Tuesday

Whew... this weekend was exhausting!

Emma had a major cheer competition this weekend - Nationals in Atlanta, with around 1200 other teams... so you can imagine how crowded it was.

Emma's team had practice at 8:45 that night, so she rode with one of her teammates to Atlanta, and Daniel and I and the rest of the kids left at 3:45 when Daniel got out of school.... we got to the arena at 9:30, but they didnt get done practicing until 10:00... so I went in and waited and Daniel and the kids waited in the car.

And then we had to brave Atlanta traffic... so it took 45 minutes to get to our hotel 12 miles away... so yeah, we didnt get to bed until 11:45 or so.

And then we all had to be up at 5 AM (which counting for the time change going across state lines, is like 4 AM to our bodies).  Emma had to be at the arena at 6:30 and she performed at 8:28 and there were 13 teams in her division.  We got done around 10 and headed back to the hotel where we ate lunch and I took a small nap.

Then the fun started.... we got to meet up with some of our adoption travel buddies - one of the ladies who was in China at the same time with us lives in Atlanta, so we got to see her and her daughter again and meet the rest of her family!  We had a great time - they are wonderful people, and the kids had a blast.... going to see them was the highlight of our Atlanta trip, so we were so glad they were available that weekend.

We got to bed a little earlier that night - around 10... but had to do it all over and be up by 5 AM the next day again.... and Emma performed at 8:12, but awards werent until 10.  They got 8th place - there were some really amazing teams there and it NATIONals which means teams from all over the country, so 8th place in the whole country is pretty good in my book....

But not to Emma... she was completely heartbroken.... poor thing.... but I finally got her calmed down and even some girls from other teams came up and told her how good she did, which was just amazingly sweet.

So after two days of getting up at 5 AM and then going through all the work of performing and the emotions of awards, we were all done for... so we spent the rest of the day at the hotel where we ate lunch, swam in the indoor pool and just crashed in front of the tv.

So we went to Atlanta.... and pretty much did nothing touristy, but walked away having had a great time (thanks mostly to our friends!)

We got home yesterday... Daniel had to go in to work to make up for the snow day they missed last week, but the rest of us pretty much layed around and just rested.

Busy weekend, but good.... :)