GMS 7th Grade Cheer

Sophie has cheered recreationally for the FFL since kindergarten & this past season in 6th grade, was her last so we immediately got to work prepping her to try out for middle school cheerleader. Most clubs & sports don't start until 7th grade, but cheerleading tryouts are in the spring, in fact, they were this past weekend. She started taking prep classes & working with a coach since last September, but we really turned it on after the holidays. She even attended cheer prep boot camps twice a month since January also. This past week was even crazier. She worked tirelessly every single night & day with 2 of Sadie's friends who cheer & our neighbor who cheers on Varsity. But her biggest supporter has been her coach, Laurel. She has been amazing to work with:

She had cheer clinic for an hour after school every day last week and then mock tryouts on Friday:

They started with 30 girls, then it became 25 & by the time try out day came it was 22. They were broken up into groups of 3 & she was put in a group with her friend, so they practiced together Friday night:

They also had lots of cheer gifts for each other on Friday encouraging each other:

Saturday morning, I surprised her when she woke up - I blew up green balloons and threw them in her room & hung streamers on her door. I even tried to decorate the table, put out the special plate & made sausage balls for breakfast (upon her request!):

She woke up an hour early to get ready & stretch. Sadie even got up early to help do her hair:

I dropped her off at 8:15 & she met all her friends in the gym to stretch & get ready before tryouts started at 9:00. By 9:30 she had already called & was ready to be picked up! I took a few pictures of her by the Griffin sign:

They were posting the girls who were selected at 4:00 that afternoon so I tried to plan a fun day to keep us busy - starting with pedicures:

Her & Sadie work hard between all of their sports so they both deserved a little pampering:

Then we headed to the mall & finally, we met Bryan for an early dinner. Poor Sophie had not been nervous at all, before or after tryouts, until around 2:00 and then she started to get nervous. Poor girl - her stomach hurt, she wouldn't eat, it was a long 2 hours. After we ate, we headed home because she wanted to wait upstairs in her bedroom by herself while she found out............ drum roll, please..........

Sophie was number 14!

Lots of cheers & screams at our house! I was hoping she would make it so we had a little surprise congratulations gift waiting for her just in case:

Needless to say, it was a stressful week but an even more emotional day. 22 girls tried out & only 12 got picked so we are so proud of Sophie - she definitely put in the work & earned her spot! 

Later that evening, we had an impromptu cheer party on the patio at Blue Goose:

It was a bittersweet celebration without a few of our friends there, but we are still excited for the year ahead. Let's go Griffin Cheer!

Costa Rica, Spring Break 2026, Part 2

The weather was perfect this time of year since it is their dry season, so we had zero rain & highs in the upper 90's. Bryan & I went for run or walk every morning and one day the girls joined us in the gym. Sadie ran a few miles on the treadmill & Sophie worked on her stretching/jumps for cheer:

Another morning, we borrowed bikes & went for a ride around the area. I was told we would see monkeys, but we never did:

On the mornings the girls didn't work out with us, they would sleep in & meet us for brunch. You know this is always my favorite meal of the day! I love a big brunch on vacation & this time it had a Mexican flavor & a great view:

I like a big brunch followed by lots of drinks by the pool. Ha! 

Our resort actually had happy hour twice a day from 11:00 - 12:00 and again from 4:00 - 5:00 where all drinks were bogo. Needless to say, we ordered more drinks than we usually do! 

The beach was huge, but the waves were crazy and it was always a red flag, so we didn't spend as much time down there. Sophie wouldn't even get in because she didn't like the waves that big, but Sadie loved it:

Sadie & Bryan went down the beach for surf lessons one day, but Sophie didn't want to do that also. We all surfed last time we were here but since Sophie didn't want to, I stayed at the resort with her:

Otherwise, we spent most of our time at the pool. Bryan & I reading, while the girls ran around & played:

They had water aerobics every day at noon & I loved it! It was the same instructor every day & he had the best play list:

And this is what our patio looked like after swimming all day:

We were never in a hurry to leave the water, so we stayed for sunset every day. The sun started descending around 5:00 & was dark around 6:00, plus they had s'mores on the beach every night so how could we pass that up?!

We had dinner reservations at every restaurant at the resort, so we literally never had to leave. It was nice to shower, clean up & then just walk to dinner. Afterwards, we hung out in the open-air lobby upstairs where they had live music every night:

Of course, the views up there where just as good with everything lit up at night even though we couldn't see the ocean:

Per tradition, we played Farkel at dinner every night & this year Sadie was the big winner!

And we got gelato every single night! They even had sorbet since I am df so strawberry was my favorite:

We celebrated my birthday while we were there. Bryan talked to the kitchen & they made me home made macarons since they are df & gf. It was definitely a surprise:

In a random moment, our very last night there, we were sitting at the sports bar on the patio watching basketball & Sadie told me a few of the boys from her school were there. I looked up & sure enough 2 families we go to school with were there:

That was definitely a fun surprise!

The girls always make friends when we travel & this time was no different. Thankfully we saw all of them at brunch our last morning there before we flew out:

Fun fact - we hardly saw any animals this trip except for iguanas. We saw them daily, in fact, they would crawl under our pool chairs, around our table while we ate breakfast & we even saw one jump in the pool & swim to the other side. That was a first!

It was a fun spring break - very relaxing & lots of quality family time. Pura Vida!