Walk in the Park

 Friday had some nice spring-like weather, so after a fish fry dinner with our friends, we walked down to Glen Park. The boys liked running around on the rocks, of course. :)  Then we went to the old mill for ice cream.  Upstairs there's a games/comic book shop, and one of James's friends from gymnastics was there. They had fun playing old video games together!

State Meet 2019

 James's State Meet was last weekend (conveniently located in Brockport).  Like many of his other meets this season, he had some good events and some not so good ones.  He had his personal best scores on mushroom (pommel horse) and floor, and he did an excellent rings routine. But unfortunately he had some unusual mistakes on high bar and p-bars, which are usually strong events for him.  And vault, well, that's been a struggle all season! (Although the irony is that he'd done an amazing warmup vault right before the competition -- too bad he couldn't have had that one for the meet!) So, he ended up placing 9th on floor and 7th on rings. His team came in third for the 7-10 age group and 2nd for all ages. 

Happy (belated) Pi Day

James says Pi Day (3-14) is his favorite holiday. :) 

And here's the song to go with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSNYbJ-EaAc

Old Town

 At the end of last month, I made a quick trip to DC for work. I was mostly in conference rooms, but at least I got to take a bit of a walk around Old Town Alexandria.  Very cute!

Rockin It

 We joined the YMCA the other day, and the first thing Matthew wanted to do was the rock wall.  He made it almost to the top on his first visit, and then came back the next day and conquered it!  James also made it to the top (although he had an advantage from being small -- the rope has about a 40 pound lift, so it was doing a fair amount of the work for James!)

The boys also liked the Alaskan Adventure room, a big play area with climbing and tunnels. 

Local Meet

 The last meet before the state championships was just a small one at James's gym.  Here are a few pictures. The one of him on rings with his teammates looking on is one of my favorites. :)

Training with the Phoenix

 The Warrior Factory had a special training session with Najee Richardson, one of the top ninjas from the show, and of course James wanted to go. :)  He had a great time training with Najee, although the session was for 6-9 year olds, so a lot of the obstacles were on the easier side for him. :)  They have a very tall Devil Steps that he (James) tried, but there was a long reach for the transition at the top, and he wasn't quite ready to go for it yet.  At the end, Najee tried to beat his own lache record (swing from one bar and leap to grab another), which he did!  I think the distance was an amazing 15 feet.

You may notice that in the group picture, James wiggled his way over to be right next to Najee. :) 

Najee was also a gymnast.  Apparently so was another girl there, because after James told Najee that he also did gymnastic, the girl challenged James to a handstand contest.  (She won, but it was close.)