First gymnastics meet of the season

If a picture is worth a thousand words then this one kind of tells the story of Brandon's meet this morning. He says he had fun....hanging out with the team, the whole excitement and atmosphere of a meet. But he is NOT recovered from his injury of a week and a half ago. The look on his face as he gritted his teeth and powered through his rings and parallel bar routines made me cringe. It was extremely obvious he was in a lot of pain. This picture was taken after his rings routine. I told him it would be completely okay if he sat out and didn't do parallel bars. His coaches told him the same. But they also gave him some tips and encouragement and Brandon decided to do it...mostly so he could have the chance to place in all around when the awards were being given out. And place he did. He took 7th place all around in his age division. Pretty good for being injured!
The boy that Brandon has his arm around is his cousin, Davis. Well, second cousins really. His mother, Camilla, and I are cousins. How awesome it has been for the two of them to be teammates! They are two years apart in age but both competing in level 5. In a few weeks we have a meet in Boise and the four of us (Brandon, Davis, Camilla and myself) are doing the drive up together and sharing a room. Brandon is hugely looking forward to having all that time with Davis. Frankly, I'm rather looking forward to it myself!

Brandon did some gymnastics drawings a few days ago. Just more evidence that the kid eats, sleeps and breathes gymnastics these days. :)

Iron Cross on the rings

Pommel horse

High bar

Hand stand on the rings

Vault

Brandon's coach emailed this picture over. An extra from the photo shoot they did a few weeks ago. Makes me smile. :)