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