Outdoor Practice
Just like in the good old days of Covid, girls have to practice outdoor.
Tricia found a hockey rink by some school in Elk Grove, nice concrete floor with cracks narrow enough to keep it skatable.
Eventually it started to rain, but girls liked the place, I believe, and they are going to go practice there again tomorrow.
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The Last Practice at Lombard
The day has come. Today girls had their last practice at Lombard. This Sunday the rink is closing its doors for good.
Sandi and Steve, bless them, for some unfathomable reason sold the rink under condition that it is not to be used as a rink by the new owner. They say it's going to be converted into a church.
It's been a good run. Girls practically grew up at that rink. I took them there for the first time in January of 2012, more than eleven years ago. Girls were five, they just got roller blades from Santa, and I wanted them to try skating on real floor. Who knew.
Now they feel like they've lost a family member: check out their Instagram post.
We all are going to miss Lombard.
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Farewell
Everyone who went from Lombard to Nationals got a medal or two this year. Here they are.
The rink is sold. This coming Saturday there will be the last session, and on Sunday - the last practice at Lombard. I don't think girls are going to practice much.
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Myrtle Beach
Just returned from South Carolina. Well, it WAS worth it. The ocean was HOT. Temperature-wise, I mean. Not even warm, but hot. It's a shame I don't enjoy splashing in hot salty waves anymore. Ladies had a really good time though.
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2023 Nationals
So, Nationals. What a rush.
Annie and Liza were supposed to skate Style on Monday, July 17th, so we spent Saturday driving to Nebraska. The AirBNB was a neat little house on a not-so-neat street in the middle of Lincoln. It turned out to be in a great spot though, just a quick three-minute walk from the Sunken Gardens, and everything we needed was really close. Girls had a pretty good official practice on Sunday, and were even able to relax a little before the big day.
There were fourteen skaters in Junior Dance, I believe. Everyone knew that the first place would go to Lillian Gardner, who is a real star and is way ahead of the rest of the crowd. But the competition for places second to sixth was intense. About four or five girls, including Annie and Liza, were all scoring around 60-70 points, so it was anyone's game. And since the second-place skater also qualified to the World Team, things got pretty tense.
Style Dance is the first half of the event, and after everyone has skated, Annie landed in fourth place with 29.28 points. Ahead of her were Evelyn Otiniano from Texas (29.45), Gabrielle Eskew from Florida (31.27), and Lillian (38.34). Liza got 27.18 and ended up in sixth, with Vivian Le (28.15) from California between her and Annie.
The second part, Free Dance, is skated by the first part results in reverse order, i.e. the last one skates first. Liza performed in a really fiery way, and got total score 66.23. Vivian scored 49.11 and fell far behind. Then Annie skated, also pretty good, lost Free Dance to Liza, but still beat her with total score of 66.84. So the girls were at least fourth and fifth already; then Evelyn hit the floor and received total of 65.66, falling behind both Annie and Liza - and then Gabrielle, I don't know what happened to her, fell three times during her routine, including one on very important element. Poor girl got 59.64 and fell from second spot to fifth, so both Liza and Annie ended up on the pedestal with bronze and silver medals respectively. Lillian just soared above the fray with incredible total of 96-something.
I couldn't breath till next morning.
On Wednesday girls skated their quartet. This time around there were three Junior Quartets, and Lombard team won handily.
Bottom line: Annie made the World Team for Solo Dance and Quartet, and Liza for Quartet.
After that it was pretty relaxing, except for one thing: Annie had a powerful allergic reaction to the gold paint they used in quartet makeup. I guess they will need to find some safe alternative. Other than that, things were okay: we hung out at the rink, cheered Lombard (and non-Lombard) skaters, and had a lot of fun in general. Everyone from Lombard skated pretty good and got at least one medal. It's a shame the Lombard Roller Rink is going out of business; I'm wondering if the Lombard club can tough it out.
We had to stay till Friday night, when Seniors were done skating; after that there was a World Team presentation and meeting, that we had to attend. Just like last time, the highlight was this filming session where the Team USA skaters goofed around and showed off till almost three in the morning, while the Skates U.S. folks filmed them for ads. The girls were on cloud nine.
Saturday morning we spent at the rink waiting for the Skates U.S. crew to show up: they sponsor everyone on the Team USA a little. We hit the road back around two, but somewhere in Iowa, we got lost hunting for a gas station, so we got home way late.
Frankly, these trips are becoming quite tiring, but hey, when you got to go, you got to go. In a few days I'll have to drive for two days to Myrtle Beach. Hope it's worth it.
P.S. Here are all the links:
Anne: Photos | Pro Photos | Style Dance | Free Dance
Liza: Photos | Pro Photos | Style Dance | Free Dance
Quartet: Photos | Pro Photos | Video
And a bonus gallery for behind the scenes pics.
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Julianna’s Prom
Liza's girlfriend Julianna asked her to Junior prom, so I had a chance to take some photos in a not so usual setting. At least, no skates.
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Lynwood Invitational
Lynwood again.
Actually, Lynwood is probably the best club in the United States (except for Lombard, of course). Amazing skaters. Now they have their own Invitational, and it was organized beautifully. Pretty much everything, from schedule to programs and video stream, was perfect.
Girls skated well, but still lost to Lillian (naturally) and to Evelyn Otiniano from Spring TX (narrowly). Liza got bronze, Annie got fourth. Their quartet had no competition.
Anne: Photos | Style Dance | Free Dance
Liza: Photos | Style Dance | Free Dance
Quartet: Photos | Video
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Lynwood
The first league meet of the season. The second one actually, but girls skipped Aurora, their routines weren't ready, so they only skated Style here in Lynwood. Free Dance is still not ready.
Photos only, no videos. BTW, at Lynwood I had a revelation: the problems with image quality that I have been struggling with turned out NOT to be a result of my inability to figure out the optimal set of settings. No, it was the lens. All this time it was the lens, and I couldn't even imagine that G-Master lens would be able to be that evil, so I kept looking for better settings, getting the same result again and again. And this time around I finally replaced 70-200 with 90mm prime, and got decent results despite having to use ISO 10000. Got to get rid of that lens now. Who could have thought. Here are the photos:
There is one video though, not mine and no connection to Lynwood: Isa takes a media class in her school, and one of her projects for that class was to create a commercial for something, no matter what. She made a commercial for Edea skates, and casted Annie for a part in it. Here it is:
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The Diet Starts Today
After some serious research and thorough consideration, our family is switching to the Macrobiotic diet, which is supposed to be anti-inflammatory (among other things it can allegedly do). The reason for this self-inflicted atrocity is Annie's arthritis. Not sure how long we will be able to last: the diet comprises mostly carbs and some obviously inedible things like seaweed. Proteins come almost exclusively from soy stuff like tofu or tempeh, and various beans.
Should it work out without driving us all insane, I'd consider it a miracle.
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