June 29, 2005

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it has been a while since I have written. Everything around here has been kind of chaotic lately. There has been a lot going on! In January my leg started bothering me again (where I had my stress fracture last year), so I took some time off. It wasn't getting any better so I had a cortisone shot. I took 2 weeks off of doing nothing but conditioning. It has been feeling much better, and I really haven't had any problems with it lately. At the March camp, I was planning on trying for the European tour. I really only had about 2 weeks to prepare my routines, so I wasn't really in full routine shape. I went for it anyway, but I just did vault and beam. Vault went pretty well, it wasn't my best but I was happy to verify it on the hard surface again. Beam went very well. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared enough and the other girls were. That's just how it goes! Since then, I have just been training. Everything is going well in the gym, and I'm excited to compete all four events at Classics.

Other than gymnastics I have been very busy. I had a lot of school work to make up, and I had to finished my US History in which I home schooled. I started it last year, just to show you all how much of a procrastinator I am! I finally finished everything in time for my June 12 graduation. I had prom before then. It was a blast. I will put some pictures up ASAP. Graduation went well, except it was so hot! Our school doesn't have air conditioning, and it is a huge school. We had anywhere from about 800-900 kids graduate. Plus all the parents, and siblings were there. One girl actually almost passed out because it was so hot! Last weekend I just had my graduation party. It was so much fun. It was very hot outside though. I think it was about 95 degrees outside, plus all the humidity. I made three collages, one of my family, one of friends, and one of gymnastics. They were huge! It took me about 12 hours to finish all of them. We also had our IGI Banquet last week. It was very sad though. We have 3 seniors (or should I say soon-to-be-freshman). Beside me, and Kelly Fee, one of our level 10s also graduated. Her name is Kim Kruk, and she got a full-ride to University of Illinois-Champagne. We all had to give speeches, and we all cried of course! Other than that, it was a lot of fun. We put together videos of each senior from when we started gymnastics until our senior year. It was fun putting them together, to see how bad we all were when we were young. All of the falls, and the crashes. I will try to put mine on the website, if I can.

Unfortunately, we just lost a family member last week. I was at Lake Owen at the time (on Sunday), and I had called my dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day. My Mom told me that my Grandpa (I call him Papa) went into the hospital on Saturday. It was very hard for me to hear, because I was in Wisconsin, and I couldn't be with him at the time. I was very close with him, and the minute I heard he was in the hospital, I broke down in tears. I'm so happy that Kelly Fee was sitting right next to me. She hugged me, and was very supportive, and I want to thank her again! I went to the office right away to see if I could get a flight out. Fortunately another girl had to go to the airport, so I drove with her. I was lucky enough to get a flight out in the late afternoon. I was able to see him that night. The next day my Mom, and I went to go visit him at the hospital. He looked 100 times better, and I thought he was going to pull through it. Later on in the day, my dad called us and informed us that he had passed away at 5:45. We went to the hospital immediately to be with the rest of the family. We are a very close family, so it was a very hard time. We stayed there for almost four hours, just crying and in disbelief that he was actually gone. The next day was harder, and I found it very hard to sleep without thinking of him, and crying. I miss him very much. He was the best grandfather, and I will miss him so much!

Well, I hope everyone is doing well. I will see some of you in Virginia Beach in less than a month!

Love,
Kristina