Eliza's Home Meet

For two years, the girls on Eliza's team were given the option of choosing to compete in traveling or home meets this year.  Last year, Eliza only competed in home meets, which was fun, but not very exciting since she only competed within her own team.  Since then she's really wanted to travel this year, but because it was an extra expense, we told her she'd need to contribute $100 to the cost.  She kept this in mind all year and saved her money, and even saved enough money to pay for a jacket to wear to the meets.  Well, as the traveling competition season wound down, Eliza's team was again given the option to participate in home meets, for $30 per meet.  Eliza really wanted to do this too, mostly because only one girl on her team wasn't traveling to competitions and she wanted to come to a home meet so she'd have someone there with her.  We told her that's great - but she'd need to pay for it.  So she did.  (Thank goodness she's learned to save the money she earns doing jobs around the house/yard instead of buying candy as soon as she got paid, as she used to do.)

Another fun thing about this meet is that since it wasn't a USA Gymnastics sanctioned event, Eliza was able to use skills from different level categories within the same routines, so she could do things that she's learned that were a little more difficult than what she was doing at the traveling meets.

The home meet she participated in was in the middle of April so Ben took her and dutifully took pictures and made videos.  Here's what he shared:

Ironically, the girl who didn't travel at all this season and who Eliza wanted to come to a home meet to support didn't end up at this meet.  And there was only one other girl in Eliza's bracket.  This other girl placed first in every event, and Eliza placed second.

(in the beam video above Eliza didn't make the back walkover the first time but then tried again-

I thought I'd share this video her coach, Laura, emailed me when Eliza first nailed it during practice)