Open Gym

Remember the American Girl Doll of the Year, McKenna? She was a gymnast. Aliza introduced Anna to the McKenna video quite a while ago and Anna has watched it who know how many times. Anna doesn't watch it for the story--she watches it to learn gymnastics. Anna also watches some youtube gymnastics videos too. I finally picked a date to take Anna to open gym at Beachbounders. Anna marked off the days on the calendar and talked endlessly about what she was going to wear.

The day finally arrived and the last hour seemed like it was going to last forever! Getting ready included getting dressed, a high ponytail (because that's how everybody does their hair) and makeup. Especially sparkly eye shadow. (I don't have many options so thankfully what I had was good enough!)

I was a bit worried because Anna had all these ideas of what a gym was going to have. I was also worried because Anna has a habit of being really excited about something and then just hanging on me when the time comes to do that thing she was really excite about. This time I didn't need to worry. The gym was everything she hoped for and (with me close to her) she took off. She said she wanted to do balance beam first and that's what she went straight to and where she spent most of the time.

Open gym was an hour. She took her first break about 40 minutes in...to tighten her ponytail. She was telling me that gym had "rocks" and she described them to me--the "rocks" are vaults. lol. She was pretty excited that she could get up on the vault using the springboard.

The bars were pretty fun too. She definitely did a few cartwheels on the floor. I thought she might like the floor more--maybe next time. Today she was describing to me how the floor was bouncy. She liked that.

It is always fun to make little girl dreams come true. There was so much for her to look at and take in. She loved playing and wants to go again to play. But taking a class? Anna says she will wait until she is 9. =)