Last Week of School - On with the Hectic Summer

In four more days, my daughter will be finished with this crazy, stressful, transitional first year of middle school.

No one is more excited about this than I.

We will have about two weeks before she gets right into her crazy, stressful, transitional ummer of gymnastics. This will be her fourth summer of training for Fall competition... but when her level 6 "compulsory" season ends in November, she will be moving right on to level 7, which is the first of the "optional" levels.

Explanation: Compulsory gymnasts all perform the same routines with the same skills on the four women's events - vault, bars, beam and floor. When they hit the optional levels, they create their own routines and can pick and choose among the skills -- it is their option.

So for the last three summers, Megan has trained for 25 hours per week. But because she will need to be ready to go in January with her brand new optional routines, the head coach wants her to work for an additional 10 hours each week during the summer. I know - that's like having a full time job. And she's not exactly thrilled with the idea of having so little time this summer for play...

...so we are doing what we can do have some fun. We are leaving next week on not just one, but TWO road trips. We will also be returning to San Diego for a rare summer gymnastics meet. All of these trips will be chronicled here on the blog. YES! Travel posts again!!

And to kick off all this summer travel in style, I am holding a contest over at SoCal Stuff: First prize is a Crosswords DS game -- and a spanking new Nintendo DS to play it on! I am also giving away a road trip kit with products that will help make your drive go smoothly. Click here for contest details and to enter.