Luke started wrestling classes last year and competed in his first tournament last weekend. It was quite the experience! I registered him online for the rookie division. We arrived at the gym bright and early. All of the kids had to get in line to be evaluated by a medical doctor. You may be thinking..why is there a doctor there? Well, the doctor verifies their nails are short and trim and they also do a skin check to ensure there are no open sores or rashes. Once they get the all clear, they are weighed. Luke weighed in at 51lbs. After that, there was a long waiting period until all the kids were checked in and weighed and then the brackets are posted.
I signed Luke up for the rookie bracket but discovered they also put him in the 'open' bracket which is for experienced wrestlers. So he was in the Open 48-53lbs and the Rookie 53-58lbs. There were six mats going at a time (very chaotic). Each mat was numbered 1 through 6 and then had a match assigned to it. All of Luke's matches were on mats 5 and 6. And then his placement in each match determined his next assignment in the bracket. There is no app that tracks this so you have to rely on the posted brackets for assignments and screens posted near to the mats that have the current match posted. The matches can be very fast (for example if a kid is pinned right away) or could go for several minutes. So..I did a lot of running around to stay on top of where he needed to be.
So how did my little blonde man do? He was incredible!! I am so proud of him!!!! He absolutely rocked it. He completed in 6 matches (3 per bracket). He pinned his first opponent in match 1. He won in OT in the next 2 matches. He lost his final 3 matches, but two of those were in OT. Overall, he ended up 2nd in both brackets. Congratulations Luke!!! And his coach said he is now ready for the next practice group. So proud of him!!
Halloween was last week and Houston experienced it's coldest holiday since 1925. It wasn't that cold (maybe mid-50's) but I was loving the cooler weather! The kids and I decorated the house a few weeks ago and they carved pumpkins on Halloween Eve (the sun and heat is so strong here that we can't do it any earlier, they rot quickly). I cut the tops of the pumpkins off but they did the rest completely by themselves. Great job Julia and Luke! We also won an Astros and Unicorn pumpkin from a pre-school raffle that the kids thought were pretty cool.
As for Halloween itself we had a small crew this year. JD stayed home and handed out candy while I went out with the kids, our neighbor Kristin and her two kids.
Decorations
Pumpkins
