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| Spirit Squad |
Since my daughters got involved in cheerleading a couple of years ago, the month of February has become cheer month. Practices occur once or twice a week for extended periods, and pretty much every weekend in February has an event somewhere. This year there are to be events at Garnet Valley, Chichester, Wilmington, Ridley and a big one that is an overnight trip out to Hershey.
The first of these events was on our home turf, the 10th annual Garnet Valley Cheer Challenge. Many of these events tend to be structured the same way, with an earlier session lasting three or four hours that has club teams and girls ranging in age from "ankle biters" at 5 or 6 years old through high schoolers. A later session of another 3 hours or so has school teams from middle schools and high schools. Both Julia's Spirit Squad and Grace's BYC Pee Wees are club squads, and compete in the earlier sessions.
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| Cartwheeling Grace |
I have written before about how touched I am by the reception that Julia's Spirit squad receives every time they perform, and today was no exception. They performed first, received their customary standing ovation, I teared up, and they were presented with a first place trophy for winning their division. As Julia likes to point out, they are undefeated in their careers, never having not come in first. We try to keep Grace from pointing out too loudly that they are the only team in their division. For these kids more so than anyone, it is the effort that counts, and I couldn't be more proud.
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| Flexible Grace |
Grace's Pee Wee division team went fairly early on, and did very very well. Grace has a prominent position in things, and at one point does a solo cartwheel pass in front of the entire rest of the squad as they build a pyramid. Forgive the gushing Dad, but she nailed it. Watching the other 5 or 6 teams in their division, I thought that they had a pretty good chance of finishing second or third, but that first place seemed like a lock for another squad. When the awards were announced at the end of the session, first place went to who I expected (and writing this later, I honestly forget who, but it may have been Drexel Hill). Grace's squad got second place.
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| Julia, Grace and Coach Emily |
A very good start to the month.
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