Wow!  I have been so busy this last month or two and I have a lot to catch everyone up on!

   I guess the most exciting thing that has happened to me is going to school!  I am in regular public school now and I LOVE IT!  I had no idea how much I would love being with all the other kids and having different teachers and stuff.  It will be so fun to hang with some of the kids at Friday night football games and have sleepovers with school friends.  Oh, and the best part about going to school - SCHOOL CLOTHES!  The only bad part that I have figured out so far is having to get up soooooooo early.  I used to sleep until about 8:00 and now I have to get up every single day at 6:00.  My day is way more busy now, but I love it.  I have to go to school for two classes in the morning, then I go to gym for 3 1/2 hours, then I go back to school for two classes, then back to gym for 4 hours!  Talk about some crazy hours, but I only do that three days a week, the other two days I just have one gym practice at night. 

   My meet in Mexico was okay.  I do better competing at home, but I guess I just need more practice at far away meets.  My team took first place, so I got a gold medal from the meet, and it's a neat medal because it is different from the normal USAG medals that you always get.  I had a really great time with Kassi, Jana, and Natasha.  I roomed with Kassi in the hotel and she is so fun and really nice!  I also got to meet her parents and they were really nice to me.  My mom didn't go to the meet, so Kassi's parents kind of looked out for me. It was so nice of them to make me feel like they cared so much.  We got to go to San Diego after the meet - thank goodness, we could finally eat!  We had such a hard time in Mexico trying to find any food that we liked.  We got to go to the San Diego Zoo which was really fun.  I have some pictures from the zoo that I will put on the internet - there's one of me on some kind of stone structure.  Well, these two boys kept trying to climb the stone and they couldn't do it.  So I kind of said to myself, "Okay, make room for a gymnast!" and I climbed the stone to the top!  DON'T MESS WITH A GYMNAST!

   The most fun meet that I did this summer was the International Children's Games.  OMG it was just so much fun!  I spent every day meeting new people from all over the world and trading USA stuff with them for their stuff.  I got a really neat wooden carving from the coach for Mexico - it was one of the same Mexico teams that we just competed against in Mexico, we were very surprised to see each other!  I also made really good friends with two gymnasts from Thailand and they both gave me some elephant jewelry.  The Philippine gymnasts were really cute and my coach kind of adopted them because their coach couldn't get a visa to come to the meet and they didn't have anyone to help them at the meet.  Can you even imagine being in a different country and having to compete and not even have your coach with you!  I would seriously not even want to go!  Oh, and there was a gymnast from Hungary that was so good!  There were also a couple of girls from Armenia who I really liked, but I felt so sorry for them because their coach was so mean to them.  Some of the other teams at the meet were from Switzerland, Canada, Austria, Slovakia, Netherlands, Chinese Taipei, Puerto Rico, and some other places too.  The gymnastics meets (there were two days) were so popular that the newspapers said that over 200 people got locked out of the arena on both days because we were so full.  Another really cool thing was when all the athletes and their delegations got to go to the Cleveland Brown's stadium to meet President Bush right before opening ceremonies - I got to shake his hand and have two up close pictures of him!  Oh, and my two favorite non-gymnastics teams were the guys track and field team from Scotland and two table tennis guys from Cleveland.  Simon and Michael were the two table tennis guys and they were so funny, me and my coach just loved them!  The USA baseball team and swim team were also really nice - actually, everyone I met was really nice.  OMG - you would not believe this.  There were so many different people that wanted to do newspaper interviews, TV interviews, and one magazine interview with me.  I got letters from the Mayor of Cleveland and the Mayor of Cuyahoga Falls congratulating me on a good job.  It is really weird because nobody ever cared before that I was a gymnast.  Even when I made the TOPS national team, or went to Championships, or made the USA National Team, nobody cared.  But now that I did this other meet, it's like they all want to know me now.  I think that being on the USA National Team would make them want to know me more than just doing good at one meet.  And oh this was pretty cool too - there were so many police and SWAT all over where the athletes stayed and in the village.  They were on the roof tops of all the buildings and they were on horses and they had police dogs and everything.  It was really strange to see all the police just walking around carrying guns in sight of everyone.

   The last thing that I got to do was just a short trip to Chicago.  That was really fun because on day one we just went to the downtown area and walked all over the place and then went to Navy Pier.  The second day I was there I got to spend with Anna Li.  We went to the movies and the hotel swimming pool.  We also went downtown for dinner.  It was just a really relaxed and fun trip with just my family.  I will put some pictures on my site from Chicago.

   Now the best - best - BEST part of the whole summer ........ GO USA!!!  I am so excited for all of our USA Olympic Athletes!  Everyone was so good, and I can't believe how many medals the gymnasts brought home, and I am so anxious to get my Wheaties box!  It is so cool that I actually know the girls who were at the Olympics and that I go to camps with them and hang out with them at the ranch.  The other Olympians that I want to know now are Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe!

   Next on my list of things to do is go to the ranch in October.  I am going to try for a spot on the Pan Am team.  I will be throwing my new vault at the ranch, so I am really excited to see how I score on it.  And after the ranch, I finally get my new floor routine.  I already have the music and I love it so much.  Hope everyone else does too!

   Bye, Bye, Bye - I have to finish up my HOMEWORK now.  I am so excited about school that I even like doing homework! :)