February, Part 2-Tessa Runs Track, Aubrey's Dance Competitions, Abby's Club Season Ends

Tessa track season started with a bang. They usually do a prelim round on Friday evening with the finals on Saturday. Tessa was able to run the 400M, the 800M, and the 4x400 relay. The 400M was the only one that had prelims, so she only had to run that race on Friday. I drove across town to see her hoping I'd make it in time, and luckily I did. She bought spike shoes the week of her first meet and she used the blocks to start, but she's not very comfortable using them. Here she is setting up. I like the 400 because the start and finish are at the same place, so I can see both without having to move.

Tessa was very nervous about her first race, but she did well coming in second after her teammate, Isa. This first race was a little weird because when their heat tried to start, the starting gun misfired, so they had to reset and try again. Well, we figured out later that the timer still started with the misfire and they didn't reset that, so their times showed up about 30 seconds longer than they should have been. Luckily, it was just the prelim so Tessa and Isa still qualified to run in the final the next day, but the times looked pretty bad because the 2nd heat ran so much slower, but had faster times recorded.

On Saturday, we spend the entire day at the meet. With the three races that Tessa runs, they're spread out through the entire day. The 800M is always the second race from the beginning. The 400 is right in the middle and the 4x400 relay is always the very last event. Tessa ran the 800 and had a good time, but as you can see from this first picture, she came in right behind Isa. Tessa placed 2nd in both the 800 and 400 during the finals. She was happy with her results and happy for her teammate Isa. They do all of their training together. Tessa is the second leg of the relay on the 4x400. Isa is the first leg. Here's Isa passing the baton to Tessa. Tessa likes being the second leg because that's the leg that starts in her lane but then gets to move to the first lane after the first 100 meters. They won the relay and got first place for freshmen girls.

Here's one final picture of Tessa at her first track meet during the relay. I liked it because you can barely see her in her lane as she rounds the corner, but she's also on the big screen because they keep the camera trained on whoever is in the lead, so I thought it was cool that I could get a picture of her on the track and the on the big screen at the same time. On Valentine's Day at the high school, you can buy Valentine grams for anyone. All day people were getting treats and cards and surprises. Tessa came home with this huge balloon and proceeded to tell us the whole story. One of her friends from cross country, Christian, got her a small balloon and treat for Valentine's. He caught her as she got to school in the morning; however, as Tessa was trying to gather all of her things for the day from the car, she accidentally lost the balloon. Christian said he'd buy her another one even though Tessa tried to tell him it was okay. So after lunch, Christian showed up with this huge balloon for Tessa which she then had to carry throughout the rest of the day taking it with her to classes and through the hallways. I was really laughing by this point as Tessa was telling me the story because Tessa really does not like being the center of attention. She'd much rather  blend in with the crowd, so I'm sure this was hard for her, but good for her too. Abby was sad that her younger, freshman sister got more attention than she did on Valentine's Day, but since all of the attention was coming from someone Tessa only likes as a friend, Tessa wasn't all that excited about it either. Just embarrassed and almost annoyed that she had to deal with the huge balloon and all of the attention all day. I loved hearing all about it.

Aubrey had her first dance competition while I was out of town with Abby for volleyball. Tyler went to the competition, so he got to watch her perform, but didn't get any pictures since he was far away in a gymnasium set up. I did ask Aubrey to take some pictures, so she sent me these first two that she had taken while they were getting ready. I loved this dance outfit. She even took one with one of her closer friends Claire, who's one of the 8th grade captains.

This routine was performed to "Gotta Be" and they had been working on the choreography since last summer. This was the routine that they knew they were going to take to competition when they first started learning dance and doing the summer camps. One of the moms of one of the dancers is a photographer and she was able to be down on the floor and take these amazing photos. I was so excited to see so many with Aubrey in the front.

I love all of the action shots and the movement you can see in her body. She really loves dancing and I love how quickly she has picked it up. She takes it so seriously and practices all of her dances a lot at home. They also performed one of their hip hop routines that they learned during the football season. This one was a crowd favorite. There were a lot of pictures of Aubrey during this dance too.

She was all over the court for this dance, sometimes on the far right, sometimes on the far left, and sometimes in the middle. They danced to "Hotel" and with some tumbling in the middle and a lot of attitude throughout, the audience always got into it and cheered really loudly throughout the dance.

 

Unlike Tessa, Aubrey has always been a great performer and she loves to be in the middle of the action. She struggled a little with anxiety at the beginning of the dance season as she got used to performing in front of so many people, but by this time she was ready and excited for the performances and she did great. I loved hearing all about it and watching the videos that everyone sent me of their performances.

The girls placed first in both of their categories. Here's the entire team with their coach, Ms. Crouse, as they awaited the results.

Abby's next out of town tournament was in Dallas. I had been looking forward to a volleyball tournament in Dallas for many years. It's close to John and McKaye and I have friends from high school who have daughters in volleyball and I thought it would be fun to see them at a tournament. We flew into Dallas and had an easy time traveling for this weekend. My parents drove up again and picked us up from the airport. We stayed with John and McKaye in their apartment since they live less than five minutes from the convention center where Abby played. We showed up Friday afternoon for the pool play and I took this picture of Abby and some of her teammates while they waited for the teams on their court to finish the morning pool play. Here she is again with Kyndall, Selma, and Nat. Nat and Selma are Abby's closest friends from the team since they're all the juniors from Franklin. They wanted this picture of their jerseys while they waited to start one of their games. The girls were in a tough pool again and they beat a team that was ranked higher than them, but lost to a team that was ranked lower than them. The game they lost was lost in three sets and it was sad because they barely lost the first set, but then killed them in the second set. However, in the 3rd set we got stuck in a bad rotation that we couldn't get out of, so they got way ahead and we couldn't come back, so we ended up losing. Besides the team that won all of the games, the other two teams along with us were 1 and 1, so we were in a three-way tie. However they decided to determine ranks, we ended up 3rd in the pool so we weren't going for gold anymore.

We spent our free time with John and McKaye and my parents. They took us to Torchy's Tacos which we had heard good things about. The tacos had silly names, but lots of flavors and it was fun to try different ones. Their queso was also very delicious. I wanted a picture so I could show my coworkers that we had made it to a Torchy's since it was recommended to us by them and by my brother.

On Saturday, we played another day of pool play. Abby did really well setting and leading her team to the win. Because we weren't going for the gold bracket anymore, the teams were not as difficult. We still had some challenging competitors, but our girls were really meshing and they fought hard to pull out the wins.

We did a team dinner at a restaurant called Dick's Last Resort. They are known for their good food and insulting service. The servers are basically rude on purpose and they always give you a huge hat with some kind of insult written on it. Most were too inappropriate to even take a picture of, but I did get a picture of Abby's and Nat's. The girls thought it was funny as did the parents, but it's someplace I probably wouldn't go back to. It was definitely a one time experience for me. Abby played some VR at John and McKaye's house and had fun trying the new games with McKaye. It was fun that we got to stay with them. They even came to some of Abby's games so they got to see her play and do her thing.

On Sunday, the girls played their last couple of games. If they had lost their first game they would have been out, but they won that first game and got to play a second game to basically decide their place in the bottom half of the tournament teams since they weren't going for gold. They won both of their games in three sets and ended up the top team of the 3rd and 4th place teams. It was a fun tournament with good competitive games even though we weren't going for the gold. Sydney, the other setter, ended up leaving early so Abby was the only setter for Sunday. She worked hard and was exhausted by the end of the day, but she never gave up or looked tired. She was a great strength for the team. We took this picture of the entire team before we went our separate ways to head back home. To remember the names from left to right, back to front we have: Eva, Kayla, Selma, Nat. Middle row: Angie, Kyndall, Dajah, Fern. And Front: Neah and Abby. 

This next picture is of Abby with Nat and Kyndall at a sushi restaurant in Midland. We were in Midland the weekend after Dallas for their final volleyball tournament - the regional qualifier. So much happened that weekend and I did not have very many pictures, so this is where we'll start. Some of the team met at the sushi restaurant after our first day of pool play. We had ended up second in our pool so still going for gold. However, Sydney had quit after the Dallas weekend and Kayla had a family emergency so she didn't make it out to Midland, so we were already short on players. Neah played all of the games on Saturday with sore abs. She had pulled something the week before while working out. during the first game, the coach kept telling Abby to set someone other than Neah so she wouldn't make it worse and so they could save her hits for when they really needed them during the harder games. Luckily it worked and the other hitters stepped up to help carry the team to the win. They were also really close against the team that beat them. They took them to three sets, but just didn't get the win on that one. However, during that game when we needed Neah and her hits, she ended up going up for a block and hurting her thumb. She played the rest of that game with what she thought was a dislocated thumb on her left hand. After the games, some of us met up at the sushi restaurant. We also waited to hear from Neah and her mom who had gone to the hospital to check on her thumb and stomach. They came to the restaurant afterwards, but they didn't have good news. Her thumb was actually broken and her abs were damaged enough that the doctor said she would need to see a surgeon once they got home because of some internal bleeding. She was not allowed to play any more volleyball. She was in a lot of pain, but also very distraught that her volleyball season was abruptly over.

So on Sunday, the girls played without another player. They were down to only 8 girls, but they played with all of their hearts. Angie, the other hitter and team captain, carried the team. We won our first game, but lost our second game to the team that was ranked first in the entire tournament. We did beat them in one of the sets, but lost the 3rd set. You can see in this second picture some of their players. Their middle hitter was probably 6'4" or taller. They also had some amazing hitters and setters, so I was so proud of our team for beating them in one of the sets. One of the other parents caught this picture of the score when we squeaked out the win. It was hard thinking that if only we had Neah, maybe the outcome would have been different, but what can you do? 

With that loss, we were on the loser's side of the bracket, but since it was double elimination we were not out yet. We won our next game and that put us in the top four teams, but that also had us up against the team that beat us the day before. We played hard against them, but it was our third game in a row and between that and our short roster, the girls were exhausted. They still played hard and did their best, but we couldn't pull out the win. That team ended up losing to the team we had just lost to as well, but the hard part was that we found out that the top three teams got a bid to go to the National tournament, but we were the 4th team. We were so close! It was so sad. The girls really worked hard and deserved to be with those top teams, so it was a sad, rough way to end their season with all of the things that could have gone differently, but we were so proud of them as well. We couldn't have asked for a more exciting end to their season and for such an awesome team that Abby had the privilege of playing with. It was the best team she had ever been on with all of those strong senior players. We'll miss them a lot!

This isn't club volleyball related, but it is Franklin volleyball. Abby's senior volleyball friends were having their signings whenever they decided on colleges and the whole team attends the signing. Here's the signing for Madison Blanco, one of Abby's teammates and friends. She was the setter on varsity since the end of her freshmen year and she's always been one of the best in the region. She signed to go play volleyball at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She was a good mentor for Abby and someone she could look up to when it came to setting, and I liked that this picture had the entire Franklin volleyball team and coaches. We don't get many pictures with all of them together. And I love how Abby is front and center right behind Madison. Volleyball has been such a big part of Abby's high school experience and I hope she'll look back on it with fond memories.