Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! This year is a big change for me as I am now competing as a senior elite. I actually just competed at my first meet as a senior, the New Years in New York meet in Manhattan. I didn't do great, but I didn't do terribly either. I placed 15th out of 21 with an all-around score of 35.9. On vault I scored a 9.35 and a 9.0 for an average of 9.175 for 8th place. On bars I scored an 8.85, an 8.950 on beam, and an 8.925 on floor with a fall. So there is definitely room to improve, but I still have time before Classics and Nationals which are really important. I really want to make the Senior National Team this  year! Next weekend I compete in Texas at the Gym Stars Elite Classic. I will be trying out a few new upgrades in my routines so hopefully all goes well with that. I'm upgrading my first vault to a double twisting Yurchenko, upgraded my flight series on beam to a bhs-tucked full, and added a punch front after my arabian double on floor. So if all goes well, I hope my scores will improve by a few tenths. The skill I'm most worried about is the tucked full on beam. I have plenty of power and my form is pretty good, I just am not totally confident with myself. But hopefully with some more practice and repetitions I can get it to be more consistent. So I'm a little nervous, but I figure I might as well get all the kinks worked out early in the season. 

Some other big news that I haven't mentioned yet is that I got an international assignment in the fall! I got to compete at the Swiss Cup in Zurich, Switzerland on October 2nd with 3 other girls from the United States. I competed with Cali Benson, Haylee Kipling, and Nyssa Tsardikos and we placed 3rd as a team which I think is pretty good considering the competition field was a mix of juniors and seniors and 3 of us were still juniors. I tied for 8th in the all-around with Nyssa which I was really happy about with a score of 35.9875. On vault I scored an average of 8.9125 and tied for 8th place. On bars I scored an 8.775. On beam I did a really good routine and scored a 9.025 and tied for 4th which was pretty huge for me. On floor I scored a 9.275 and again tied for 4th. So a great experience overall. It was also a new experience to travel so far by myself but I think I did well. I did get kind of homesick, but I enjoyed getting to know some of my National teammates better. 

Not too much other stuff to write about. My family had a great Christmas at home spending time with each other as well as all of our extended family in the area. Lots of baking, eating, movies, games, and all of that good stuff. It was great to have some time off from school and I was able to travel to New York for New Years with my teammates. My parents are trying to save their money for bigger meets later in the season which I understand. And I really love my coaches and teammates at Rocky Mountain so I don't get quit as homesick when I'm away from home with them. It was just Annabelle, Ramona, Kellie, and me. The other level 10s could have gone but it is a really expensive meet to travel to so they opted to just stick with the Cowboy Classic in Oklahoma as their travel meet for the year since it's a little closer and cheaper. I think that meet is on the elite schedule as well, so it should be a fun opportunity to travel with all of my teammates! It feels kind of weird being one of the older girls in the gym now but I'm really enjoying that role. Being the youngest in my family, it's a totally new thing for me to have younger kids looking up to me and I really like that. The team chemistry is really great overall and we do lots of activities as an entire team, the compulsories all the way up to the elites which is a blast. The team has gotten a lot bigger, we are up to a total of 20 girls levels 5-Elite and we started a Big Sister-Little Sister program which is lots of fun! The level 5-7s were paired up with the level 8-Elites and we do activities together like movie nights, sleepovers, getting to know you activities, gift swaps, games, make each other good luck signs, all kinds of fun stuff. I was paired up with a level 7 named Natalie. She is 11 and the oldest of 4 kids, so she usually gets to be big sister, so it's been really fun. 

I guess that's about it. I'll try to update again after the GSE Classic. 

Mollie