"Don't mess with Texas - don't mess with LEXI."

---me, 4/11/03, to beam judges right before I went

"MinneSOOOOHta..."

---Texans

"Oh my / starry-eyed surprise / dance all night / we're gonna dance all night / dance all night to this DJ ... "

---drunken song from Jenny's CD

April 13, 2003
Nationals!!!

time 4:28 pm feeling wonderful reading nothing wearing all black in mourning of the end of our great trip music DMB Busted Stuff, had to give Chicago a break ready for Nationals again! next more driving...more sleeping...more dreaming

I LOVE GYMNASTICS. I love gymnastics so much it would scare you if you knew how much I loved it, that is, if you're not already scared enough. And I love my teammates too (and not just in that special way, either, *wink*).

Nationals was awesome, as predicted, as was Texas. Just as with last year, it was one of my favorite weekends of the entire year. It's just so gratifying to me to congregate with all of these gymnastics people, people who MUST love the sport or else why would they still be in it, and compete with them in the biggest and best meet of the year. Anything gymnastics is always good.

We left Wednesday, decked in cowboy hats and a blowup cactus (thanks to Matt), after much running around for people's stuff, and spent Wednesday and Thursday driving - driving - driving! We were slow people on the way down or something, because today it is going superfast. Anyway. It ended up being really fun to drive, because we got to see some new states and places, even a creepy old man in Iowa was amusing to me. I took tons of pictures, mainly of signs and things ("Man, you ARE a design student." ---Diana) and maybe someday I'll put some up. As we drove into TX I was reminded of WI due to all the fireworks and beer signs. The only change was that the cheese signs were replaced with Jesus ones, haha.

'Training' was Thursday night at Capitol Gymnastics, that was pretty crazy, but it was cool to reunite with people and be called the MinneSOOOHta girls, haha. Then we competed early Friday morning! I could tell when I awoke that it wasn't going to be a great meet for me. I mean, I was super excited still, and in a crazy assed mood (everyone that had not been to Nationals with me before was stunned, it's like I was drunk all the time), but the sleeplessness of the past few weeks (weeks!) finally caught up and I was dead, man. Oh well.

We started on floor, I almost messed up the Arabian and did skip the front through to back, but it was definitely a grand way to see Liffey Dance go out of its time. I love floor, I LOVE competing, and I love having everyone watching ME (snotty, are we now?). 8.25 for that routine...not bad. Missy and Mary had awesome routines and got great scores which placed them into finals (top 20 on each event, finals were on Saturday morning).

Vault, haha, who cares about vault. I got an 8.225 though which is pretty damn good for me and for my stupid handspring! As always I did only one. I was very sad for Mary though who did not do her Tsuk on the first one then hurt herself on the second. My little baby! Oh just for the record this is who went: Kelly, Missy, Mary, Diana, me, Rachel, Kristin, and Erin. Anyway. So thankfully she recovered in time for an amazing bar set! She made her giants, it was lovely, lovely, lovely. And Missy of course kicked ass. I made everything in my routine, including the toe shoot, so I was very happy! I got an (tada) 8.25 - so at this point I was weirded out b/c almost all 8.25's for my routines. TOO CONSISTENT, and pretty good for me! Yikes.

Beam was last. Missy had a terrible crash on beam which left her with bruises (she is so self-conscious) but then Diana had a very confident set, she went for everything. I was very excited for her because she has been hurt all season but she came back for Nationals with all of her skills! GO DIANA! As for me, beam was definitely a good time, and the highlight of my meet, but not because of my routine. I mean, I made almost everything (fell on a stupid full turn - WTF? as I motioned once I fell - but you can see later it was meant to happen) but I was shaky breaky through the whole thing. ANYWAY the fun part came before the routine. I was standing there waiting to go and the timer girl from Texas happened to look at me. I said something like, 'yeah this is gonna suck' and she smiled and then I got braver and went on. "But it's OK, because we're in TEXAS," I told her. "Don't mess with TEXAS, don't mess with LEXI."

At this point the judges looked up and noticed me speaking. It was one lady and one man (probably a gay guy too, those male judges are a rarity) and for the record you are not really supposed to talk during gymnastics meets, or at least when it's your turn. Anyway then they asked me where I was from.

"Minnesota," I told them.

"MinneSOOOHta, you're from MinneSOOOHta," they mocked me, and I laughed. They started talking about how it must be pretty cold up there in MinneSOOOOHta and how that day felt cold to them, to which I replied:

"Well this is HOT for me! And I'm ready to GO!" and they laughed and said go right ahead.

TOO FUNNY! You are not supposed to joke around with the judges but I can't stop myself. I often think I was meant to be an actress and not a gymnast. Anyway so then my score came...an 8.25!!! Hahaha, it sucked that I fell but it was COOL that I was so 'consistent'...I ran over to the judges after they flashed my score and we celebrated over my consistency...it was pretty cool.

So I got a 32.975, not bad for me. I hope to get a 34 someday though, we'll see about that. Overall it was an awesome day, I loved competing and being with my teammates and cheering everyone on. It was excellent and the high that I had been searching for. As a team we ended up with a 135.35 and 7th place!! Up 10 places from the year before, I was so amazed. I was 37th out of like 300 (though not all those do all around), so I was definitely happy, as last year I was 49th. AND I JUST MISSED FINALS, sort of - 8.45 was the cutoff for bars, and if I hadn't fallen on beam I would have made it! So next year hopefully, you never know.

Yeah, then we spent the rest of the day sunning ourselves and hanging out. Saturday was finals and Missy and Mary kicked ass...that was a good time to watch them and also 'congress' was fun too (we kept those rule changes down, yeah man). We went downtown Saturday, Austin is very cool and a lot like Madison as I've been told, and Saturday night was the banquet. YEAH BABY! That is also one of the best times of the weekend, everyone but our team is super drunk (since we can't drink under the U's laws, which is a good thing I think) so we just act CRAZY!! and no one realizes it. We got Notre dame to dance with us and that was pretty cool, they were the only other team not drunk, and they are so sweet! They won overall so that was very exciting for them. I LOVE NOTRE DAME! And I love dancing like a crazy person. What fun it is to be us.

Well there is so much more to my awesome weekend, but alas, time and space are short. I put up our QUOTES below simply for our sake but also for my own records. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and remember, DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!!!