She Ought To Be In Pictures

This didn't get posted before the end of the school year, so I am posting it now. This shot was taken by the local paper as our daughter performed in the end of year show choir presentation. She was so excited to be "front and center" in the picture and in the paper! A good time was had by all, and it was a nice way to finish off the end of her 8th grade year!

First Day of School and already Famous!

Our daughter received an e-mail from her good friend in it he attached the following photo.

The local paper was out and about on the first day of school snapping photos of the kids as they returned and guess who ended up in the paper....yep "Miss Thing". While she professes to hate this photo, she has wasted no time e-mailing it to our family and friends!

What a way to start off a new year... Having her photo appear in the local paper, having a great hair day and being big "man" on campus she is in 8th grade (that is like being a senior for middle school mom....or so she says everyday). Wow, I wonder what day two will bring!

Hip Hip Hooray.....Cheer announcements made today!

Congratulations to our "cheer leading flyer" for making the 2010-2011 cheer squad! This will be her third year on the team, and she was thrilled to see her name listed on the roster, which was posted on Saturday.

She is the "flyer" for the team, which she loves. She displays no fear when the bases are lifting her above their shoulders and tossing her around like a rag doll...me on the other hand not so calm!

Here is a poem that sums up how they all feel about making the squad this year!

Look at us and what do you see........

Toe Touchin, Power Punchin

Back Flippin, Stunt Stickin'

Loud Yellin', High Flyin'

Spirit Spreadin', Crowd Pleasin'

Big Time, Bona Fide

Cheerleaders and PROUD OF IT!

We are looking forward to a wonderful season............Go BIG Blue!

We Are The Champions!!!!

We were off to the State playoffs this morning after CA won in the semi-finals against Chattanooga School of Arts and Science. The play-off was held at 2:00pm at MTSU. Our rivals Grace Academy again from Chattanooga. It was 2 1/2 hours of thrills, spills and chills, which resulted in DOUBLE overtime and in the end CA's first State championship. The final score 82 to 77....COUGARS were victorious.

The icing on the cake...Malcolm Smith #45 a Mr. Basketball finalist was awarded Mr. Basketball. Three of our player to include Malcolm's twin brother Martin were named outstanding players and earned a spot on the all state team. Malcolm was named MVP, our varsity cheerleaders walked away with the spirit award, and our coach Josh Smith with the coaches award. It was a GREAT Day for CA!!!!

There are plenty of highlights, which I will outline in a photo show for you tomorrow. For now, I think I am going to have to sit on the couch and rest for a spell. We stood up for the entire game. We yelled so loud and for so long none of us have any voice left. We stomped our feet, pointed our fingers and booed the refs for bad calls. We sang the CA fight song in unison, we hugged our friends and high five our seat neighbors with each basket and upon our final victory. Frankly, the whole thing was EXHAUSTING! So for now we must rest, but stay tuned for the semi-final and playoff photo shows...they promise to be fantastic!

CA is on to Semi-Finals

CONGRATULATIONS COUGARS!!!! CA is on it's way to the semi-finals!Today, our mighty cougars took the court by storm and sent Wayne County home by handing them a 54 to 40 loss! The cougars are one step closer to a state championship, and are scheduled to play Chattanooga Arts and Science on Friday, March 19 at 10:00am. The TSSAA State Championships are being hosted by MTSU. You can bet the Murphy Center Arena will be packed with excited CA students, parents and alumni! More pictures to come once I have had the opportunity to download my camera in the mean time we will see you at the game and remember !!!! Go BIG BLUE!!!!

Cougars on their way to STATE!

Cougars are STATE bound!

10A District Champions.....................check 5a Regional Champions......................check Sectional Champions..........................check STATE BOUND..................................check! For the second year in a row, our varsity basketball team is state bound! We had center court seats at tonight's showdown between our school and summertown. It was a nail biter, with our team edging out their opponents by about (17) points total. The stands were jam packed with 800+ in attendance to include both schools. We were loud, we were proud and we were VICTORIOUS! So now we will have about a (2) week lag until all teams have had the opportunity to play there games. We are proud of our team, proud of the players and proud of all their hard work and dedication, which is the reason why they have been successful thus far! So now we will have to rustle up some more blue and gold duds and dust off our CA basketball chairs....look out STATE here we come!

Basketball Tournament

This morning we headed toward Nashville for the third trip this week, for our daughter to cheer at her school's final basketball game. The TSSAA basketball tournament began on Tuesday, which resulted in a win for our team against MJCA.

We played a Christian Academy on Thursday, and lost that by just a few points. Today we played another Christian School in what has to be one of the most remote parts of Nashville I have ever attempt to find. It was a good game, but alas our guys lost.

So that is a what you would call a "wrap" for the 2009 - 2010 basketball season. I can't say that I will be all that sad not to have to worry about squeezing in 2 - 3 basketball games a week. This is on top of school, guitar and homework, not to mention cold weather and driving in ice/snow mixes.

I know she will miss cheering, but she will be rejoining her cheer gymnastics team and she enjoys that as well. So here is our parting thoughts for both the girls and boys basketball teams. Great season BIG BLUE. You looked better than last year and should be a force to be reckoned with next year!

Cheer Lapalooza

This years football season has been riddled with injuries, illness and game cancellations due to inclement weather. This resulted in our team only play half of the games on the schedule, with no time remaining for make-up due to the upcoming basketball season. Despite all the delays I managed to snap a few pictures here and there, which I have placed in a photoshow...enjoy!

Veterans Day Program

In years past our daughter has been an active member of the local university's community choir. However, with the transition into middle school and the addition of cheer leading full time, gymnastics twice a week, guitar lessons and not to mention homework she elected to drop that extra curricular activity.

She loves to sing and really missed being involved with the choir. So this year, she asked if she could choose the intermediate choir as her full time elective, to which we said yes. She felt that participating in her schools intermediate choir would provide her with a way to continue to sing as well as a positive way to represent the school.

On Wednesday, the intermediate choir along with the high school show choir participated in a school wide Veteran's Day program. It was the first time the school had embarked on a school wide program to include lower, intermediate and upper school participation. It was wonderful! From the pre-k march to the Yankee Doodle medley performed by middle school and of course not to forget the show choir's salute to the different branches of service.

There were plenty in attendance, mom's, dad's, grandparents, brothers/sisters, active duty and retired military from just about every branch and of course a contingency from our local military post. I am attaching a video clip of one of her songs. They sound really good, of course I could be a tad bit bias!