We had only JUST gotten back from Kaitlynn's cheer competition in Oklahoma City, and it was already time to prepare for the next one on the very next weekend in Fort Worth, the American Cheerleader Association (ACA) National Championship. During the week of practices leading up to a competition, the team parents prepare spirit gifts for the girls to get them excited for the event ahead. It's an exciting way to encourage the athletes, and usually the gifts come with a variety of personalized products. Yet another thing that adds to the expense of this activity, ha!
On this particular weekend, we had an unexpected winter storm blow through the state of Texas. School was cancelled on the Friday before the competition, and there were a lot of last minute changes to the competition schedule. What was supposed to be a full weekend competition was changed to a 1-day event on Sunday, which turned out to be a huge blessing for Kaitlynn. She had suddenly come down with 104 fever a few days earlier, and we were worried that she wasn't going to be able to compete at all. We later found out she had the flu, but we immediately pumped her full of vitamins and she ended up making a super quick recovery. We were thankful for the delay in the competition, and we set off for our quick trip to Fort Worth amidst the freezing cold weather and snow-covered landscape.
When we reached Fort Worth on Saturday afternoon, we had some free time and made an impromptu visit to Jeb and Alli's house in Haslet. The timing worked out for us to see their brand new litter of puppies - the Millets, as they are affectionally called - and they were just as cute as could be! Kaitlynn wore a facemask to make sure she didn't spread any germs, but she was SO excited to see her cousins and get some puppy love all in the same visit. Precious!
Later in the evening, we made it to our hotel in downtown Fort Worth near the water gardens and in walking distance to some fun spots to eat and shop. It was a very cold weekend but the sunshine was plentiful. The next day, Kaitlynn's team wasn't scheduled to compete until 7:00 pm that night - so late! And even though Kaitlynn was up half the night with a horrible cough, we got up early to head over to the convention center and scope out the arena where they would be competing. We ran into several of her teammates who were supporting fellow teams, and then we were able to explore more of the downtown area for some lunch and snacks while we killed time during the day. It was really fun to have the extra down time together.
After a late lunch, we went back to our hotel to begin her "construction" process with hair and makeup. This competition felt so different with our late night performance time, and it really threw off our usual routine. But we made sure to snap some photos once she was ready and then we met up with the rest of the Phantom squad. With delays in the event schedule, Phantom didn't perform until around 9:30-10:00 pm that Sunday night, which was the most insane thing to me! After all, the next day was a school day for these girls, ouch! But hey, we do it all for the love of the sport, right?!
Phantom was one of the very last teams to perform on the late Sunday night competition, but it was all worth it when they earned the title of "ACA National Champion" in their division. They took home these amazing jackets and medals, and despite their exhaustion, they all had huge smiles on their faces. Go Phantom!
With such a late night, we opted to stay one more night in Fort Worth and head home the next morning for Kaitlynn to return to school mid-day. Our drive took us through College Station right before lunchtime, and we decided to stop at one of our favorite lunch spots for sandwiches and pizza. We didn't know it at the time, but this visit would be the first of many mother-daughter Newk's lunches where Kaitlynn would order and easily finish 2 of the adult-sized pizzas. Can someone say, growth spurt?! She sure looked good eating those pizzas in her brand new, hard earned ACA Champions jacket!
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