one year ago today

one year ago today i was in richmond. i was with 23 other girls (and one boy) who i had spent the last 3 and a half months with. mandatory 3 hours everyday after school + saturday morning practices. we had cried together, laughed together, sweated together. we were friends, we were teammates and we were also a family. competition cheerleading bascially takes over your life when you decide to commit to being on the team. you have no time to do anything after school, tumbling goes late into the night, saturday morning practices/competitions. your summer ends August 1st-when practices start everyday for 3 1/2 hours. you live cheerleading. but i wouldn't have wanted it any other way. you see the people i got to experience the season with were different. they were motivated, passionate, competitive, strong, tough and most of all they were my family.

we seriously were the weirdest team ever but i abosultely loved it. we entertained ourselves by putting on shows through a bathroom window, we had scavenger hunts, we stalked our coaches, we laughed about everything-which sometimes got us in trouble, we played christmas music to warm tumbling and stretch. we were far from ordinary. our saying was "there can be only one" which really fit us well. we were a one of a kind team. unique. which is definitely just a nicer word for weird for us but we were happy. so so happy together.

at the beginning of the season we didn't think we were going to be good at all. we had lost 5 seniors, and were not looking forward to a new season with a new head coach. but of course the Lord had different plans than what we were expecting. choreography came around and we started piecing stunt groups together and little by little everything fell into place. we got our routine and began running it by like september (which is crazy early in the cheer world).

throughout the season we all grew individually-both as cheerleaders and as people-but more impportantly we grew as a team. in cheerleading a big portion of judging is based on how together and on count everyone is. for a flawless routine everyone has to be on the exact same count. it's not 20 different girls (+ don) doing different things, its 1 team coming together in unity. and that's exactly what we did. we ended up getting 3rd in the states. which is crazy. sometimes i can't believe it actually happened. but even more special than that is the relationships i formed with those guys. man. it was the best.

i can't thank God enough for how grateful i am to have shared that season with you guys. i loved getting to basically live with you all for 3 months. for getting to know your hearts. for encouraging and being encouraged. for praying before competitions together. everything. every minute of that season was a blessing. and i couldn't have asked for a better team to share it with :)

even though we all aren't together as a team again, we shared something special. something that i dont think any of us can ever forget. love you guys so so much.