Hey Everyone!

Wow, long time no talk huh? So sorry about the lack of updates! First of all, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Gym is going great, and I am looking forward to the new season which is approaching rapidly! I just got back from the Voronin Cup in Moscow, Russia. Nicole Dory, Stephanie Turner, Kailey Tissue, and Catherine Nguyen competed also. We all did good. The equipment was just hard to get used to since it was all of our first time competing internationally. The floor was the hardest for me, (I fell twice). In Europe the floors are made of foam instead of springs! I ended up getting 16th in the all-around. I thought that was pretty good since I competed with Elena Zamolodchikova and Anna Pavlova! I thought it was so cool that I got to compete with them. Everyone made an event final except Stephanie who was 2nd alternate on two events (beam and vault). Kailey made beam, I made bars, Catherine made floor, and Nikki made beam. So, the competition part was great! It was quite an experience getting to go to Russia. Another hard part about the trip was jet-lag! When we got there, they lost one of Valeri's bags so we had to wait forever in the airport. I was so tired that I fell asleep standing up and leaning over on a suitcase. I have never had that much trouble keeping my eyes open like when we got there. It's a 9 hour time difference than Dallas. Eventually we got used to it though. It was not as cold as we thought it was going to be. I mean, it was cold but if you had a big coat and some gloves or a scarf you were good to go. We had a hard time occasionally though because everything everywhere was written in Russian. So, we didn't know where to go or anything. Luckily our coaches are Russian so they could help us out a lot. On Saturday before we left we got to go sight seeing and that was awesome. We saw Red Square, St. Basil's, and the Kremlin. Then that night Valeri asked us if we wanted to go to the mall. Of course, we said yes! So we got to ride on the Russian subway and it was amazing. It's so fast and efficient. You never have to wait more than 90 seconds for a train. The mall was huge! It had three rows with three levels. Being around Christmas it was busy. We also met some really nice Canadians. Nathan Gafuik and his coach Peter. They were the only other people in the meet who spoke English so we kind of tried to stick together Ü. took lots of pictures so you will get to see them! Anyway...Earlier on in December Christine Nguyen and I got to go to Pennsylvania for a GK Photo Shoot. It was a lot of fun. We had to take so many pictures. We had to model 20 leotards with three poses in each one and five pictures for each pose. It was so much fun though and you should be seeing the magazine in May or June, I think. The weekend after that was the Valeri Liukin Invitational and that's always a lot of fun. All of the foreign guys come in and it's so fun to watch them. Finally, after my extremely busy December came Christmas! I just had a nice relaxing Christmas at home with my family. All of the college girls and guy, haha, came in for the holidays and it was so nice to see all of them. They are missed around the gym. At the end of November I was inducted into the National Honor Society at school. To get in you have to have good grades, good citizenship, and do community service. I was honored to have been selected. In the gym I have just been working hard on routines and getting ready for the upcoming WOGA Classic. Everyone is looking good and we are excited about the competition season. I will really really try to write again soon. Just bare with me and my busy schedule! Thanks!