And the Winner Is....

ICE PRINCESS! She did a fabulous job and won a first place medal at her competition yesterday! She is on cloud nine and is so very proud of herself! She worked very hard and managed to pull it off and place 1st in her group. WTG, Ice Princess! This is not something we expect will happen all of the time, but boy did it feel great when the results came in and we saw she came in first! Not only did she come in first, but all of the judges unanimously agreed! Anyone who understands figure skating will understand what I mean by that. LOL! I don't have any video to share just yet, but I do have a lot of pictures to share! As soon as I have video, I will share it. :-)



Her 1st spin.



Ending her spin.



Her lunge.



Her spiral.



Bunny hops.



One foot glide while smiling at the judges. Yup...one must charm those judges!! LOL!



Another spiral. This one isn't as pretty as the first one, but it is still notably good for her level! Her coach has said with practice and stretching, her spiral will continue to get higher!




Another lunge. This was her last minute lunge. She deviated from her program since she was ending a little early and would have ended before her music ended. She threw this lunge in which helped her to end on time! :-)



A podium picture. Unfortunarely, there was a lot of confusion when the awards were given out. Because of that confusion, the other girls in her group were not available for podium pictures. The gal taking the podium pictures didn't do that great of a job anyway, so who knows how the group pics would have turned out! LOL





Ice Princess and Drama Ice Queen(IP's best bud...lol). Both girls came in first place in their events! This obviously was after they were both finished skating. :-)

Ice Princess showing us how flexible she is!



Anyway, Ice Princess is a happy girl and we are so proud of her! Thanks for looking!

Skating Videos

We took the kids skating yesterday and Ice Princess practiced her routine as well as other things. Here are a couple videos of her skating. They are kinds of dark since one end of the rink did not have all the lights on! I tried to get better shots of her spirals since they look SOO much better then they did a couple of months ago. Those videos did not turn out, but hopefully I will get better video when she competes on Friday. :-) One of these videos show her doing spirals, but the distance I was standing from her, made it hard for me to get a decent shot of her doing them.

Anyway... enjoy!




Here she is, running through her program on public ice. I cut off the begining of it and my camera cut off the end. I ran out of memory space! OOPS.



Her waltz jump combined with my bad video skills! EEK!



Her 1 foot spin. She kinda loses it at the end... :-)

Anyway, there is a skating update for anyone interested! Hopefully, come Friday night, I will have better video and pictures to post!

My Great Find!

Ice Princess participated in a Skate-a-Thon yesterday. At the Skate-a-Thon was a skate swap. Not only did I sell Ice Princess' old skates, but I also found her a new competition dress for $20.00! Not too shabby, IMO. The dress looks great on her and will be a good fit for her "Be Our Guest" routine. I LOVE good deals and finding a competition dress for that price is a STEAL. :-)





Here's hoping I find MORE great deals! :-)

A Somber Moment

September 11th, 2001 is a day those of us old enough to remember, will never forget. I remember vividly hearing my phone ring at 6:30ish AM(we lived on the West Coast). I remember thinking, "Who on earth is calling us at THIS hour? I hope the phone doesn't wake the baby." Dave answered the phone and all I hear is "WHAT? Honey, turn the TV on now. A plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers in NYC." I Jumped out of bed and turned on the television. What I saw, horrified me in ways I cannot describe. I am sure, for most of you reading this, I do not need to describe that horror because you too, know why I was horrified.

We moved to the living room and continued to watch the footage of this horrific event. We watched in complete shock as the second plane hit the second tower. I think at that moment we knew we were under attack. At first, I don't think we truly knew what was really happening until that second plane came barrelling towards the second tower. We could not deny it at that point, this was not an accident. Soon after that, we heard about the plane that hit the Pentagon followed by the plane that the courageous passengers helped take down in the field in Pennsylvania. I don't think any of us ever thought ANYTHING like that could happen on American soil. After all, we weren't at war! That day, as a nation we mourned for those lost and prayed for the families who directly affected by those attacks. I don't think any of us in the United States could understand why on earth this was happening.

I remember the silent skies. What an eerie feeling that was. I remember watchig the news and wanting to know WHO did this and why. It was surreal, to be honest. To this day, I am tearful as I remember watching the live footage. It took years for me to get to the point of being able to watch the video footage. I was thousands of miles away from NYC and by simply watching the footage, I was deeply and profoundly affected by what had happened. I still tear up when I watch the footage or hear stories of survivors and from family members of those lost. I cannot begin to imagine how they must feel today.

God Bless America! I am proud to live in such a wonderful land. I know we are blessed to live here and to have the freedoms we do. Let us never forget, 09/11/2001.