At the Walker Mansion ruins on the Mt Falcon trail

It was a beautiful long weekend here in Denver and the three of us had so special plans. Marcy flew to Des Moines on Saturday afternoon to attend our niece Lily’s high school graduation but we had a low key weekend here. Some trips to the gym, Anna went over to a friend’s house, Jude and I watched some English soccer, and we went to Red Lobster one night.

Marcy, Lily and Mandy at the graduation

This morning Jude and I decided to go for our first hike of the year. It was a picture-perfect day, you couldn’t ask for better hiking weather. We chose Mt Falcon, a solid 8.5 mile hike with almost 2,000 feet of vertical. We finished in 3 1/4 hours with some stops at the top. Olive loved being back on the trail, too.

At the summit of Mt. Falcon at 7,842 feet

Anna is still in the throes of Cheer tryouts. She did well in her first set of tryouts and the final callbacks are this week. She is hoping for a Level 4 team and is excited about another year of cheer.

Anna’s White Out team performing at Summit

The cheerleading season culminates in a huge international competition known as Summit. You have to be invited to compete at Summit, which means you have to do well in one or more of the earlier competitions. Both Anna’s teams, Frost Cats and White Out qualified and Anna was beyond excited to go.

So, Marcy and Anna left on Tuesday night to head to Orlando. Due to a hotel scheduling snafu and some fierce negotiating from Marcy she ended up in a 2-bedroom cottage so Jude and I decided to come down on Thursday night for the weekend. This would be the first time Jude and I would see Anna compete at a competition outside Colorado.

Frost Cats about to start a practice session the day before Summit

Frost Cats performed on Thursday night and they did really well. The top 17 teams out of 56 teams make it through to finals and Frost Cats came in 18th, so while they “hit zero” (no major mistakes) they just missed out on the finals by one place. Anna was bitterly disappointed.

Is that the Millennium Falcon? Yes! In the Star Wars area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios

The consolation prize is that Anna got to spend the day at Hollywood Studios with us. We had a late afternoon break so she could practice with White Out, but we spent most of the day there. The kids had a blast and so did the parents for the most part (I am not a big fan of some of the more adventurous rides).

Saturday was competition day for White Out and while Anna did great in her parts of the routine the team did not do their best and so did not qualify for the finals today. Jude and I left late morning for the trip home and Marcy and Anna decided to head to St. Augustine Beach for the afternoon.

Jude doing well halfway through his 1,600m run

Earlier this week Jude had his last track meet of the year. He did four events and I was able to watch three of them. He ran strongly but did not quite hit any personal bests. He placed in the top eight for both the 1,600 and 3,200m runs. He enjoyed his first season on the track team, and he certainly got a lot fitter over the past couple of months.