I am in the middle of midterms right now, cannot wait for these to be over!
He said
With a Worlds Bid and a 19 year old in the house out of the way it got back to the regular life stuff this week–most namely for Emelia that was her university midterms. They started this past week and carry over to next week. She has 5 in total. 2 of them she did on Thursday and Friday this week, and the remaining 3 come this week. She and Bri spent a couple of evenings this week studying for their respective exams this week. Pretty much all of the moments outside of her classes and work this week were spent studying for her midterm exams—it didn’t leave much extra time for her social life.
Friday this week we got to do something we haven’t as a family some time: go to a London Knights hockey game. Emelia (out of the blue) had a random Friday night off at the theatre, and our good friends Chris & Suzanne had tickets as part of their support network from Autism Ontario for their son Ethan had tickets for the Knights game. We actually went with them last year, but Emelia wasn’t available. In fact, the last time Emelia had been to a game, was in 2022. But very different this time was Emelia was old enough to order and enjoy an (overpriced) adult beverage at the game with us! At any rate, we had a blast after what looked like after the first period London getting smoked, they came from behind to tie the game 4-4 and 22 seconds into overtime they won the game!
For Cheer, prep continued this week for Ontario Championships which is this upcoming weekend in Kitchener. With the Worlds Bid out of the way, a lot of the pressure and stress is out of the way, but they still want to represent the gym well on the Ontarios stage. The comp goes Friday and Saturday for Valiant and we’re hoping the girls fair well as they look to continue to hone their routine for the Worlds stage. After this one we’ll have OCF (Provincials), then All-Star Nationals for Cheer Canada, and then it is off to Florida for Worlds. But, the best part of this weekend, is we will get to have a visit with Testza, Zoe and Abi who have moved down the road to Kitchener!
We’re into the thick of the Cheer Comp season, especially when you add in the trip to Florida for the Worlds. The next two and a half months with be laden with four events that will start next weekend and then be a blur that will fly by in the blink of an eye. Danielle & I will be sure to soak this all in as we anticipate this may be Emelia’s last season competing at this level. But, we also know that was potentially the thought last year too, after they took the National Championships for their level. We hope the best for all the girls and more specifically that this season gives Emelia all that she is looking to get out of it!
She said
This week for Emelia was a lot. She had practices and she started her second term, midterm exams. She had a full week of studying and exams. In a week span she has 5 exams. With 2 down she has 3 more to go. She has one mark back already and did pretty well. With this mark her grade in the class should be going up even more. The one exam that is causing her a bit of stress is the one she has tomorrow. When Emelia started her courses this term she quickly realized that one of her classes was not at all what she wanted so she switched to a different class. This class is a Social Justice and Peace Studies course, it is the first time taking a course with this material so it is a sharp learning curve with a lot of theorists and theories to learn. So needless to say she will be very happy with this midterm is over tomorrow. All-in-all she is taking things in stride, staying focused and is really looking forward to this week being over so she can go into another cheer competition and a week off school.
Emelia’s next big cheer competition is coming up next week, this one is Ontario’s which is a massive competition with some of the best teams in Canada there. Emelia’s division has some steep competition including a team that took second at Worlds last year. The girls right now are making adjustments and trying to come together as a team to put their best run out there and have a great weekend. Emelia is mainly excited for this weekend because her cousins are able to come see her compete. Just after Christmas, Testza and the kids moved to Kitchener, so with the competition in their new city they are able to come cheer Emelia on. This means everything to Emelia, she misses the girls so having them there will be a lot of fun.
Between cheer, studying, going to the Knights game with friends this week flew by. Emelia has been so busy the last few weeks but we are still trying to take it all in and making sure that Emelia does take time to decompress. Thankfully between studying, school, work and training Emelia was able to have some downtime with her bestie Bri last night, it is all about balance for sure. We want to make sure she enjoys these years, that she takes it all in and hopefully that this last season in cheer is one that brings happy memories.