Bethany Hamilton

She came to the bay area in October and because Ainsley is such a fan (and we are too), I bought tickets to hear her speak at a church in Santa Rosa.  Ainsley had a gymnastics meet in that direction, so we made a weekend out of it (Khalif visited Aunt Ashley).
It was so worth the drive.  She has such a great story about how bad things can turn into blessings and we should expect trials in our lives because that is what the Bible promises.  We went to a meet and greet after and got our picture with her and saw her sweet little boy!

 We were all in this picture, but Ainsley figured out how to crop us out!

After that, we went and had a nice BBQ and visit with Ben and Andrea, who live just minutes from where we were in Santa Rosa and got to see their beautiful house! 

State

I am WAY behind in my postings and as I update you will see why, but I will attempt to recapture some of the more important events over the last few months, starting with Ainsey's level 5 State gymnastics meet back in November!
It didn't quite go the way she had anticipated, but the competition was crazy, so even if she had her most perfect meet, it would have been unlikely that she would have been the all-around champion like she was hoping.  Her session started at 8:30 a.m. and her first event was beam and she was the first competitor in her group.  The combination of those two things was BAD.  She is not a morning person and it was her first competition in the morning (we got lucky all year in having late afternoon meets) this season.  Here is how it went:

She pulled it together and had great performances on her other 3 events, but she was super bummed.  We were all just so glad it was over.  She was amped up for a couple weeks beforehand, stressing out about state.  Here's Sarah and Ainsley, the only 2 in the younger group.  Sarah is a couple weeks older than Ainsley, but a couple feet shorter!  No, Ainsley isn't standing on anything to make her taller....

At least the kids had fun in the pool at the hotel. 

Typical Ainsley!