B had his first fencing tournament this past weekend. He did well. He had to fence mostly kids three to four years older than him. Considering he has only been fencing for 9 months he held his own. He had a blast and said he wanted to do it again. Yes, he’s the short one. Man he looks so small next to the older kids.

They had a really cool Ginger Bread House Town. And of course the kids had to ride the escalator several times while we were there. Theys also got to see their first Christmas Carolers.

Aunt YaYa, Jamie and Keegan came out for the afternoon and we went to the Cheyenne Zoo. C was ecstatic as he had never been to the zoo before. Every corner we went around he would yell “look at the…” fill in the blank. The kids got to feed the giraffes and budgies. All in all they had a great time

We finished off the trip with a visit with the Lallys and snow.

Yes~this is what I look like with no make-up and messy hair after fencing for a couple hours. But I didn’t care when Dave took the picture because I earned my E Rating in Epee Fencing! My goal when I started fencing was to be rated by the time I had been fencing for a year. After the last couple tournaments I was beginning to wonder if that was a realistic goal. Fencing tournaments have turned out to be a lot harder than I thought they were going to be. There is definitely a large mental component to fencing. Not only is it very tactical but you need to know when to do an action in connection the the other persons action and how to do it correctly. As the coach always says timing, tactics and technique. The other mental component has to do with your state of mind. You really have to believe in yourself. As soon as you start to doubt yourself your done for. I truly understand why they call it metal chess.

And I actually thought “that doesn’t look so hard” when I started.

I took third place out of fifteen. Yeah.