And she jumps

In the morning before school, she jumps. 

After school, she jumps. 

Right before bed, she jumps. 

IF THERE IS A SPARE MOMENT TO BE HAD, Hope will be jumping rope. It's just a guarantee. 

Here we are another season coming to a close soon...

The kids had a little skating party to celebrate another fun season.

I feel badly I haven't posted much about this season.

This has been Hope's second year on the Demo team and she's really hoping to make the Performance team next year. Onto bigger and better jumping events!

The social aspect for Hope is huge, she just loves being with her sweet best friend, and the bus rides and days out of school don't hurt either. Ha!

Grandparents rejoice, I finally have a couple videos uploaded for your viewing pleasure. 

This one is Hope getting a shot to jump with the Performance team, which was a BIG deal. I know you guys love watching your little jumping bean as much as we do.

More to come soon!

It's not a skating party until they play Amy Grant

First of all let's get to the important stuff: ONLY 17 DAYS LEFT OF SCHOOL. 

As we head into May I can hear in my head, "please secure all your belongings, keep hands and legs inside ride until it comes to a complete stop" or you know something like that. Because May is a ride on the crazy train. It's exciting, it's busy, it's expensive, and just when you think you might come up for air, crazy train May tells you the ride has not come to a complete stop. 

But I love May. 

May means it's time for some activities to come to an end until next August. 

The Jumpin' Jags put on a last performance for the parents.

She's really so good with a jumprope!

She told me she's ready for the season to be over

But wants to do it again next season.

Listen, if you're going to put a full year into any sport, you sort of live for the handing out the medal moment.

She told me she couldn't wait.

Check out her expressions, I just can't convince her to give drama a go. She would be so good...

When the coach called her name, he made a comment about her actually being 21. I'm not sure what that meant, but she died laughing. I hate that this picture is sort of blurry of her, but that was her completely embarrassed.

Way to go Hope! You jumped for an entire school year!

In celebration of the end of the season there was a skating party for all the jumpers and families.

I stepped into that skating rink, AND STEPPED BACK IN TIME. Every Friday night as a kid, our school would have skate night/movie night. I went to a private Christian school, so we would jam out and skate to Amy Grant. I mean you've never really skated until you've gone around a gym to El Shaddai.

 This rink wasn't playing any Amy Grant, but it did take me back. I forgot my socks or I would have joined and showed them my old moves, even though I'm sure I would probably fall and bust a hip.

But Hope did great! I only got one photo of her in action, but she really took to it pretty quickly.

I definitely want to go back as a family and all of us go skating. Maybe I'll even ask the DJ to turn off the Wobble and spin a little old school Amy for me.

Such a fun Saturday! And such a great season.

Best day of her life, part one.

Friday was "the best day of my life" according to miss Hope Elizabeth.

 And well, I have to agree it was a pretty fantastic day. 

It started with the first real travel day for the Demo/Performance team for the Jumpin' Jags. They loaded up on the bus first thing that morning, and were gone almost all of the school day. I took a personal day and followed them around what felt like the entire state of Kentucky. 

 An hour and 20 minutes later we arrived at a school full of children eagerly awaiting to watch the kids perform.

See Hope in the back there?

I could tell she was a little reserved, but it was a big crowd.

But she slowly warmed up.

Never in my life would I have imagined my kids would be into jumping rope as a sport, but it's really quite awesome.

School #1 was finished.

But not much time to rest, because it was time to head to the next school, 8 million miles away.

WHO KNEW KENTUCKY WAS SO BIG?

The coach giving them a pep-talk just like any coach. WATCH YOUR LINES, JUMP LIKE YOU MEAN IT!

And I'd say it worked! Or maybe she just had the jitters out, because she was in it to win it.

And I am SO glad that I was there to traipse all over the countryside to watch.

But the best part of her day was still to come....

Our tiny jumper

It's been a really long time since I talked about my little jumper, and little is literal. Paul took this video of her one evening at a practice, she's the one in the middle, the smallest one. 

Hope was promoted this year to the Demo Team, which basically means she's part of the team that goes to other schools to show their stuff and hopefully recruit. She really enjoys it, especially the part where they get to go out to eat after performing.

A few weeks back all the teams got together to put on a performance for friends and family. This included some of the high school girls who still perform, made me wonder if Hope will be one of these girls someday....

This performance was a little different, they turned off all the lights and used light up ropes. Pretty cool to watch, but the pictures? Well it appears as if it was the 1960's and I was trippin' on something.

Turn on some Zeplin man.

Just look into the light....

You get the point, the pictures were wild.

But she did a really good job. I'm so impressed with her foot work and stamina.

Our tiny jumper.

She makes us smile.

JUMP! JUMP!

Monday night was the final jump rope performance for our Jumpin' Jaguars. 

The kids have jumped for almost an entire school year.

And considering I can't jump for one minute I find this very impressive.

I was so glad that Hope was able to perform. She had missed two previous performances this year due to being sick, so she was super excited.

As he is with most things, Pierce was a little more calm about it all.  But he does tell me he wants to do it again next year.

Hope had some time to kill while waiting to double-dutch

And the music took over while she was waiting..

And you know what happens when the music takes you over, you just gotta dance. I FEEL YOU HOPE.

For realsly, this has been a great program and I am so glad they have participated. 

And Hope is glad because it means she received her first ever medal. 

And for the grandparents who wished they could see them perform here are two videos, one of which I cannot get turned the other way. So just turn your head and pretend. :-) 

Jumpin'!

On Monday morning, when I was sure I was dying a slow death, we crammed ourselves into a hot gym to watch a little performance by our jumpers. 

This performance was a little more nerve wracking for the kids because they weren't just performing in front of their parents, but their peers too.

Nerves were really strong

 But once they all got going you really couldn't tell.

Of course I was excited to watch both Pierce and Hope, but I was maybe a little more excited for Hope since she missed out performing the last time.

This was her big moment, and she kept telling me how nervous she was.

Funny how small she looked in that gym, especially hanging out with the "big girls."

 But being small doesn't seem to stop her from bossing anyone around.

There was some sort of drama, but she seemed to handle it pretty well.

And perform she did!

She's good!

Sorry the video is far away, but check out her little feet going every which away! She's the furthest on the left...

And then theirs speedy gonzales.

They have really loved this jumpin' thing

And they seem to love the performance part too. (Hope scouring the crowd not for me, but for her friends. Of course)

Oh, and I wasn't dying, but I did have an ear/sinus infection, so close enough.