Nov. 9, 2004

Hello Everyone!

After spending a week out of the gym for "Cross Training", you will be glad to hear that Stanford's Women's Gymnastics is still looking awesome! Though the beginning of the week started out with slightly tired and sore bodies from last week's variety of activity, everyone did an amazing job to push through and make some amazing progress this week (a hard week at that)! We had several beam intrasquads this week that went really well; each time seems to get better and better. We also pushed through full sets on bars, vaulted on to higher mats, and started putting more tumbling on the floor- all very exciting! Every day marks some kind of new improvement and it has been so exciting to be in the gym. I feel so blessed to be part of such an incredible team with such a wide variety of talents. Not only are we improving gymnastically, we also continue to grow stronger and closer together as a team everyday. We are continually cheering each other on and are there to support each other through both success and struggle. We also had two birthdays in the gym this week- Lauren on Monday and Tab on Tuesday-happy birthday girls!

Another highlight in the gym was our Halloween Meet the Team event on Saturday night. The team gave a 30 minute exhibition followed by a Q&A session. We then split all the kids into groups, took them around to play on the equipment, and closed the night out with each group making up a cheer about their team name-yea for the "Scary Spiders!"J The event was great in every aspect and the turnout was fabulous. Not only did we have over 100 little kids with their parents but some of our friends from the dorms came as well! The team looked awesome in the exhibition and it was a great way to promote the program. Hopefully most of the kids will come support us at our meets!

Everything else around campus has been going well too. Most people on the team have recently been flooded with mid-terms and papers to write, but everyone is working hard and doing well. Campus was especially bustling on Monday and Tuesday because of the presidential election and I think a lot of Stanford students made sure to get out and vote, which is really good! The theme of my writing class has to do with the American identity so we spent some time in class on Monday and Wednesday talking about the election and watching the speeches which is always interesting.

I know great things lie ahead for SWG and I can't wait to see what even next week will bring, let alone six months from now. Be sure to check back in next week and see what cool progress has been made. Next Saturday is also our annual "Sips and Swings" fundraiser which I am personally extra excited about because my parents are coming for itŠall the way from Houston!

- Aimee Precourt