St. Patty's Parade

The boys and I headed downtown to Old Sacramento for the St. Patrick's Day parade.  It was a nice and warm day out, perfect for a spring parade.  

 A couple of games while we waited for the parade to start.  A bunch of old school games that will be on our list of places to visit again! 

 

 

Bay Area Day Trip

The boys and I took advantage of an open Saturday to enjoy some time in the Bay area before Ty's meet last weekend.  We started off the day in Sausalito to visit the Marine Mammal Center. 

We arrived a bit early for our tour time, so we went to the beach to for a bit.  

Rodeo Beach looks like a great spot for a longer days' adventure and we hope to visit it again.  

 

We are guessing that these are the old sleeping quarters for Fort Cronkhite.  

Before we knew it, 11am was creeping up on us and it was almost time for our tour.  I was able to find 50% off passes for the tour on the Sac Library site.  There is only one local tour listed for the Sacramento area, most are bay area places and we were excited to check this out.

The Marine Mammal Center is a rescue center that works to rehab sea lions and seals that have been found along the coast line and release them back into their natural habitats.  Each animal that comes in is tagged so they know if they have been brought in before, or if they are in trouble again and found by another agency.  It's a wonderful place and the boys enjoyed learning about the work they do. 

 Volunteers cleaning the pens, something they do 3-4 times a day. 

 This little pup is really under weight.  He was enjoying the sun.

 He shouldn't be this wrinkly, this is a tell that he wasn't able to eat enough in the wild. 

 After our tour was over we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to explore San Francisco Pier.  

Badly timed photo, there was a cable car up the hill.  

 We stopped by Musée Mécanique on Pier 45 to play some games and smash some pennies.  

The boys had a ton of fun playing newer and especially the old games. 

 Visiting the submarine Pampanito along Pier 45

 Good views of Alcatraz

 Seeing this War Ship docked as well.

 Pirate ship in front of the Bay Bridge

 Another view of the war ship, by the Golden Gate

 Ice Cream Treat at Pier 39

 The old cable cars were really awesome.

 We added 19 new pennies to our smashed collection, warranting the purchase of a new book to hold them.  

We had a great day and can't wait to go back to explore some more!  There is SO much to do in the city that we could spend a week there and still not hit everything. 

2015 West Coast Classic

This past weekend we traveled to Pleasanton for the West Coast Classic.   

Tyler had his best meet yet, hitting personal bests on 3 events and for his all around.
He had a big goal going into the weekend, to qualify for state.  This meant he needed to hit an all around of 54.0.  He missed it by 1.90 points.  He was SO close. 
So a great meet for him that had a bit of an overshadow in the end.  We left pretty quickly, there were tears once we got outside, but a lot of reminders of what all he had accomplished during the meet.
I'm so proud of all the hard work he's put in this season. 

He started out on high bar with a 9.60, a personal best by .70 and his highest score of the season for any one event.  He finally nailed his fly away (flipping) dismount after months of practice.  He made his kip after missing it last meet, and may have also received the continuance bonus.

Then they rotated to floor where he scored an 8.20.  They were given a super critical judge this weekend that didn't help his chances for the scores he needed.  He stayed focus in the beginning, pausing in both his handstand and press handstand, good arm positions throughout and nailing his double back handspring.  He had a couple of little bobbles and his back handsprings still need to be tightened up with legs together which dropped his score down a bit.

Next up was pommel with a score of 8.60.  He had a good turn on pommel, without the normal hand slips in transition from front to back.  Then he had a good mushroom routine, finally adding in a spindle (half turn) for an extra bonus.  Then the mats ate away his score with a major slip coming off the mushroom that had him scrambling to stay on his feet.

4th rotation had them at rings where he scored a season high 9.10 (PB by .40).  His routine went well overall and he only had a small step on the landing.

They followed rings with vault, scoring his season stagnate score of 8.80.  His punch, block, flip and landing were all done really well.  His score is most likely being lost on his run and arm circles before he punches the board.

Last for the day was parallel bars where he scored 7.80.  He had a good for him routine, but it's still not up to par for what it should be this late in the season.  His transition to the top of the bar wasn't as clunky as it's been in the past and he didn't fall on his dismount.  He's still missing his handstand which really dropped his score down.

In the end he finally cracked the 50's for his all around score with a 52.10, a personal best by 2.30.  It was a good way to end the season.


To recap his season:
Floor improved 2.70
Pommel improved 2.30
Rings Improved 1.90
Vault improved .70
Parallel Bars improved 2.0
High Bar improved 4.30
All Around improved 8.30


Video:



Where he started in November:



As much as we wanted him to qualify and go to State, I'm glad this season is over.  We've had a lot of frustration in the gym and it will be nice to have a break from competition.  He has a lot of momentum right now with learning new skills, so hopefully they will help him to keep moving forward into the summer.

Now to turn focus to swim season!