and that's because her coaches didn't want to use her 5' 10 jump and just entered 5' 7) so she was jumping in the 25th spot. That's both good and bad. It means that by the time she actually jumps (depending on the height she chose to enter at) alot of the girls would already be out. But that also means that she sits for a LONG time after warming up. They opened at 5ft 1.75in but she decided not to enter until the bar had been raised to 5ft 3.75in. By that time, there were only 18 girls left. When she stepped up by her mark and stood there looking at the bar and I swear it looked like I could see her shaking from where we sat and I couldn't help thinking that nerves were gonna get her.

So, off she goes and her approach and something was totally different right off the bat, but it didn't dawn on my what it was until later. (she went from and 8 step approach to a 10 step) It was ugly... and that's being kind.

But she cleared it. They cycle through all the girls who are still jumping. She and 9 other girls were still in it but there were still 4 who hadn't entered. And Destini hadn't even gotten out of her chair yet to walk around. She just sat there watching. So the bar goes up by 2 more inches. Ryan was starting to settle down and seemed pretty comfortable, but she was distracted a little by the activity on the track. A sprinter just ran the fastest time IN THE WORLD and the place got a little crazy for a few minutes. She looked caught off guard when they called her name, quickly stripped off her warm up and stepped over to her mark. I'm fumbling with the damn video camera and Craig gets the digital camera on just in time to catch it...

... so at the end of this round it was Ryan and 9 other who cleared and moved on to the next round. Plus Destini, who was still seated.

I couldn't help but hold my breath as I watched the officials lift the bar... another two inches. She misses her first attempt at 5ft 7.75in. Now, I was nervous because it looked like she just didn't have it in her. But they came back to her and she cleared it easily on the 2nd attempt.

You know what comes next... the bar moves 2in. Now let me clarify something. Ryan regularly cleared 5ft 10 in high school but regardless of what height she was clearing they NEVER moved the bar more than an inch at a time. It's a BIG change... so combine that with no practice and it starts getting dicey. She's the worst seeded of the girls left, so she's now the first jumper in the round. Not great. But we did get to see her listed in 1st place on the scoreboard!! (This is by virtue of having only one miss Since Destini hadn't entered yet, she couldn't be listed in any place. FYI: You get 3 attempts at each height. If you clear, you move on. At the end, it comes down to who clears the highest mark, but if two or more people all miss at the same height they go back and count your misses, so it's best to clear on your first attempts each time)

So, the bar goes up two inches again. It's Ryan, 2 other girls and Destini (who was entering at this height) Two of these other girls are nationally ranked; #1 and #24- and the girl who is ranked #6 in the NATION had been eliminated in the previous round!

So off they go. Ryan and the other unranked girl both miss all three of their attempts at this height and are eliminated. But Ryan only had the one previous miss and the other girl had 2, so Ryan WON 3rd PLACE!!! Sooooooooooooooo AMAZING!!!! (the girl from Texas Tech, who is ranked #24 didn't clear at the next height, but Destini did on her first attempt. She went on to clear 6ft 1.25in for the day!)

I'm so excited I CAN'T sit still!!! The Southland Conference track meet is next weekend in Houston. Ryan's jump would rank her in 3rd place going into that meet. But guess what????? The girls who are ranked about Ryan PLACED BEHIND HER IN THIS MEET!!! (Their ranking is based on their personal best jumps of the year and Ryan's can only be based on this meet since its her only one going in)

But there could be a wrinkle. Ryan's ability to compete in track has more than the average requirements. She can't miss any practices or workouts for the basketball team. Well, the track team will leave Thursday for next weekend's meet and there will be a basketball practice that day. So there is the chance that her bball coach won't let her go with the track team and that would mean she'd have to ride down to Houston with Craig and I Friday morning. That's a long time riding in a car when you have to get out and compete... so we'll see.

So while it wasn't a PERFECT track meet, it was beyond our wildest expectations and it's just wonderful to see her smiling about sports again. This year has been so stressful because of all the basketball stuff and this just balances all of that out.

UPDATE::: As I was typing this, Craig was checking out the National Rankings just to see how Ryan would stack up. We were SHOCKED to see that the list is already updated and Ryan is RANKED... #12 in the NATION!!!!! Destini is now ranked#2, so evidently there are alot of really talented girls pushing it
http://www.milesplit.us/rankings/2009/indoor/college/f/HJ

Posted by at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What a great week we've had here, in spite of how cold I've been! I've got something to say about everyone in the house (surprise!!!) and in honor of that rare occassion I'll be posting my favorite pics of each one after their "story."

For the time being, anyway, things are running quite smoothly around here. Craig is SWAMPED at work and is looking at possibly promoting someone to be his assistant (or something like one) to take part of his workload. He's now not just managing the projects nationwide, he's managing the finances, project managers and projects nationwide. CV$ is the only client of his who hasn't backed off any of their planned stores, so there's alot going on and it seems (for him, anyway) that there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Ryan's first track meet is at Texas A&M a week from Saturday and I. CAN'T. WAIT!!!! Today is her first day of practice for track, but she has to go straight from classes, to basketball practice and THEN to track practice. Her legs are going to be SHOT! Basically, by the time the track meet comes around she'll still have only gotten in MAYBE 10 jumps, so we're not sure how well this will go. The coaches really want her at the conference track meet so they have no expectations of her jumping before that.... but the conference meet is only one week after A&M, so she's probably really feeling the pressure!!

Kyra is, simply put, just amazing me right now. She has been really working on some of her issues and REALLY opening up about her feelings. We tried for so long to get her to this point and just when we'd started thinking that her stubbornness would prevent her from doing it she goes and surprises us! She's been writing "a book" and she's really proud of it, so I'm hoping that her self esteem issues will begin to improve as her pride in herself over this project begins to show.

She and I sat outside yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours just talking about how she feels. We also talked about what she thinks her "issues" are and what I think they are. She really made a bold move at Thanksgiving to get her Mom's attention and now she's really regretting it now. She said she lied because- and I'm not sure I understand this totally, but...- she feels like, where her mother is concerned, she is in the parent roll and her mom is the child. I understand WHAT she's saying, but based on knowing the situation (albeit from my vantage point) I don't understand WHY she feels that particular way. She starts counseling today and I really believe she's motivated (finally!!!) to improve the relationships in her life because she's pretty much pushed everyone away from her. I really feed bad for her because its apparent that she's really hurting, but her previous counselor said that she wouldn't make any efforts to improve her relationships with people until she had almost no one left. In spite of how heart-sick I am that she's hurting that much, I'm really excited about whatever it is that finally made her realize that she's got to make some changes!!

Austin has a job interview today that I'm really hoping he gets! I don't know if they are interviewing alot of people or even if there is more than one of these positions open, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for him. There's alot going on for him right now too, so I'm really hoping for the best outcome here!

In other news around the house... I FINALLY got everything in Ryan's room packed away in the closet so that I can prepare to do the walls. (Her room is just... well, PACKED with Little Mermaid schtuff) I've already gotten the kids' hallway stripped of all pics, light switch covers, baseboards... all that crap! I'm starting in Ryan's room and then going down the hallway, then Kyra's room and THEN Austin's. I'm reblowing the texture on the walls, painting and all that entails. After we're doing with the kids' rooms and hall we'll start in the living room. THAT is going to take massive work (including jackhammering out the HUGE natural stone fireplace!) and after that it'll be the kitchen. The kitchen is going to be VERY labor intensive. We'll be taking out all the cabinetry and installing all new, plus all new appliances. We are considering (nothing even remotely concrete now) combining the two living rooms into one large one with a smaller office towards the back. I don't know, though. I'm hoping that Craig will be able to input our dimensions into his AutoC@d and then create a couple of different looks for us to choose from. In that program, he can actually do the design, then turn it into an actual pricture (rendering) so that I can see it because I don't look at blueprints and do well "seeing" what it will look like.

So, there. I think that's about it. Busy week. Kyra counseling, Ryan two basketball games plus track, Austin job interview, Craig working and Kristi, what else... shopping!! YAY!!!

Posted by at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I could really leave it at that, but I just have to say that things are pretty good right now. Things with Ryan are on track and now Kyra is really opening up and is just amazing.

Posted by at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)