Friday-Saturday, July 9-10, 2021
Wow! What a weekend this was! We started out our skating weekend with practice ice at Troy on Thursday night where we met up with Heidi, Cate and Carri. Then we headed to Marion's for pizza and Graeter's for ice cream! It was fun showing them all a little bit of my hometown.
Then on Friday morning, we headed back to Troy for more practice and then Cate skated her freeskate. She fell on her doubles, but managed to come in 4th. We had some time to kill in between Cate's performance and Emily's so we drove down to The Greene and had lunch at Brio. Not crowded at all and good service so that was a win. Then the girls hit up a few shops (Lululemon of course) and then it was time to part ways. Emily headed back to Troy for her Short Program. She loves this program and we only worried about one of the jump combinations. Unfortunately, she missed the second jump in the Lutz combo and then fell on her double flip too. So, she came in 8th out of 9. She was very disappointed - too bad too because the pics were great.
After a good night's sleep, she was back at it on Friday night for the Intermediate Ladies Long Program. This time there were 14 in her group - the biggest group she has ever skated against. We worried a little that the disappointing short, might make a come back in the long a struggle, but boy were we wrong. She skated in the first group of skaters (which she was very happy about) and she seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing.
When her turn came, she completely killed it. Nailed the double lutz, double loop (although she did miss the double toe) and she landed all of her other jumps completely clean. Even her spins looked pretty solid. After she skated she was third overall. She remained in third all the way through the rest of the night. (even beating quite a few of the Mt. Lebanon girls)..until the very last skater, which pushed her off the podium and into fourth. But I can promise this was the very best gold ribbon ever. She has never been so happy to get a ribbon. What this competition seemed to prove to her, once and for all, that she belongs in this level and when she skates well, she can score as well (or in this case better) than many of the other skaters. What a night this was! So exciting!!! And we celebrated with - what else? - Graeter's!!!
