Louisville Cheer Competition!

My daughter is a cheerleader. She's on the basketball squad, which is the one that does all the stunts and flippy things, basket tosses and pyramids and back tucks and such. No sense in all that work if you're not going to compete, right? So this weekend we had our 2nd competition of the year, for which we had to drive alllll the way down to Louisville, KY.

That's about a 2 1/2 hour drive for us. I like road trips. My kids don't, particularly, despite the fact we ply them with just about every diversion money can buy -- MP3 player, Nintendo DS, books, cards, a portable DVD player, a box full of junk food to snack on. Hubby had to work, so the drive was all mine, alone, on my own, which was kind of a bummer. But it was OK. We had fun!

We got to the hotel about 7 p.m. Friday. All the girls & their families stayed at the same hotel, so that evening they were in the pool, having pizza, running around all over the place like they owned it. Much fun! And at 6:45 a.m. we were up again for hair and makeup in the conference room -- curly ponytail hairpieces, glittery eye shadow, that sort of thing. They all look so cute - a little silly and overdone close up, but it's stage makeup, meant to impress at a distance.




They came in 1st place in their division! And they also won the trophy for all-around highest score! I gotta tell you, this cheer squad is GOOD. They are such a pleasure to watch! One of these days I'm going to tape it and put a video clip on here.

After the competition, I figured we should do something special for my son, because he got dragged along to a girly-girl event and managed to be positive about it, which is a real challenge for a nine-year-old boy. So we took him to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory! He loves baseball.





We toured the factory, looked at the museum displays, and the kids tried their skill in the batting cage. As usual, their favorite part was the souvenir shop! I bought my son a personalized Louisville Slugger bat, which I think is a pretty good exchange for sitting through a cheer competition.






I love to travel, but I'd rather do it as a passenger. It's great to be home.