Justus competes at Texas State and U.S. Regional Championships

Well, I fell behind on video editing, so I’ve combined Justus’ last two competitions into one blog entry.

A couple of weeks ago, Justus competed at the Texas State championships at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas.  I think Justus had the largest fan club at the event of all the athletes since most of his extended family live there (about twenty of us in all).  Justus had a great meet, tieing for 2nd on Rings (rock on!), placing 7th on Parallel Bars, and placing 12th on High Bar.  Justus qualified for Regionals, scoring 82.6 in the all-around (70.0 to qualify).  Below is the State meet video:

Once the competition was over, we spent the night at Mom and Dad’s. After breakfast the next day, Lisa had to return to Houston for a home school coop meeting evaluating reading books for next school year, but the rest of us enjoyed spending the afternoon with the Hines celebrating our niece Emily’s birthday.  After a nice visit and bar-b-que lunch, we left Rebecca there to spend the night and the rest of us returned to Mom and Dad’s to eat again.  (It seems I always gain about five pounds when visiting Austin between the food, desserts and beer.)  The next day, Rebecca went to see Phantom of the Opera with Aunt Amy, Emily and Sarah.  They said, “It was amaaaziing!”

Last weekend the four of us drove to New Orleans for Justus’ U.S. Regional meet (which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana).  The drive up was fine. We made good time and checked into the hotel.  But from there, as they say, was downhill.  Prior to the gymnastics meet, we agreed to meet one of the other Champions mom’s for dinner at a pizza joint (Naked Pizza, who boasts serving the most healthy pizza) down by the Tulane University campus. Due to 5 o’clock traffic and us getting lost, we were late getting there.  When we arrived, we discovered that the pizza joint was delivery-only, with no places to sit. So, we scrambled and phone-ordered our pizza from a friendly coffee shop around the corner. (We were running short on time to get Justus fed before the meet, and this so-called “plan” was not fitting into my sense of order at all!)  We scarfed yummy pizza and some good coffee. And with five minutes to spare, we headed toward the Tulane Student Recreation Center.  The directions were simple enough: “Straight down this street, cross that major intersection and it’s past the recreation fields.”  We managed to get lost again and Trixie (my Acura navigation system) was lost too.  Half of the streets had no street signs either – ugh, I hate that.  Justus was ten minutes late for warm-up.  He was stressed – not a good place to be right before competition. I was fuming – too much had been left up to right-brained people and six year old Trixie!

Justus managed to get his wits about him and had an amazing performance at the  U.S. Regionals meet.  Four of his six scores were his season highs, and he placed third in high bar.  He missed placing in the all-around by only one tenth of a point.  What more is there to say? Below is the Regional meet video:

After the meet, we decided to be adventurous and find a place to celebrate with a treat.  We browsed the possibilities using Trixie’s restaurant locator (we still hadn’t learned), and finally set our heading for some French pastries. The roads around Tulane were torturous on my little Acura who protesting with each buckle and riddled pothole.  When we arrived at the so called “French bakery” we discovered it was now something Justus called, “a scary bar.”  Trixie’s dated information struck again.  We finally found a burger patio restaurant that was quite excellent and we headed back to the hotel in Kenner.  Early the next morning we headed back west.  Rebecca had a dance to attend, and Justus and I had plans for a Houston Dynamo game.

Other than Justus performance, Louisiana had not been very kind us, and as we were waving goodbye it was sure to leave us with a final parting gift: a Louisiana state trooper issuing me a speeding ticket for going 78 in a 60.  Ouch.

Finally we made it home.  And as we were being picked up for the Dynamo game by another Champions family, we discovered the dad had been issued a speeding ticket by the same trooper.  Oh, Louisiana… you are something else.

-D

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