Jan. 12, 2009

Hi SWG fans,

After three weeks of enjoying sleeping in, no agendas and no school work, winter quarter classes began on Tuesday, so naturally the lives of the SWG gymnasts are busy once again. We were lucky to have a weekend off of competition where we could settle into our class schedules, work on bettering our routines and push ourselves to get stronger. Since we did not have a competition, we were able to get in lots of routines and numbers. This week gave people a chance to get into the lineups which enables us to exercise our depth on each event so that we can rest our bodies for the long season ahead. Some of the highlights of the week were Catherine Nguyen's beam routine and Gretchen's huge fulls on vault, just to name a few. On Thursday, we head to University of Washington to take on the Huskies and also Sacramento State and Seattle Pacific. It will be a great competition and awesome to finally get on the road to travel!

Although it was a relatively low key week at Stanford (many of the dorms went on their annual ski trips to Lake Tahoe), SWG found exciting things to do on campus over the weekend. Some of the SWG girls went to support the men's Stanford gymnastics team on Friday as they competed in their first competition of the year. It was great to see the preseason No. 1-ranked gymnastics team showcase their new routines. On Saturday night, a few SWG girls had fun attending one of the football banquets where they enjoyed dancing and karaoke singing. To cap off the weekend, after practice on Sunday, half the team volunteered at the Children's Hospital to play and read books to the children.

Thanks again for checking in and be sure to catch up with us after our Washington meet!

CJ