Gymnastics update

Ainsley's season is almost over. Just state next weekend and then we will have a break from this weekend madness!

She has had a great season, but was stuck placing second all-around in every meet.  She was getting pretty frustrated until the Hollywood meet where she was solid on every event and finally placed first in the all-around. She had the highest score in the entire meet, but it was still a surprise when they called out her name. She has become quite the competitor this year.  What made it even better was that grandma and grandpa and grandma Pam were here to see her at her best.  These meets are sure stressful to watch!

 Her famous handstand.  The girls on her team talk about whether or not they did an "Ainsley" handstand.

 Finally, at the top of the podium!

 Her wonderful teamates

She also did her back handspring on the highbeam for the first time a month or two ago, but she hasn't been able to work on them since they have been doing their level five routines. Things will get pretty exciting/scary for her after state as they work on a lot of the bigger skills. 

Kirkland house

Our renters decided to break their lease and give notice three short weeks ago which put us in a bit of a bind. We had kind of been talking about possibly selling it in the summertime to buy something closer to us which would make it a whole lot easier to manage. 
Even though the timing wasn't the best we decided to put the house on the market. We've had four renters in seven years and it has been a lot of work!  We knew a realtor in the neighborhood so we called her and she went over there and gave us some ideas to spruce the place up. So we barked and replaced the bathroom vanities (we didn't because we weren't there but Brett did the vanities for us...big shout out!). Our renter was very helpful in getting the yard done, touch up painting and staging the house nicely.  
It went on the market on Thursday and there were 42 prospective buyers that went through over the weekend but no offers. We priced the house a little high (not too much comparable on the market right now) knowing that we could always go down in price which we ended up doing. We got an offer for 480K today, but we will pay closing costs.  We are happy with that and are ready to look for something here!  We are learning all about a 1031 exchange...
Reggie asked if we could keep it since that was the first house he ever lived in.  He has such a hard time letting go-thank you mom and dad for passing on that trait-hopefully, he will not become a hoarder!  We do have a lot of great memories there and it was such an ideal house in so many ways.  We will miss it and I hope that it is enjoyed as much as we enjoyed it.  The young couple that bought it are first time homebuyers and are very excited :o).
Here's the zillow link:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/13314-ne-136th-pl.,-kirkland,-wa_rb/?fromHomePage=true&shouldFireSellPageImplicitClaimGA=false

Last weekend

I am a little too far behind.... I will blog about this last weekend and then try to catch up later. 
Khalif went to aunt Ashley's and Ainsley had a meet in Fairfield (about an hour from our house) and it was the longest meeting ever so it was good Khalif was not there. Ainsley is human… She finally fell off the beam after almost 3 full years of competing. I was kind of hoping she would make it to the end without ever falling but that was not meant to be.  It was a little bit humbling and she was clearly not very happy with the outcome but we went out to dinner with her teammates and that seemed to cheer her up a bit.
From there we went to the Marriott (Ryan used his points) in Napa to stay the night since we were heading to Santa Rosa early in the morning to see Bethany Hamilton. I had been trying to figure out a way to see her but the tickets were so expensive everywhere except at this church where they were $20 each. It was awesome… She told her story and reminded us all that this life will have trouble and if we trust God and lean on him He can turn bad into good. She is actually thankful that this happened to her because she has such a platform to reach so many. And we got to see her baby who is a doll!  We decided to pay extra to meet her.  Originally I thought the tickets were $80 each but it turned out they were $80 for four people, so we actually got to meet her. 
Since we were only about 10 minutes away from where my cousin Ben lived we went over there to have a nice visit and check out their new house. We had a great meal and a great time!  Hopefully will be able to visit with them more :).  
We made good use of our two hours in the car studying Spanish (the thorn in our side). We stopped to pick up Khalif in Brentwood on the way home and then everyone went to bed. It was a fun, but long weekend.