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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Curse of the Annoying Ankle

Turns out that my second (ish) week back of gymnastics turned out to be almost half a week. It's not that I couldn't go to gym for half the days, it's that I couldn't do half the events. Right after I wrote the last blog, I got up to go to the kitchen and my ankle bothered me a little. Thinking it was just another ache or pain that I had been having from doing gym, I iced it for 20 minutes. When I went to get up after, it was pulsing with pain! That's when I noticed it was swollen, but just a little. The next morning it was pretty much the same so I went to gym armed with ibuprofen and tape. I couldn't tell if the ibuprofen worked but the tape job helped a ton. (In case you haven't seen it before, a taped ankle is just when you use 1.5 inch tape to create a brace.)I'm pretty sure it's just a little sprain or something but it is still very annoying. I was only able to do beam and bars all week long. :(

Weirdly, my ankle still hasn't fully healed. It is better and I have the next week off gym, so it will hopefully be fine by the next week. I just needed to get that out of my system.

I've still have Friday to go, and Fridays are almost always the most fun. We run at 9:00 with TnT (tramp and tumbling), instead of just optionals. Then, we go to dance which is always fun to do/watch because we are gymnasts. :) And, we're all just excited for the weekend. There may be plans to see a movie after, but I haven't heard much about it so it probably won't happen.

My sister is in Sun Valley, Idaho competing and she is doing great, but aside from that, I don't really have any plans for the weekend so I'm ready for a relaxed break. Yay!


This was supposed to be posted on Thursday, but instead it was saved as a draft. I don't really know what happened, but I just wanted to let you know so it didn't sound really weird. (By the way, Friday we didn't get to do dance, but it was still fun.)

Sunday, July 14, 2013

A Week Full of Everything

Wow, this week has been extremely fun and tiring and just full. It seems like so much is happened, so much, in fact, that I haven't had any time to write a blog. The first major "event" going on was my first real week back in gymnastics. On top of that, my cousin was coming with my aunt. I only get to see them one week, maybe two weeks if I'm lucky, every year. Since so much has happened, I probably won't get to very many details, but I'll just sum up the entire week.

My cousin got here on Sunday. She and her mom were staying at my grandparents house which is about a block from my house. We couldn't really figure out what to do, and I was really stressed about the next day. Not much happened Sunday except for the delicious dinner that my grandparents cooked up, not to mention the homemade ice cream cake.

Monday, I went to gym from 8:00 to 1:00 and then to a Despicable Me 2 with my gym friends. It was totally hilarious, but not quite as good as the first one was. Still, I recommend it for anyone ages 0-100 who have a childish sense of humor. :) Tuesday, I went to gym again and then went straight to my grandparents house. That's when my cousin and I got out the deck of cards. She taught me all these card games: Mau, Ghostcard, and a few others. We also played Wii Fit for about an hour. We had a sleepover because I wasn't going to gym Wednesday for various reasons.

Thurday was about the same as Tuesday, with another sleepover, and Friday was awesome. I went to gym from 9:00 to 1:00, an hour shorter than the rest of the days, and then went over to my cousin for only a few hours. We all went to dinner at Szechwan, my favorite chinese restaurant, and then I was dropped off at the gym for a gym sleepover.

A gym sleepover is exactly what it sounds like. We sleep at the gym. In case none of you have never been at a gymnastics gym thing, there are tons of mats, trampolines, bars, foam pits, and it is pretty much like a huge indoor playground, except better. Only optional gymnasts were allowed to come, which means that there were only about 15 people there. We jumped on tramp, played stick it on almost every event, then, when it got dark, we played night games. We played Sardines, Cops and Robbers, and Role Call. After we finally got tired, we played card games. Finally, at around 2:00 Am - ish, we made a huge fort that we all slept in. It was pretty cool. (The only really bad part was having to wake up at 6:30, but don't worry, I took a nap after.)

Saturday was the last full day that my cousin was here, and we went to go watch my sister skate at a competition. She did great, and we all went to my house, incuding my grandparents to have ribs and homemade blueberry pie. After, we went back to my grandparents to have a sleepover.

My cousin is probably already back home now, and I have gym again tomorrow. Last week was very demanding and tiring, but with that aside it was totally awesome.

Monday, July 1, 2013

France Photo Finale

As promised, I have made a blog of pictures. It is a little bit unorganized but if you click a picture to make it full size, you can press the next button and make it a little slideshow. (Everything will make a little more sense if you have read the previous blogs.) I'm not sure if you'll be able to see captions if you do that, though.

The Louvre:
One of the largest paintings in the Louvre.

Mona Lisa! It was behind a thick piece of bullet proof glass.
 Versailles:
The gate into the Versailles Chateau. 


Now we're inside the gate. There is a ton of gold along the building but it is hard to see in the picture.
Just one of the many fountains in Versailles Gardens outside the chateau.

A view over the gardens. It doesn't look very pretty in the picture, but it is , just trust me.
 Marie Antoinette's Personal Village:
The goats at Marie Antoinette's fake village. (Yes, that one in the background is getting into an empty bathtub. You can see one on the left is already sleeping there.)

The goat that came up to us. It was so cute!

A peacock with it's quills/feathers out.

Marie Antoinette's "traditional peasant house."

There were about ten gardens with both vegetables and flowers. This was one of them.

Eiffel Tower:
A view from the Eiffel Tower.



The light show from the grass.

Panorama from the top.
Modern Art Museum (The Pompidou):
The inside-out building. The pipes are actually color-coded based on their use.

One of my favorites. The metal ball has a cool reflection, but you can't see in the picture.

This was just fun to look at. It was called "Fruits of Passion."

This was also fun; I really liked the colors, and it took skill.

Questionable pieces.

Another one...

And another one......

My favorite... :)
Food! I thought this deserved its own section:

Appetizer (Fois gras, mini creme brulee, fois gras ice cream)

My dessert (Mille Feuille)

My sister at the crepe stand. He's making a crepe in the background.

Chocolates from a chocolatier.

A patisserie window display.

Dessert (Opera at Cafe de la Paix)

Main Course (Chicken thing)

Appetizer (shrimp roll)
Extras:
Yes. Yes, that is a bird on my sister's head. :) To bad you can't see her face because of the other bird.
Me holding a pigeon. It kind of blends in with my jacket.

We all got portraits of ourselves up at Sacre Coeur. This is me being sketched
My brother's portrait.
My sister's portrait.
The locks on the bridge. This is just one section.
Arc de Triomphe

Eiffel Tower form the Arc de Triomphe