A Year's Growth

Wow! What a weekend! We were in Jacksonville for the 2nd weekend in a row (I might stop complaining about that sometime soon), but this time for a cheer competition. The gym did well, over all. Carissa's team took 2nd out of 2, which isn't fabulous, but everyone is entitled to a bad day. She did great, though, and was very pleased with her performance. The good news was that they at least did better on the second day than on the first.

I was looking through pictures and saw the photos I had posted from the Jacksonville competition last year. It made me reflect on how much Carissa has grown in the past year - not only physically, but also emotionally (WOW, what a difference) and as an athlete (yes, cheerleaders ARE athletes - I'd like to see you try it!). Here is Carissa in a stunt at Jax last year:



Here are the pictures from this year. Not only is she wearing a different uniform (new gym, remember?) that has a half shirt she hates wearing, but she looks much more mature. She also looks MUCH more confident in her stunts and is doing MUCH harder stunts, too! Here are three pics. The first one is called a heel stretch, the second is called a scale. The third picture is just 'cause I think it's funny. It's from the end of the dance. Remember - you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.