Jan
2018

A Gym of Her Own!


I got a practice bar for my birthday!! Now I can practice my bar routine at Poppa & Grandmas.He said

It finally feels like both Danielle and I are on the mend. The nasty, hangs-on-for-like-ever cough seems to finally subsided as of today, a full two weeks since it had it’s apex. (Knock on wood!) Even as recent as Friday and yesterday we were still doubtful we’d reach a Post Winter Cold 2018 recovery period. But both she and I today have noticed that our coughs have significantly subsided which is about damned time! I am so over blogging about it here.

The schedule this week afforded me the ability to get out to see a couple of Emelia’s weekly activities. Wednesday I was able to go with Danielle and to Emelia’s Acro Dance class. It was nice because one of our friends who I work with but has been off work with the loss of his wife to cancer, has his daughter in that class too. We had no idea when we signed Emelia up but after a couple weeks and recognizing his daughter I connected the dots and reached out to him to let him know. This week Jamie happened to be there so Danielle and I got to have a an hour to visit with him and see how he’s doing while our daughters danced. It was really great to have that visit.

The big event on the radar this week was with me off Friday and Poppa ready to pull the trigger on Emelia’s birthday present with her off school because of a PD day was a special errand we had to run. Weeks ago, Poppa floated the idea of a very special birthday present for Emelia to help her work on her gymnastics. They had been iMessaging back and forth planning how it could work. Our house just doesn’t have the kind of space that she would need to practice her bar routine, but Poppa & Grandma’s basement does. Poppa was happy to let her use the space and then see Emelia that much more. It was win-win on all sides as far as these two were concerned.

Because I was off work, Emelia had a PD day we decided Friday would be the perfect day to go visit the lady who sells the gym equipment locally and pick it all up and bring it back to Poppa & Grandmas. The funny thing was Emelia had no idea (or played like she had no idea). I told her that we had to go over to Poppa & Grandma’s to help them move some boxes in the basement. When we got into the truck with Poppa and headed back across town, I am sure she suspected something was up. But, she still didn’t really let on. When we met the lady selling the equipment, where she warehouses it, and some gymnastics terms started bouncing around between the adults, I am sure she started to really figure it out. But, in true Emelia fashion – like her mother – even when we finally painted it out in black & white and told her what she was getting, and the lady even handed her birthday presents she threw in for free for Emelia, she reacted exactly as she does for everything else. But the smile on her face – the same one we saw when we let her know about the surprise Disney Cruise – was more than enough.

The rest of the day, and the only thing that would be acceptable for Emelia was to go directly to Poppa & Grandma’s so we could set up the equipment and she could test it out. The perfect PD day as far as she was concerned. Being that it was very good quality equipment, it took a while to get put together and set up. But, Emelia was very patient and even better help. She kept Poppa & Grandma company for the parts she couldn’t do, and then the second she got the green light she was on the bar and working on her routine.

We spent the rest of the day there, until we realized we needed to get out buts in gear and get Emelia some to-go dinner along the, or she was going to be late for her actual gymnastics practice. We hit the A&W drive thru (her favourite) and she ate as we drove across town and got her to practice. The second she got in the door she ran up to her gymnastics friends to tell them about her early birthday present. I was so happy to see the joy on her face.

She managed to find an excuse for Mummy to take her back to Poppa & Grandma’s yesterday while I worked so Danielle could see how the equipment worked. Somehow Danielle got roped into trying things, a fate I managed to luckily avoid. She is definitely so happy to have this and like Poppa wisely suspected, sleepovers at their house are going to immeasurably easier with the downstairs gymnastics area for her to play on.

She said

It is hard to believe that our baby girl is 11 in 5 days! How has this happened? Where has the time gone? Everything about Emelia has grown and matured so much over the last year. Sadly gone is our baby girl and a beautiful, loving, smart, funny, athletic tween has taken her place. Emelia is full on athlete now so building on this was a natural extension of what we wanted to encourage for her birthday.

Emelia has wanted a training bar for a year, we had researched it heavily and had come to the conclusion that it was not possible. We have a small house and no where that the bar could fit and give her training space. So she accepted this and moved on and found other ways to do some home training. Basically doing handstands, cartwheels and flips all over our house.

The idea of a home training gym was all but dead until about a month ago when Emelia and Poppa started talking about the idea that they had a large bungalow that had a large family room in the basement that was unused. Doug asked her what she thought about a space in their home for her training. It was an absolute win/win. It gave Emelia space to train and gave her time with her grandparents. Honestly it was a coin flip who is more excited about the equipment there. Poppa loves that Emelia wants to train and come over to their house at every free moment and Emelia loves that she has a place that she can train and play.

After speaking to the sales rep that a few friends had used in the past we had everything in order. With the bars being bought by Poppa and Grandma we opted to add to the training by getting her a training beam to use. The woman we dealt with was absolutely amazing. She gave us the beam at a great price and when she found out it was for Emelia’s birthday she gave us a cartwheel mat and chalk bag to complete her set. Emelia is absolutely in love and we just love seeing our active girl in her element. We couldn’t be happier.

So this week will be all about our little girl turning 11, she didn’t want a friends birthday so we are taking things a bit lower key this year. So we are planning something fun just the three of us over the weekend and waiting until later to do a fun play date with her best friends once the new trampoline park opens next month. We had tried to do a sleepover but that hasn’t panned out so we will do lots of fun things focusing just on her over the weekend. She’s pretty excited!

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