February Fun

We had a super busy, fun-filled end of the week. Here is a quick look back at a few of the highlights.

Me and Chloe went to Monkey Joe's with Kayleigh and Kennon after preschool on Thursday.

Thursday night I went to a Girls Night Out at my friend Cheryl's house. The invite said 7-10 but a few of us stayed until midnight. We were having way too many laughs to wrap the night at 10. I am sure I made a fool of myself at least a dozen times but we were all acting pretty goofy so I didn't stress about it the whole way home like I usually do. It was way too much fun to have any regrets.

Friday night we were on the way to TKD and I got stuck on the ice on not one, but two roundabouts. By the time we got half way to the Recplex we were already way late for Leadership class. We still could have made it to Basic Class but I decided it was not worth the stress so I turned and headed home.

Alyssa had been begging to go to the school Valentine's Dance for weeks and I told her no because we would be at TKD. Since we were not at TKD she really wanted to go. I was not driving again but I told her we could go if Seth got home in time to drive us. He got home at 7:00 so we popped over to the school for the last hour of the dance. I thought it was chaotic nonsense, but the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever. Alex immediately went searching for his love interest, Ella, and found her and the rest of his friends. Alyssa's friends did not appear to be in attendance so she danced with Chloe while they waited in line for cotton candy. I was a bit distressed to see a couple students (Elementary School, keep in mind) in tube top dresses that barely covered their butts. Not only are they a bit young, but it was 14 degrees out with wind chills at negative 8. Come on parents!

Today we started out the day with a broken garbage disposal. Just when I thought there was nothing left to break in my house. Sadly, the water heater is losing steam too and looks like it is the next thing to go. Anyway, the garbage disposal has now been successfully replaced.

But the big event today was Alex's first ever Tae Kwon Do tournament! The tournament was just between the 3 Victory locations in Wisconsin.

Seth signed him up without my consent. I wasn't sure we were ready to compete but we stepped up our practices this week and geared up to give it a try. There were 5 events, but of course you pay $10 for each one so we opted for just two events: form and creative board breaks. I actually tried to take him out of board breaks when we got there because we never practiced one, but he wanted to do it and said he would come up with something.

They split up by age and belt level (16 kids in Al's group) and the competition began.

First up was form. There are 4 segments to the form but apparently they were only supposed to do half of it. We had no idea and we had practiced the whole thing. The first girl up did half and I could see that there was no room on the mat to do the whole thing. Alex volunteered to go second and I wanted to run over and tell him to only do segment one and two but didn't think I should interrupt. He did parts one and two beautifully and then instead of stopping, he turned around and did parts 3 and 4. He should have done them going the other way but the chairs were in the way so he improvised. I could see the judges talking about what to do. I wished he had just done the first half because it looked like he was confused when he turned and tried to reverse it, but I knew he wasn't confused but just trying to find a way to complete his form. Anyway....he scored a 9.8, 9.6, and 9.6. One of the judges was Mr. S. Pettis, Mr. Pettis' youngest brother, who is also an MMA fighter and he gave the 9.8, which was the highest score he gave anyone on their form so I was happy to see that he understood what happened and scored accordingly. In the end though, Alex took the 4th place medal for his form and he is SO happy about that.

Next up was creative board breaks. Alex could not even do a somersault when he started so I thought his board break actually looked pretty good. He got 9.7 from all 3 judges but a couple of the kids did some serious acrobatics and splits and earned 9.9's from the judges so Alex did not receive a medal in board breaks. I saw a bummer look go across his face and thought oh I hope he doesn't cry, but even before I finished my thought he was over it and full of smiles again.

So we didn't smoke the competition but I thought Alex did great and believe me I am his toughest critic. That may sound mean but since I am the one who trains with him daily, I see every little detail and before you judge me, I am also, most definitely his biggest fan. As I watched some of the brand new kids perform I realized how far Alex has come in the 7 months since we jumped on this crazy TKD train.

Now we know what a tournament looks like and what to expect and we will be back, for sure.

Warming up.

After 3 kids perform they call them back up and judge them. You can see the 8 fingers up from one judge and 6 from the one next to him.

And the 4th place medal goes to...

High fives from the judges

The first video is his form. The part where he turns around and hesitates for a moment is where he was improvising. He should have still been going away from the judges at that point but would have hit the chairs. It took him a minute to get oriented going the other way. The rest of the kids stopped at the punch right before Alex turned. I will have to record him doing the whole thing at home where there are no charis to impede him because we have done this form literally hundreds of times and he ROCKS IT, and honestly even with the hiccup I thought he looked dang good out there. Strong, confident and just kept going! I loved it Al!!!



Here is his cute board break.