Car Wash

Since Sarah is now on the JV cheerleading squad, summer means the start of fundraising season.  This summer, the cheer squad will be spending select Saturday's washing cars to raise money for their competition fees and expenses.  Saturday was the first one and Sarah volunteered for it.  I volunteered to be a parent supervisor for the second half of the day.

Sarah had to be there at 8:30 to start setting things up and getting ready for the car wash to start at 9:00, which was fine because Alison had to be at school at the same time for a girl scout outing.  Kris and I took the opportunity to get errands done before I had to go sit and watch the girls wash cars.  We drove past them around 10:30 or so and saw Sarah holding a sign on a street corner about a block away, and as we drove through the stoplight at the intersection we saw some bad news.  There was another car wash being held right around the corner from them.  This one was FREE.  It was being held by the local Baptist Church, for whatever reason. 

I thought that was pretty crummy to do to a group of kids who were trying to raise money for their team.  But I told Kris, anyone who was going to pull in to have their car washed by a group of high school girls was doing it to support the team, not because they wanted a first class car wash.  Personally, if I was choosing between the two, I would go to the cheerleader one.  I don't trust the Baptists, but that's just me.  They are sort of weird, and I would question why they are doing it for free.  If they want to do it as some sort of service to the community, I think there are much better ways to help people than by washing their cars.  So like I said...  WEIRD!

When I got there around noon, they were doing pretty well.  There was a steady stream of cars, one or two at a time.  And after sitting there for three hours, I thought the girls did pretty good.  Twice there was a stretch of about 10 minutes or so when there wasn't a car being washed.  The girls did have a few people drive in and stiff them, presumably because they thought the girls were part of the Baptist project going on around the corner.  But overall they made pretty well.  They netted $625 for the day.  Who knows how much more they would have gotten had the Baptists not been there taking business from them.

Tumbling Classes

Sarah is starting new tumbling classes this summer for cheerleading.  Her first class was supposed to be last week Wednesday, but it was at the same time as her Dentists appointment, so she skipped the first day.  We've never sent Sarah here before but from what I have heard,this place is pretty hard core.  Not to cut on the place she was taking her cheer tumbling classes but I hope that they actually push her a little more, because now that she is on the JV squad they are going to get a lot more complicated with their  routines and if she wants to stay with it, she is going to have to improve.

Good News

Sarah called about an hour ago and she made the JV cheer team.  She is waiting right now to find out which friends might have made it with her.  So let the drama begin.

Tryout Night

Tonight is Sarah's cheer squad tryout.  She has been practicing all week at a cheer clinics and tumbling that were put on by the varsity cheer team.  So far so good.  Sarah said there were 12 sophomores trying out and then about 14 freshmen.  I think Kris said that they wanted to have a bigger JV team if possible, but only if the girls were good enough.  They were not going to take a girl just for the sake of taking a girl.

Sarah called at 7:00 and said her tryout was done and then she was just going to wait until everyone else was finished and see what the decisions were.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for her.  Either way when she gets home she is going to be wired I think.  If she made the team, she'll be bouncing off the walls, if she didn't, well then she'll be inconsolable.

Cheer Week

This week is going to be a very stressful one for Sarah.  Every night this week she has cheer clinics/practice to get ready for high school cheerleading tryouts.  The Falls does not have a freshman squad, so it is JVs or nothing, and there are going to be few spots opening up, and in addition to the girls on her team last year, there are the freshmen this year who were 8th grade cheerleaders that didn't make JVs last year too.  And this isn't like the jr. high cheer teams.  These girls are heavy on the gymnastics/tumbling skills, and I don't think Sarah is as advanced as some of the other girls in terms of her tumbling skills.

I am hoping that she can make it and work on the skills she doesn't have yet.  But if she doesn't make it, I hope that she at least uses it as motivation to get serious and get her tumbling skills down so she can make it as a sophomore.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Cheer Showcase

Thursday night was Sarah's final cheer event for the year, the annual cheer showcase.  Unfortunately, no one other than Sarah was there.  I got home from work and Alison had a stomach ache, and generally wasn't feeling well.  And Kris had called earlier in the afternoon to let me know that she was in excruciating pain.  Her back was acting up again, and she couldn't move.  So when I got home, I had to make sure she was taken care of, and Ali was ok, so I didn't get to go see Sarah.  Sarah said it was OK, but Kris and I still feel bad.

So tomorrow it looks like we'll be heading back to the doctor to see if there is anything that they can do to relieve the pain.  

Cheer Results

The cheerleading season is over (for the most part) and Sarah's team took 5th place out of six teams in her division yesterday. They had a couple of flubs, but nothing major (at least to my untrained eye) and I don't think they deserved to finish as poorly as they did. There were two teams in her division that were not even schools. They were tumbling acadamies that decided to make a cheer team. I think that putting a team like that where the girls work every day, two to three hours a day on tumbling skills into a competition with teams that work a couple of days a week for an hour or so at a time is sort of unfair. And even at that, I thought they (Sarah's team) did better than at least one of those teams. The other team was good with their tumbling, but I thought that the other part of their performance, the actual cheer portion, was pretty sad.

Sarah told us that they saw their score sheet after the competition and if they had been in the next level up, they would have finished in second place. Their score would have been better than the Falls' eighth grade team, but then again there were different judges scoring them.

I hope that Sarah and the rest of the girls take this as something to build on for next year. I think they will have a pretty good team next year. Now it is on to the Cheer showcase next month.

One more thing, I didn't feel like hauling the camera, video or still, to the cometition yesterday, so sorry, no photos or video to upload.

Final Cheer Competition

Today is Sarah’s final cheerleading competition for the year. We are going to be heading up to Jackson around noon today to watch her compete. Ali’s godmother is coming along too. She was a Purdue cheerleader so maybe we’ll get some “professional” critique today in the stands. I’ll try and get video posted and a recap of the day later tonight. Wish Sarah luck!

State Jam

Saturday afternoon was spent at a cheerleading competition. Sarah had her "State Jam" competition. I got lost for a bit trying to find the school. I misinterpreted the directions we had and turned to follow the highway signs when I should have gone straight on the city street.

Once we got there, the parking was unreal. I dropped Kris and Ali off and then went to park, and in teh time it took me to drop them off, someone stole my parking spot that I was eying up. I ended up drivign around for 10 minutes looking for a place to park.

When I finally found my parking place, I got inside and met Kris and Ali and we grabbed some lunch, and waited for the competition to begin. We got lucky and met some friends while we were eating so we had some people to sit with. Sarah's team was the last one in their grouping to go. I thought they were much better than the last competition we saw in Oak Creek (I will post the video shortly. I need to take it off the camera and upload it to Vimeo). I was expecting a pretty good showing when the final placement was announced, but they didn't score in the top five, which was sort of disappointing. When we got home Sarah told us that they finished 8th out of ten teams. I thought that was pretty crummy, and so did Sarah and her team and coach.

They have one more competition coming up in a couple of weeks so hopefully they can improve on it a little bit.

Oak Creek Invite

Yesterday was the Oak Creek Invitational for Sarah's cheer team. They had their exhibition performance at the Indian Invite in the Falls a couple of weeks prior, and Kris and I were a little underwhelmed. This time they had added a few more elements to their routine, though I would say that they were definitely not the best team there. But they were much better than their previous performance.

Oak Creek Invitational from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

My mom was in town so she got to come along as well to see Sarah cheer. I don't know how much she liked sitting in a gym for four and a half hours listening to a bunch of girls yell and listening to loud, very bass heavy music. I could barely do it.

Indian Invite Part 2

Since I got the other video to load, here is Sarah's other routine:

7th Grade Cheer from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Sarah is in the back on the left side. She ends up being a base on the left later on.

Attempt at Videos

This is my first attempt at uploading a home video. I searched around and decided on Vimeo.com. hopefully this will work. This is Sarah's Junior Indians routine from the Indian Invite last weekend. Sarah is in the front row all the way on the right, second from the end.

Indian Invite from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Indian Invite

Sarah had her first Cheer competition last Saturday, the Indian Invitational. Last year she was there for the Jr. High dance team. This year it was solely cheerleaders, no poms at all. And on top of that, she did a routine for Jr. Indians cheer (which is the football cheer squads) and for North Jr. High. They weren't judged, they were listed as only an exhibition, which makes sense since The Falls was hosting it. I thought it was a little simple, but Sarah said their coach was starting them slow and they would be adding elements to their routine for future competitions.

Sarah is in the upper left corner if you can't tell.

This was her Junior Indians routine:




Ali took a couple of pictures during her North routine while I shot video.



Video to come shortly as soon as I can figure out how to upload it.

More Cheer

Sarah had a parent meeting for cheer tonight. Unfortunately Alison had to go to dance class at the same time. So while I took Alison, Kris went with Sarah. They apparently had the high school cheer club there as well so that the girls and parents could see what they could expect if they decided to stay with cheerleading, such as the types and number of competitions,and the costs of everything. All I can say is that this sounds like it is going to be expensive. Who would have known it cost so much to jump up and down, do some flips, and yell?

But on the good side it is nice to see Sarah finally taking a full on interest in something adn being dedicated to it.

Cheerleading

Sarah had cheerleading tryouts yesterday for North. This is separate from Jr. Indians cheer. She had practice Friday and Monday with her actual tryout on Tuesday. They, and when I say they I mean all the girls who were trying out, "learn" a cheer as well as a dance routine. She already knew the cheer from Jr. Indians, so she only needed to learn the dance.

During the actual tryout, she was grouped up with two other girls. They were running behind, so she had to wait around until after everyone was done to find out if she made the team, and good news, she did! Actually everyone who tried out for seventh grade cheer made it. And it is all basically the same as the Jr. Indians cheer squad. Sarah said there are two girls who tried out who are not in Jr. Indians.

So now Sarah will have cheer practice a few times a week along with tumbling classes and it looks like there will be cheerleading invitationals. We have a parent meeting coming up so we will find out more soon. Congratulations Sarah!

Cheer Season Begins

You know school is near when the cheer season starts. Friday night was Junior Indians night at halftime of the high school football game (sorry, no pictures, though I may look for a place to post the video to link). Today Sarah had her first football game. this year they have to be at the field by 10:00 AM. We had a couple of things to to so Sarah got dropped off but we made it back before the start of the game.




Unfortunately, we couldn't stay because we had to run Alison to the doctor. She had been complaining of her ears begin clogged which is in addition to almost two weeks of nasal/sinus congestion. We ended up calling the doctor and had to take Alison to get checked out. Turns out she has a sinus infection on top of swelling from seasonal allergies. This is what was causing the ear congestion as well. So now she is on a two week cycle of antibiotics as well as a prescription for Flo-Nase. At least in a week or so she will be able to breathe again.

Cheer Showcase

On Friday March 6th we had a Menomonee Falls Cheer Showcase to attend. We are neophytes when it come to cheer since this is Sarah’s first year, so we had to ask what exactly it is. It is a showcase for the cheerleading squads at all levels, middle school, high school etc. where they perform their routines that they do for their competitions.

In fact, one of the squads recently performed in a national competition at Disney, so I am sure we’ll see that tonight. But Sarah, being a Jr. Indian Cheerleader will do the routine that they learned last year. I was going to post some pictures, but I ended up taking video of everything instead. Sorry.