Monday, December 5, 2011

sports



Obviously Madeline is the one with the most sports in this house! Gabrielle did try a few news ones this year. It turns out that she loves baseball, soccer was close behind, but baseball was a clear winner. She was the only girl playing for the 2 months over the summer, I don't even think she noticed because she had so much fun. She would complain about going to soccer but then when she was there, she loved it. And couldn't wait until next week when she would start complaining on the drive over again...No idea if she will elect to do it again in the spring, she asked to play t-ball though. She is taking one ballet class and still enjoys gymnastics.


And on to Madeline. She discovered skateboarding over the summer! We spent 2+ days a week at the skatepark for 3 months straight. We didn't get out much on the river because of baby. She was able to do one week and then couple of river runs  but that was all the kayaking for 20111. Hiking. My dad is an avid hiker, he usually does long mountain hikes in the summer and he discovered that Madeline can keep up with him. This is huge. My dad is 6'4, long legs with a stride to match and he waits for no one. She became his hiking buddy doing 8+ mile hikes, not flat ones, but 3-4,000 vertical feet.  I finally let her do the rock wall at the rec center, not because I didn't think she could but because I had a feeling it would be a new hobby. By the second time she tried it, she was going up all 3 routes to the top. Now she is like a little spider monkey, she makes it to the top in just a couple minutes. And we'll just add that to the list of hobbies for someday when there is more time in the world because of course she starts to go to rock gym here in town and try it out, of course she wants to try outdoor rock climbing.


Organized sports.
Dance. Madeline is competing in lyrical, ballet, and tap. Add in a special ballet trio competition piece they asked her to do and all that adds up to be 5 hours of dance a week. All team dancers must take a stretch class once a week so they become more limber. Madeline loves that because now she can literally kick herself in the head and do the full splits. Gymnastics moved her to Level 4 competition team right after school started. And by the looks of things, Level 5 is not far behind. She already made one trip to Denver last month for dance, 2 more this spring and several for gymnastics. I'm just hoping to hit IKEA one of these trips! Snowboarding. She is on the team at Telluride. We really aren't sure what level she ended up in, but they told us it was 3 levels above her normal age level. And all boys, there are no girls at that level. One boy said he was in 7th grade so we are guessing 6/7th age group maybe.