UFO update

As promised - WIP pics of one of my big UFO's that I did some work on during 2008.Marty Bell's The Abbey, as it was at 31 Aug 2007 (on the left) and as it is now (on the right):

So I've now done 3 corners.
That lower right corner was a pain with a gazillion colour changes - but the effect is worth it.
It will be so awesome when it's finished.

Justin Knickers...

...as my mum would say when something got done "just in the nick of time".

They were mostly small, but I have reached my goal of 12 finishes for the year - woohoo.

This one is O for Owl from the UK Cross Stitcher's Margaret Sherry designed alphabet.

Maybe next year I'll get more.

What I didn't achieve this year was a UFO finish, but I did make some good progress on one of them (Marty Bell's The Abbey - pic to follow soon).

Happy Holidays

Best Wishes for the Season, with illustration courtesy of one of my fav websites...

Small Finish

I haven't been stitching much at all still. Which is why this small thing took 11 calendar days to finish. It actually only took about 3 stitching sessions. Nevermind, it's done, and done before Christmas.

Dimensions' Princess Alphabet, without the bead crown embellishment, done over one on navy 25ct lugana with a Dyepot perle 12 backstitched with a DMC light effects.

Please send vibes so that I can finish one more small piece before 31 Dec (25 Dec preferably!).

KTHNXBAI

Y6 Leaving Assembly

It's Jessica's last year at primary school, and she can't wait to start intermediate next year. She will be attending the all girls Marist College in Mt Albert along with her bff and several gym friends.
Today was the annual Year 6 Leaving Assembly at Mangere Bridge School, where all the Y6s have to say some words and prizes are given out.
Bad momma stayed at work, but had arranged for deputies to attend (Nana, G'ma, Grandad and DH) and my spies on the spot have just reported in.
Jess, along with her very bright friend Brittany, jointly won the Academic Award.
I'm stoked. Jess has worked very hard on bringing her maths up to standard, and had started beating Britney in some recent English tests. I'm so pleased her hard work has been rewarded this way.
She had also been nominated for the Citizenship Award - this one the kids decide who should be nominated (2 from each class = 6 nominees) and then it goes to a vote. They are encouraged to vote for the person who they feel is responsible, fair, helpful, basically a role model. She didn't get it, but that's ok - just to be nominated is pretty damn great in my opinion.

Way to go Jessica!

lotsa leos

Since I had the sewing machines out to "finish" Tis the Season, I thought I really should finally stitch up the leotards I'd cut out for Tamsin weeks ago.



And I did, yay me! I'm still working on getting the elastic around the legs to go properly - so don't look too closely, LOL.



These two leos I bought yesterday from Active Kids Sportswear. They're made by the mum of Jess' team mate Sophie and they're gorgeous.
Jess had gone over to Sophie's house to play/swim after club display and prizegiving yesterday and I took the opportunity to treat the girls when I picked Jess up. I'm hoping Tamsin can use her one for Rythmic comps. It has the most beautiful blue velvet on the bottom half.

That should set the girls up for training in 2009 as both have 4 classes a week and it saves me having to wash every day.

Finishing update

I actually finished my last finish.
Wha...?
I know I know, us stitchers need some new words to differentiate between when we finish stitching a piece, and when we actually get it finished into its presentation format. Any suggestions?

My last post was to show that I had finished the stitching.
Now, I can say that I have finished the presentation. No photos sorry - I was in such a hurry to give it to the friend I made it for that I didn't take the time to photograph it.
Anyhoo, I found some fabric that complimented it to my satisfaction yesterday afternoon. Last evening was spent putting a border and backing on it. Late last evening was spent delivering it (and enjoying a looooong gossip with my friend - a fellow ballet mum).
Why was I in such a hurry to give it to her?
Rachel LOVES Christmas, and all the decorations that go with it. I wanted to give this wonderful gal a special pressie this year, but as it has a Christmas theme, I wanted her to have it for Advent so that she could enjoy it for this season. Advent was Sunday just gone, so I was 2 days late.
She forgave me cos she liked the piece so much.

Merry Christmas Rach - may next year be better than this one, chick.

Seasonal stitching

Which I don't do very often due to my snail's pace stitching meaning things started for one Christmas are highly unlikely to be ready until a successive Christmas, years later.
For example:

this Historical Sample Co pattern was in the October 2005 issue of The Cross Stitcher. Although I put the magazine, kitted up, in my stash pile at time it arrived - I didn't start stitching it until a month ago.

Amazingly for me, it is now finished. "All" I have to do now is make it into a hanging.

Christmas fabric stash run to Spotlight coming up...

...a day after their sale ended.

Quick update...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfRQjq65vk

Don't know if the above works. It's a link to a compilation video clip of Jess during comp season this year. I put it together to learn how to use the editing software that came with the camera.
I had tried to post it to the blog, but anything bigger than 10Mb just choked everytime.

It's been quietly busy here. Jess is busy working on L5 skills and looking forward to her new school for next year. She went to the orientation on Friday and was all buzzy when I picked her up cos she knew more girls who will be there next year in Y7 than she thought she would.
Tamsin is enjoying her beginners Rhythmic class, and has managed to get a place in the competitive squad for next year. The rhythmic coaches at TriStar are really sweet - and organised! They handed out a great info pack that was perfect for the control freak info junkie that is the Evil Gym Mom. She's also moved into the big pool at swimming and is now a junior Squid.
Guy Fawkes was good - the pyromaniacs of the family got together at my sister's place again and happily combusted their way through several boxes of fireworks while the rest of us pigged out on brownie and chocolate fondue.
I'm even getting some stitching done. I'm never as fast as I'd like, so there's not enough time in a day to get the progress I want. Oh well. I also have 4 leotards cut out ready to sew for Tamsin. She's grown a smidge in the body and all her leos are now showing way to much knicker for my (and her coach's) liking. The last batch of sewing I did only produced one for her and 3 for Jess so I needed to rectify that.

Please send me stitching vibes so that the next post will be about stitching finishes (plus photos to prove it, LOL).

Small, but pretty

Well, I like it :)

Finally, a finish:
Just Nan's My Fair Ladybug.

Now, that eternal question - how to present it? I have thoughts of it as a box topper, but where to find a box? I've not had much luck finding a source here in NZ.

The Ribbon Rose are now stocking Framecrafts lovely bowls, but they're quite expensive (try $98 for the large one).

I will just have to keep my eyes open in my travels for inspiration.

Long time, no post

And not much stitching either

And there are many in the WIP pile (one with a need to be done by date - yikes!), and even more in the stash pile, all waiting patiently for me to get stitching again.

So much for a finish a month

Ah well, as an Amway business owner once said: when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Off to Ribbon Rose and Spotlight it was for a stock up on petites (needles) and DMC to kit up some of the charts in my stash.

Y'know - I did feel better afterwards and I have done a teensy bit of stitching...but not enough yet for a progress pic, sorry.

But cos I like pictures in my posts, here's more from the archives:

That's Cheetah in her favourite spot for overnight snoozing.

Yes,well. Burma just has to sit on/in something...

Kids, cats, leos

Finally got around to making the girls some more training leotards.

They'd actually managed to start to wear them out just as the leos were just beginning to be a bit small.

Plus Spotlight had nylon lycra on special....

Love the fluoro colours. The girls are really easy to spot when I arrive at the gym to pick them up!

So took photos and transferred them onto the PC, finding some others on the camera while I was at it.

The cats are Burma (she who brings home others' laundry) and Boodle (the youngest, now bringing home rats and skinks).

The kid is Cinnamon, a Nubian cross that my niece Laura is raising ready for school Calf Day mid October.

Fabulous Friday

Why?
Cos I went to the Quilt & Craft Fair in Hamilton with two close friends on Friday. No children. No work. And best of all - no deadline for coming home, LOL.
So we stayed there till the end of the show plus 5 minutes.
It was great. Lots of stalls, lots of fabulous quilts in the exhibition, and an amazing fibre arts show in the upstairs gallery.
We chatted, we gossiped, we laughed till we just about cried, we saw people we knew, we oohed and aahed over the things on display and, naturally, we shopped.

It was great, and we've promised ourselves that we're going to do it again next year.
Nothing like S.E.X. for S.A.B.L.E. to make a crafty girl happy - especially when done with friends.

So thanks for your company Sarah and Cherry, looking forward to next time!


Stash Enhancment eXpedition
Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

while I'm on the subject...

I found some photos while uploading the ones for the previous post so I thought I'd inflict them on y'all.

That's Tamsin at age 3, ready to start preschool ballet at SABA.

On the topic of different leotards - not only does each ballet school have different colours, some of them also change when advancing from Grade 2 to Grade 3. SABA for example changes from pale blue to navy blue, while Lily Fong changes from baby pink to royal blue.

Gym clubs obviously have different leotards to save confusion at competitions. Here's Jessica's progression through the past 5 years (Acrobatics, West City, TriStar):

Also progressing is the zoom and focus capability of our camera and its operator, LOL.

This is to prove that Tamsin wasn't always long and skinny as she is now (that's my sister BTW)

and she's about 4-5 cm taller since these photos were taken in May!





Some years back, the girls got to take part in the Pumpkin Patch fashion parade at Auckland's annual Teddy Bears' Picnic held in the Domain in February. It was a lovely sunny hot summer day, and Pumpkin Patch were using the show to preview their winter range. So yes the girls got quite hot - especially as it was a 20 minute dance show done four times across the middle of the day! They had a fabulous time though and got some fantastic gear for doing it.








Last year, Jess did cheerleading and went to Australia to compete with her team at the Down Under Spirit Champs. Here she is with the trophy the team won.

This is a piece I'm really pleased with - Sweetheart Tree's Forget Me Not sampler, done for my parents 45th wedding anniversary 4(!) years ago. Yes, it's the Golden anniversay next year, along with my sister's 25th wedding anniversary, Jess' godmother's 40th birthday, Tamsin's godfather's 5oth birthday and my dad's 80th birthday. It's going to be quite a year!

To finish, I found this one of my favourite people

The torture is now over and you may leave now.

KTHXBAI

Logistics Logistics Logistics

I'm such a control freak that I'm worrying about next year already.

Yes, I'm a sad bunny - I admit it. Somebody find me the closest Control Freaks Anon meeting, please!

Anyhoo, Jess is now WAG L5 and RAD Grade 5, while Tamsin is (well, she may be WAG L2, if she gets her act together but that's another story) WAG L2 and RAD Grade 1. Which means juggling the class time clashes again.

This is not new.

In fact this will be the 4th year that I've done this - so you'd think I'd have it down pat by now. However, not only do I not have it down pat, but I now start worrying about it earlier and earlier as each year goes by.

As I said, I'm a sad control freak bunny.

The main reason for worrying about it earlier rather than later is to do with the possible need to change clubs or ballet schools to make it all fit in a way that is actually doable without resorting to transporter beams or cloning.

The trick, I've found, is to make one activity the stick in the sand around which all other activities fall into line (please excuse the mixed metaphors!) and then changing gym clubs/ ballet schools if a new one has a timetable that suits better.

In our case, the pivot point is gymnastics - particularly Jess' class times (she's happy where she is, it's working for her and it fits in well with the change of schools next year).

Fortunately her coach is also somewhat of a control freak and was able to 90% say for certain what class times she's decided on for the L5s for next year. I'm also 90% sure that Tamsin's gym class times will stay the same next year (but will check tomorrow to find out for certain).

Please cross your fingers for me that both gym coaches don't change their minds. And please also cross your fingers for me that the ballet school that girls used to go to also keeps the 2008 timetable exactly the same for 2009. Cos if they do, then next year's logistics will work out just fine thank you, even if it does mean moving ballet schools again.

I'm really hoping that it does fall into place that way for several reasons:

Jess wants to go back to the previous ballet school as her best friend is there; I'd like it as it is closer (like 5mins max away); it's cheaper that where they are now; they both need new leotards anyway (don't you love how each ballet school has its own colour leotard??); plus the girls would get to do recitals again.

Have I ever bored you with my issues about ballet recitals? Yes? No? Don't know?

Well, here's the diatribe anyway.

Much as I'm mostly happy with the girls' current ballet school, my biggest gripe is lack of advance warning (I'm a control freak and info junkie, remember) about anything - recitals in particular. So much so, that last year I pulled the girls out of ballet for Term 4 as I couldn't get any info out of Miss Lily about the recital before the end of Term 3.

This year is unfortunately no different. So I've broken my promise and the girls are out of ballet for Term 4 again.

Tamsin doesn't care as we're replacing it with beginners Rhythmic Gymnastics classes for her. Jess, while a little upset, understands my reasons and is happy to focus on upgrading her L5 gym skills without the distractions of recital.

At SABA ballet, on the other hand, recitals have happened the same way since Adam was a cowboy and even if the official information is a bit sparse (but at least there is official info), all the "old" ballet mums help the "new" ballet mums learn the ropes. Plus we've done 2 SABA recitals so I'm technically an "old" ballet mum.

You know what really bugs me about the lack of information?

It's that it can be done.

Check out the Victoria Phillips Dance school. That website has had recital details on it for the whole year already, right down to rehearsal times - to the point that it says that if you can't make the scheduled rehearsals, don't bother auditioning for the recital. Now that's the dance school for control freak evil ballet mums (i.e. me!). Shame they don't do RAD and are all the way over in Glenn Innes.

My only comfort is that I know I'm not the only mum out there facing this issue. And I'm only juggling things for 2 daughters doing the same two (related) sports. My sister has two boys doing two activities in common (water polo & swimming) and one activity each that is completely different (yachting and archery). Not only are they different activities, the venues are miles apart and require lots more personal equipment than gymsports - a whole dang boat + sails for example. Then there's Floss: 4 offspring doing completely different sports, plus it snows down there, just to add to the chaos.

DH, bless him, just carries on and earns the money that pays for it all.

All about me...

Rene had this on her Blog and I thought it would be fun to put it on mine.

1.What time did you get up this morning? 7.30am
2.Diamonds or pearls? Pearls
3.What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Mamma Mia
4.What is your favourite TV show? Mythbusters
5.What do you usually have for breakfast? Cereal
6.What is your middle name? Dora
7.What food do you dislike? Liver
8.What is your favourite CD at moment? Allegri Miserere Mei
9.What kind of car do you drive? Hyundai La Vita
10.Favourite sandwich? Cheese
11.What characteristic do you despise? Hypocrisy
12.Favourite item of clothing? Red polar fleece coat
13.If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Italy
14.Favourite brand of clothing? No favourite
15.Where would you retire to? Somewhere with a good LNS
16.What was your most recent memorable birthday? 40
17.Favourite sport to watch? Gymnastics
18.Furtherest place you are sending this? All round the world since it's on my blog
19.Person you expect to send it back first? Not sure
20.Are you a morning person or a night person? Both
21.What is your shoe size? 7 (37)
22.Pets? 4 cats
23.Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? Nope, all is nicely normal at the moment, yay!
24.What did you want to be when you were little? I had no idea whatsoever – still don’t, LOL
25.How are you today? Pretty good thanks
26.What is your favourite sweet? Anything that contains chocolate
27.What is your favourite flower? Ones with variegated petals
28.What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Sept 19 – girls day out to a Craft & Quilt show
29.What are you listening to right now? Radio Hauraki
30.What was the last thing you ate? Fresh iced cinnamon buns
31.Do you wish on stars? No
32.If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Yellow
33.How is the weather right now? Sunny with clouds and windy
34.The first person you spoke to on the phone today? Don’t know, it was a wrong number!
35.Favourite soft drink? Lemon
36.Favourite restaurant? Sangeets
37.Real hair colour? Dark brown
38.What was your favourite toy as a child? Can’t remember
39.Summer or winter? Summer
40.Hugs or kisses? Hugs
41.Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
42.Coffee or tea? Neither
43.Do you want your friends to Post you back? Yes
44.When was the last time you cried? Almost this morning – a friend was upset
45.What is under your bed? Dust Bunnies
46.What did you do last night? Watched TV and did sudoku
47.What are you afraid of? My kids getting hurt
48.Salty or sweet? Sweet
49.How many keys on your key ring? 4
50.How many years at your current job? 9 months
51.Favourite day of the week? Saturday
52.How many towns have you lived in? Just Auckland, but many suburbs within that city
53.Do you make friends easily? Sometimes
54.How many people will you send this to? Everyone who reads my blog
55.How many will respond? One or two maybe - but if you do play along, post a comment and I'll come read yours :)

Surprises in the mail

Isn't it just lovely?




The wonderful Floss sent this surprise in the mail to me this week.




I'm thinking of finishing it as a bell pull, and then hang it on my computer desk where I'll see it every day.

Thanks Floss!

August finish

Gotta love M Designs name trees - they are great for stitching away from home.
The chart is not too big, use of overdyed thread saves colour changes and progress is obvious.
And they look awesome when finished.

I can recommend this designer as her service when ordering personalised name trees was fast and friendly.

This one will be on it's way to its namesake on Monday if I can get my act together. I won't "finish" it though for several reasons:

1. it's easier to post flat;
2. I can't decide on the best method of finishing (frame, bell pull, cushion etc); and
3. I actually think the recipient should get the choice in this instance - plus her mum has far greater technical skills in this area than I'll ever have, LOL.

hello world - and please say hello back

Carrying on a cool idea from StitchItAndie (who stole it from Chiloe)...

So who reads my blog?

1. 
   As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! And if we've never met in real life, leave me a comment of your favorite post I wrote and why it was your favorite.
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually really funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Cameo from Studio Window also had a recent post discussing/ wondering who reads her blog, and I've just added a live feed showing where people have popped in from - so it seems that curiosity about one's blog readers is a bit of a trend at the moment.

Anyhoo, hope y'all had a good weekend and are enjoying the Olympics (great excuse to be on the couch stitching!)

Go New Zealand :)

competition season is finally over

Tamsin's last comp was back at the beginning of July, but Jess had several more to go. The most recent was at Counties the first weekend of August.

There is one more on the calendar (Pukekohe), but Jess insisted that she not be entered, and as it wasn't a sanctioned comp, I agreed.

Technically though, the official end to the comp season is always considered to be Nationals held the first weekend of the holidays in Hamilton. And it's what attending sanctioned comps has been aiming at: qualifying, and then being selected to go to Nationals for your region (TriStar, Eastern Suburbs and Waitakere clubs = Auckland Region)

Tonight the Auckland team for Nationals was announced, and Jess got her wish:

L4 reserve

and her team mates Mandy and Maxine made the L4 team.

She's thrilled to be reserve as she doesn't have to do anything, LOL. No leo, tracksuit or training - only if one of the team pulls out up to a week prior to Nationals will she be called in.

So Jess' comp season is truly over and she doesn't have to train routines again till next year and she is so happy to be moving on to L5 skills.

I'm so happy (and proud) for her - she's been given credit for the work she's put in this year, and she's now able to relax and enjoy learning new skills again.

things to do on a Thursday night

Read my favourite blogs, and follow the links therein...

Found this link on Aly's blog:

Random Questions. (:

What time do you go to bed?: 10.30pm usually
Do you drink coffee?: no
What was the last song you listened to?: Pink Floyd - Final Cut
How old were you when you got/gave your first kiss?: 16
What kind of ice cream is your favorite?: goody goody gum drops
Have you ever met an internet friend in real life?: not yet
Are you/have you ever been anorexic?: no
Do you know which US states don't use Daylight Saving Time?: nope
What size shoe do you wear?: 37
Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?: my husband
Which is more important in your life, TV or Internet?: I have to choose?
Do you have an iPod?: nope
Have you ever been fired from a job?: no
Have you ever taken something you knew belonged to someone else?: not deliberately
Do you overuse smileys?: probably
Who is better; Madonna or Blondie?: depends on which incarnation of Madonna we're talking about..
Who is better; Elton John or Billy Joel?: both
Do you know the song Total Eclipse Of The Heart?: yup - both the original and the cover
When was the last time you ate something?: dinner
Name three website you visit every day:: yahoo, google, webmail
Have you seen all of the Jaws movies?: no
Do you have Entomophobia?: no
Do you know what Entomophobia is?: no
Have you ever worn black eyeliner?: years ago
Have you ever worn blue mascara?: it is possible
Ever spiked your hair?: nope
How long have you had a computer?: personally, 10 years. Does the Atari we had when I was 14 count??
Have you ever written something, and published it on the internet?: other than my blog, no
Do you have a crush on anyone at the moment?: my husband
Do you like Starbucks?: been there about 3 times, so no opinion
Have you ever owned a kitten?: yup - latest one is 8mths old
Is it raining where you are?: amazingly, no! first day in 2 weeks
When was the last time you played cards? (not on the computer): can't remember
Can you play chess?: I know the moves, but not any strategies
Ever owned a pair of the original Nikes? (white, with only a single swoosh): no
Ever worn leg warmers?: yup, in the 80s
When was the last time you read a book over 700 pages long?: at university
How many people are on your IM friends list?: don't use IM
How many hours of sleep do you usually get?: 7 on average
Have you ever drank cherry coke?: about 3 years ago
Do you prefer using pens or pencils?: pencils
Have you ever skipped for a long distance?: as a small child possibly
Have you ever had a black eye?: yup
The torture is over, you may now leave. (:

Fill out this survey yourself
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July Finish!

I actually did some stitching, and managed to finish a small piece:

Lyn Manning's Picanini CanCan. A NZ produced kit by a NZ designer.

Now I get to rummage amongst the WIPs and try to keep the stitching going, else I won't match last year's goal of a finish a month.

Why there have been no posts lately

I have been trying to load the video of Jess' FX from the North Harbour comp. But I guess 62mb is too big for Jetstream to cope with cos it failed to load - several times and using different computers. Oh well.

Anyhoo.
The Nth Hbr comp on the first weekend of the holidays went well, and overall Jess came 15th. We'll take that cos she was up against the fab Counties and Nth Hbr girls who filled 3/5ths of the places ahead of her.

Then on the last weekend of the holidays (last Saturday) we drove to Hamilton for the Waikato Open comp. Hamilton City Gymnastics is a lovely venue, and the host club had the event very well organised.

Jess' team came third, and she again improved her scores. She was disappointed that neither her UB or BB scores improved enough to get ribbons, but was happy with 7th overall. No Counties or Nth Hbr, but Eastern Suburbs and Argos were in attendance providing some stiff competition. The TriStar girls generally had a good comp, and lots of fun was had at Burger King afterward for a wind down before heading back to Auckland.

Next stop: Counties Manukau Opens first weekend of August.

Goodbye GamGam

I have a very hard, sad task to do today.

I have to tell my girls that their beloved GamGam (Steve's stepdad, my father-in-law) died this morning.

Bruce McIndoe was a huge influence in my huband's life, after coming into it when Steve was in his very early teens. Bruce has been a large part of my daughters' lives too - very much a larger than life character. He always made me, one of the 3 daughters-in-law of his second wife of over 20years, very welcome.

Bruce, you will be missed. Lots and often.

:(

Things to do on a Saturday evening

Attend gym comps of course - what else would an Evil Gym Mom be doing??
It was the North Harbour Junior invitational, and for some reason the numbers of L4 WAG meant that instead of the usual two separate competitions there was just one, slightly longer competition.
Why is this important?
Cos it meant that TriStar got to compete against the two top Auckland clubs: North Harbour and Counties Manukau. Girls from these two clubs took out the top spots in everything but Jessica managed to take 3rd on vault, and one of her team mates scored 3rd on bars.
WOOHOO.
Jess also reached her goal for this comp of a gold ribbon on floor and red ribbon on bars so she was stoked. We won't talk about beam, ok? Apparently the Nth Harbour beam is notorious for being "skinny and slippery". I have to admit I saw even the usually sure footed Nth Harbour girls step off some of their routines on it - and it's their home beam, so there must be something in the notion.
Tamsin had fun, but mostly it was same-old same-old regarding her routines. But I will say this - she salutes the judges beginning and end, tries hard and keeps her chin up. I could see some improvements, but not enough for her scores to show it. She loves the whole competition scene though, so we'll keep at it. Level 2 next year and she'll be 7 by comp season so maybe a bit more polish will be on show.
Now for the boring bit - yes, the camera battery was charged and I did take it with me so here's Jess' bar routine :)

KTHNXBAI

Evil Gym Mom has a new toy...

Be afraid, be very afraid cos yes, the Evil Gym Mom is now in possession of a handycam! (Blame Dick Smith - they had a really good weekend special on a JVC HDD model)

Still getting used to it, so took several videos of Jess training on Monday and today. Also getting used to transferring the files around, uploading and posting them - hence the one above.

Oh btw Floss, just so you can pre-empt Sophie's eye roll, that's a glide kip, cast, back hip circle, cast, straddle on jump to high bar, long kip, cast, straddle on undershoot dismount. It should be a lot smoother and more flowing than that, with straight arms everywhere - but she's working on it.

I hope to get better before the next comp on July5, especially as that's the last comp for Tamsin for this year and therefore my last chance to capture some L1B action. Jess has 3 more after next weekend before she's finished; the joys of being a L4!

And this is a not very good video to illustrate my long winded post regarding L4 vaulting:

I'm not allowed to deliberately video anyone other than my children, so I can't show any comparisons that illustrate a "bad" vault, but hopefully the flight and pop off the vault are clear in the 2 seconds shown. I've still to learn how to edit etc with this new toy, so bear with me :)KTHNXBAI

but I did have my mobile with me...

so ye do get to be bored with the weekend action shots.

Well, there's no real action cos it is only a 2 megapixel camera afterall, but I did get a shot of the vault podium (as any good Evil Gym Mom should!).

Sunday was Tamsin's comp, plus both girls' ballet exam rehearsal.

I did fail to get a photo of Tamsin looking gorgeous/ cute for gym :(

But did manage one while she was waiting for Jess at ballet (after she'd done her rehearsal)