Tag Archives: Features

To the Capital We Go!

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Given our close proximity to our Nation’s capital while in Maryland attending Corey and Jodi’s wedding, the Wykles decided to make a detour to DC.  After the ceremony on Saturday we grabbed Nana and hopped in the van and headed south toward Obama headquarters. It took about 2 hours to arrive at our hotel in Alexandria, VA. Shelley had booked us in the Washington Suites. It turned out to be a older apartment building that had been converted into a hotel. Our room included a full two bedrooms, two baths, and fully functional kitchen. The kitchen appliances were circa 1970’s, but functional and came in very handy to prepare the quick snacks and a few diners.

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Our first day touring was Sunday. We hopped the Metro blue line at the Van Dorn Street station. 45 minutes later and we arrived at the Smithsonian stop. We decided to start off with the Gray Line double-decker bus tour. We hopped the bus at stop #3 on Constitutional Ave and jumped off at the Lincoln Memorial.

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The tour took about 2 hours to see most of the popular DC sites. The weather was gorgeous! The next stop took us to the Natural History Museum. We also met up with a HS friend (and family) of Shelley’s that happened to also be traveling through the area. Both families strolled casually through looking at all of the cool exhibits.

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The first full day of touring took at a lot out of the troops. Here is what a full day of sight seeing can do to a person.

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The second day of touring started off with a great start. We set up a guided tour of the Capital through Representative Davis’s (R-KY) office. Intrestingly enough, the intern that was assigned to give our tour was a former student of Shelley’s…what a small world!

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After the Capital tour, we headed to the American History Museum. Next  we hit the Crime and Punishment Museum. Lastly, to round out the day we ended up at Madame Tussauds Was Museum. The kids (and adults) enjoyed this attraction the most. The figures are unbelievably realistic.

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Corey and Jodi Get Hitched

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Last weekend, the Wykles made a trip to Hagerstown, Maryland to attend the wedding of my brother Corey Morgan and his lovely finance Jodi Bowman. We left early on Friday to make the 7.5 hour car trip to Hagerstown. The trip was uneventful as expected. The ceremony was planned to be a small and intimate with only immediate family and a few close friends. On Friday evening we all headed over to Corey and Jodi’s house to check out all of the byproduct of all of the sweat/tears that has been invested in their 1920’s home. After a tour, the group headed out for dinner and then back to Corey/Jodi’s house to unwrap some wedding gifts.

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Saturday arrived and the big day was here. We got moving early and decided to get a little exercise prior to heading over the ceremony. The kids hit the pool and Shelley and I tried to keep up with a little treadmill and P90X action. Needless to say, we didn’t execute our timing as we had hoped. We were late leaving the hotel and didn’t realize that the ceremony was 30 minutes away from Hagerstown. Time to drive like a bat out of hell! We arrive at what we thought was 20 minutes late at the Purple Iris at Hartwood in Martinsburg, WV. Thankfully, we made it in plenty of time and a service didn’t kick off until shortly after 12 PM. Whew! That would have been a had one to live down.

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The venue was beautiful and the weather was picture perfect. The couple provided a string trio for everyone’s musical enjoyment. The ceremony was an outdoor service and was delivered in an expedient fashion. The ceremony was officiated by Pastor Debra and featured a hand fasting ritual.

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After the ceremony many pictures were taken of all of the attendees. I have included a few of my own that were taken along side the professional photographer. Many more can be located in the photo album.

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To wrap up the perfect day, the couple hosted a lunch reception inside the beautiful Hartwood Mansion. Ordeuvres were served and the attendees were encouraged to sign the guest plate. The plate will capture all of the signatures and will be fired in order to preserve the memory.

Level 3 KY State Champion!

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Saturday (04/18/09) marked the end of a very productive gymnastics season for the 5 Star Gymnastics level 3 team. The 5th and final meet took place in Hopkinsville, KY at Angles Gym. This meet wraps up the season as the KY State USGA meet. After a very shaky start, Natalie found her resolve and secured two first place finishes in the floor exercise and vault.

Uneven Bars – The day started out on the infamous uneven bars. This event has proven to be the most sketchy over the 5 meets this season. Natalie was lead-off and delivered a solid routine. No major blunders and a nice stuck landing. It appeared to be a foundation routine for the team to capitalize on. Then the score…8.65? Not what we were expecting. Natalie was visibly disturbed and even showed a few tears. The rest of the team’s scores hovered around mid 8’s with Kate pulling the top score with a 9.1. The 5 Star faithful took a deep breath and knew it was going to be a long day with scoring this tight. 

Balance Beam – The next event was the balance beam. This has clearly been Natalie’s strongest event all season and should help to erase the unpleasantness of the bars. Kate and Brooklyn mustered 9.15 and 9.125 respectively. Natalie was the anchor member for this event. She had a beautiful mount and a nice Arabesque. Her handstand was one of the best I’ve seen her perform. She continued through the routine to the pivot and proceeded to execute her split jump. The jump was very nice with good height. She appeared to land fine, but her balance was off, sending her off the front side of the beam. This was her first fall in a competition…and her expression after remounting the beam says it all. She managed to finish her dismount but ran off sobbing towards the coach. She still managed an 8.8 even with the fall (0.5 point deduction).

As the team waited to move to the next event, Natalie was quite upset. Many people tried to console and encourage her. Both Shelley and I stayed out of the mix in order not to exacerbate the situation. Natalie appeared to regain her composure enough to move to the next event. BTW – At the conclusion of the meet, we found out that coach Terri had to finally issue a little tough love to Natalie. She told her that she would not be allowed to continue with the meet until she pulled herself together. Nicely done coach!

Floor Exercise – The floor routine was the next event on the rotation. Natalie had a solid routine and landed her best score (9.45) of the season.

Vault – The vault was the final event. Natalie carried her new found attitude to the vault and landed again her best score (9.35) of the season. 

After the very questionable start, the Level 3 team put together a good showing for this season ending meet. Natalie finished the day with two first place finishes for the floor and vault in the 8JR age group. The floor and vault scores pulled her through in the all around to capture a respectable 5th place. She was beaming!

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The 17th Annual Derby Classic

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Sunday (03/15/09) was the forth competition, Champion’s 17th Annual Derby Classic, attended by the Level 3 team from 5-Star Gymnastics this season. The meet was held in Louisville, KY at the MidAmerican Sports Complex and hosted by Champion Gymnastics. Today we were lucky to have a mid-day start. The level 3 team didn’t need to be at the gym until 12:30. We were able to make the 2 hour trek the morning of the competition. We were lucky to have Nagi in town so that she may take part in the activities. 

Again, Natalie set a goal for herself prior to the start of the meet. She wanted to score a least a 9 on every event.

This meet started out with the balance beam. Natalie anchored the routine and had a very solid performance. She completed the routine within the event time and without significant balance checks. She posted a 9.35 which was the second highest score for the team on this event.

The team moved on to floor exercise, Natalie went in the last half of the event rotation. She had an average routine without any major errors. She scored a 9.1 and left the floor smiling. 

The next event was the vault. Natalie was placed in the middle of the rotation. Here first vault didn’t appear to get the best height or distance, but the landing was solid. The second vault showed better form but had a small step on the landing. She squeaked out a 9.05…so far 3 for 3, now on to the dreaded uneven bars.

This event has consistently been the toughest and most prone to major mistakes. The bars would not test the 5 Star team today. Only a few mistakes were committed with Brooklyn taking the top position in the event with a 9.3. Natalie scored a solid 9.1. 

On to the awards ceremony. Natalie and Brooklyn are both classified in the 8 JR age group. There were 11 girls competing in their specific age category. Given the size of this competition, the awards given were to be issued to only the top 50% (+1) of each age group. For the 8 JR group that would be the top 6 places in each event would be given recognition. This is a significant change from the 3 previous competitions and would be quickly noticed by the 5 Star team as the award ceremony started. It was clear by the facial expressions that the girls were clearly confused that everyone did not get an award. Welcomed  to the big time ladies!

Natalie placed 2nd in the beam and 4th in the bars. Brooklyn scored a 1st in bars and 5 in beam. Natalie’s consistency across all 4 events afforded her a 5th place all-around in what appeared to be one of the toughest age groups. In a continuing moment of misunderstanding, Natalie was visibly upset (crying on the podium) due to the lack of awards for her and the team. See the picture below for a “upset face” that was a product of this building frustration. Shelley and I were quick to explain the situation regarding the scoring/awards system for this large competition. This will be a lesson for the future.

Then the team awards. The top three gyms were awarded team trophies. Legacy placed 1st with a 113.8, Champion placed 2nd with a 112.75, Todds scored 111.45 and landed them in 3rd. The 5 Star team placed 4th with a 110.7. Overall, a great showing for the 5 Star team and should be a good motivator for the last push to the state tournament in April. 

Here is a recap of the scores of the entire level 3 5-Star team.

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You can find videos of each of Natalie’s events:  balance beam, floor exercise, vault, and bars.

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Valentine Piñata

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This post is a few weeks late, but I got a real kick out of Eli’s class during their Valentine party on 02/13/09. Someone brought in a heart shaped piñata. Unfortunately, their was no easy place to hang the piñata. I found a broom and decided to tie the heart to the end and hold it up for the kids to take a whack. The facial expressions were worth the price of admission. Check out the following individual shots for some quick laughs.

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Goodridge Elementary Science Project

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On Friday (02/19/09)  Natalie was awarded 1st place among 2nd grade entries in the 2009 Goodridge science fair. The project was a study to determine kids M&M color preference. Then compare the likes to see if Mars packs the candy to match the kids preference.

The project started almost a month ago with a little research on the web to find age appropriate science projects. Natalie narrowed down the selection between two projects. She was leaning towards the  experiment that studied meteorites hitting the earth. It used marbles and sand. After a little discussion, it seemed that the M&M project would be much easier to manage between the data collection and the display. 

The beginning of the project started with the great M&M count. Natalie started with 5 small bags of plain M&Ms, 2 medium bags of Peanut M&Ms, and 2 medium bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms. Each bag was sorted into seperate bowls by one of the six colors (blue, green, red, yellow, brown, or orange). Once separated, she counted the number of each M&M and recorded the results. 

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The next step was to take a poll of the 2nd grade students at Goodridge. Natalie went to school and collected votes about which color M&M was their favorite. She collected and recorded the data. 

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Natalie concluded that based on her collected data that the M&Ms are not packed to match the preference shown by the kids in Goodridge Elementary. The kids picked red and blue as their favorites, yet the M&M packages seemed to not favor a specific color. 

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KC’s Sweetheart Spectacular

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Today, Sunday (02/15/09) was the third competition, KC’s Sweetheart Spectacular, attended by the Level 3 team from 5-Star Gymnastics this season. The meet was held in Danville, KY at KC’s Gymnastics. Given the early start time for the level 3 team of 7:45, we drove down on Saturday evening  and stay in a hotel close to the location. 

During the early morning preparation prior to the competition, Natalie set a goal for herself. She wanted to score a least a 9 on every event. Shelley and I both told her to do her best and worry about just focusing on each routine and not the score.

The team started out on floor exercise, Natalie went last in the rotation. She had a very nice routine with only a few minor errors. She scored a 9.1 – she was smiling from ear to ear.

The next event was the vault. Natalie was placed in the middle of the rotation. Her first vault was very clean with good height and a stuck landing. The next vault was not a clean and the landing had a considerable step. The better of the two runs earned her a 9.3 (her highest event score this season). So far 2 for 2, now on to the dreaded uneven bars.

The last competition showed how unforgiving the bars can be with an average team score of 7.6 out of 10. Falls and lack of concentration plagued the whole team. Natalie went in the middle of the rotation and delivered the best bar routine that I have seen her perform. She got a 9.4 (now her highest score of season). The bars will not beat the 5 Star team today. They averaged an 8.8. 

On to the final event, balance beam. Natalie was again last in the rotation. The team proceeded to move throughout the rotation, but this event was producing lower scores. It appears this judge is being more critical or the girls are just running out of gas. Prior to Natalie’s start, Shelley had to change locations within the crowd in order to relieve her anxiety and to put some distance between her and Natalie’s distracted eyes. As Natalie approached the beam, nobody had scored above an 8.7. Yikes! This does not bode well for maintaining the run of 9s today. She started with a slight bobble on the mount and my heart sank. She recovered and proceeded on through the routine. It was without major issue, but as she ended, Shelley and I looked at each other in agreement…not a 9. However, we were surprised to see that the judge disagreed with our sub 9 assessment. Natalie scored a 9.0. She could hardly contain herself. She was jumping and smiling in amazement. 

On to the awards ceremony. Natalie and her best friend Brooklyn are both classified in the 8 JR age group. There were only 5 girls competing in this specific age category. Natalie placed 2nd in every event with Brooklyn taking 1st in the uneven bars. After the individual events were awarded, the all around was next. The announcer proceeded to call out the names for the 5 positions. Brooklyn placed 3rd and Natalie was visibly excited for her best friend’s win. Then we all held our breath as the 2nd position was called…it was not Natalie. As she realized that her name was not called for 2nd place, she placed her hands over her mouth in order to cover the gasp. She was beaming! 

The rest of the awards were handed out for the 8Sr, 9, and 10-13. Then the team awards. The 5 Star team placed 3rd with a 109.7. The 2nd place team scored a 110.1 and the 1st place team scored a 110.2. Very close among the top three team. Here is a recap of the scores of the entire level 3 5-Star team.

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You can find videos of each of Natalie’s events: VaultBarsBalance beam, and Floor exercise.

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Birthday Boy, Eli is 5

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Our little baby boy Eli turned 5 today. Above is a collage displaying pictures from today and of course one of his first pictures the day he was born. As I write this post, I reflect fondly on that memorable weekend in 2004 that brought this little package of joy into our lives. He was 8 weeks early and only weighed 4 pounds 7 ounces. It was a scary and trying time for us all. With a lot of love, luck, and support from great friends and family we got to taken him home in a short 10 days after he arrived. Fast forward, 5 years…he is now 37 pounds and full of himself. 

His day started off with the greatest news any young kid could expect to hear during the winter months. School is closed! A lovely snow system pushed it’s way through during the early morning and dropped 4-6 inches of fresh powder on the greater Cincinnati area. After some dancing around and celebrating, he quickly wanted to get down to the business at hand…opening the many presents that had been taunting him since the weekend. Shelley of course staged the presents such that the anticipation would build as he opened the loot. His big gift this year was not a true surprise given the constant negotiations that had been ongoing for nearly a year. It seemed that he had longed for his very own for an eternity. All of his “closest” friends all had their own. He even forfeited his right to have his own party in the effort to leverage the ultimate goal.

The holy grail ~ A Nintendo DS ~

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He even went so far to tell his mother that if he had his very own DS, he would not “need” to “bother us” to turn on the Xbox or the TV. He would just be able to play the DS by himself.  

You can find video 1 (opening of the DS) and video 2 (singing Happy Birthday). 

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Eli lost 2nd Tooth

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Eli just lost his second tooth and not more than 1 week after loosing his first. Shelley had to persuade him to let her help with the extraction. After much wincing and dancing around, the tooth popped out without issues. He now has a double gap on the bottom in the middle. This time he decided to write the tooth fairy a note in an effort to sweet talk her into leaving more money than the last time. He, with the help of his mom, authored the following note:

“Tooth Fairy, this is the second tooth I lost. I was very brave. Would you please give me more money? Like 2 or 3 dollars. My name is Eli Wykle.”

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Tumble in the Bluegrass

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This past Saturday (01/10/09) was the second competition, Tumble in the Bluegrass, attended by the Level 3 team from 5-Star Gymnastics this season. The meet was held in Louisville, KY at Stuart Elementary School and was hosted by Wild Card Gymnastics. Given the early start time for the level 3 team of 7:45, we drove down on Friday evening  and stay in a hotel close to the location. The recommended hotel was a Holiday Inn with an indoor swimming pool and the kids enjoyed this immensely.

Here is the scores of the level 3 5-Star team.

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You can find videos of each of Natalie’s events: VaultBarsBalance beam, and Floor exercise.

I took a few still shots, but it is clear that my point and shoot Canon is not going be the best tool for distance action shots.

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Eli Lost His First Tooth

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Eli has reached his first big “dental” milestone. His lost his first tooth while at school this morning. He lost it while eating his breakfast before heading to his classroom. He was ecstatic when Natalie and I arrived home after gymnastic practice. He was smiling from ear to ear. 

Before bed he placed his tooth under his pillow and then proceeded to ask many of the same questions that most first timers

“How big is the Tooth Fairy?”

“Have you ever seen her?”