Ella's End-of-the-Season Gymnastics Celebration

It has been a tradition for years at Ella's gym to host an end-of-the-year celebration for their competitive team at a Rainier's baseball game at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.  Since this was Ella's first year on the team, we had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be such a fun evening.  The team rents out a private area with our own viewing deck and playground and provides a catered dinner.  Since it's an outside venue, we were so fortunate to have incredible weather with beautiful, blue skies and temperatures in the 70s.  I checked Ella (and Logan) out of school 30 minutes early, so we had enough time to get home and get ready to leave by 4 p.m.  We arrived at the stadium at 4:30 and had the place to ourselves for an hour or so.  This allowed the gym to put on a little program recognizing each level of their competitive team and also to honor the graduating seniors.  While this was going on, a slideshow was playing on the stadium's jumbotron screen with pictures that all of the parents had submitted in advance.  It was so cool to see pictures of Ella up on a huge screen at a professional baseball stadium!  After the program was over, we enjoyed eating dinner while sitting on blankets on the grass before Ella and the rest of her friends seriously played for the rest of the night.  Since Ella and I have absolutely NO interest in baseball, we did not watch a single minute of the game.  Instead, I spent the evening talking to various moms who I have become friends with this year while Ella and her gymnast friends bounced back and forth between playing on the playground and eating food on the blankets on the grass.  After staying 4.5 hours, we left the game a little early at 9 p.m. to avoid the crazy traffic getting out of the stadium and headed home after a very long and fun evening at the ball park!

Ella and the rest of her Level 2 teammates and their coaches being recognized at the beginning of the program.

A close-up of Ella and some of her coaches.

The awesome picture I took of Ella on the balance beam at the state meet being shown on the jumbotron screen.

Another picture I submitted of Ella and her good friend, Ella, on the jumbotron.

Ella and I eating dinner before the game began.

Ella and her gymnast friends got a huge kick out of doing gymnastics all over the park.  Here is Ella and three of her friends doing the splits while hanging from the rope, play structure at the playground.

Ella posing with her friends Ella, Annabelle, and Kinzie.

One of the moms was so nice and treated all of the girls to their own buckets of cotton candy.  Here are the two Ellas enjoying their sugary treat!

A group of girls eating their cotton candy while sitting on our blanket on the grass.