A Champion

Katie with team Oregon State Champion trophy and 6th place medal on bars.

So before life gets away from me any more, I want to take a minute and focus on this little one for a minute.  I also want to talk about sacrifice.  Katie has learned a lot about sacrifice this season.  She has learned that sacrifice takes hard work, determination, focus, and sometimes sacrifice means painful decisions.

As you know from previous posts, Katie has been in competitive gymnastics.  2016 was more of the same.  Her team went into the season undefeated and was looking at a crazy busy schedule in the upcoming season.

Katie dove into it with gusto.  This season was harder as they were learning new skills and coaching became a little tougher.  So there were some bumps as the season got started.  I missed the first meet because I was at a women's retreat.  One of the other parents videoed it and sent it to my friends phone so I got to see her complete her round off back handspring for the first time in competition!   I was so proud that I started jumping up and down screaming "She did it, She did it!" on the sidewalk in the middle of Cannon Beach, OR.  Something about mother hood takes away some inhibitions.

I was sad to miss that first one, but she had 10 more in the season.  Then I broke my ankle.  So Dad took Katie to her meets, because I was not able to travel.  Then when I found out I had to have surgery the week before a big meet that the family was going to go to on a mini-vacation of sorts, I told the surgeon that I had to be able to travel by that weekend.  He said no problem.  What he didn't say was that the pain medication would make me so sick I would not be able to go.  That was a hard one for all of us.  Then there was the car accident on the way to another meet that caused Katie to miss yet another meet!  She had a tough season.

And then came the real sacrifice.  We had to pull Katie out of gymnastics.  Surgery costs an arm and a leg (and possibly and ankle).  So does gymnastics.  

Katie was having some struggles with the commitment it takes to be a competitive gymnast as well as some coaching issues that she was working through.  She was already thinking she might take a season off and try something else.  

What made it hard was that Katie didn't get to make the choice.  She may have come to that decision on her own, or maybe not.  But she learned that sometimes sacrifices are forced on us.  She learned to lean on the Lord when we are asked to give up something when we might not quite be ready.

But before she had to step out, she was able to go with her team to the State Championship.  We watched with tears in our eyes as we watched her give it her all.  We saw her fly on the bars, do her best back handspring and fight for balance on a particularly hard skill on the beam.  She was not going to fall at State.  When all was said an done, Katie came in 6th on bars and her team walked away with the championship title for 2016.  Her team came in 41st in the nation for 2016 and had 9 state titles when all the dust settled.

While we all had to learn about sacrifice this season, Katie was able to go out with a bang!  I mean, look at that smile.

Look out soccer team, Katie is going to play soccer this season. . .