Wow

Rachel is officially a "tested level skater". She passed her pre-preliminary freeskate test 1 1/2 weeks ago. It was a week of suffering followed by 2 minutes of holding our breathe followed by 5 minutes of pure torture. We spent a whole week going backwards and trying to remember how to do 1/2 revolution jumps because that was what was required for the test, Rachel suffered through it. Mom and Dad held their breath for the entire 2 minutes the test took to actually skate, and Rachel was tortured (all of us were) until the judges announced that she passed.

It's really hard for me to think of Rachel as being one of the girls that we watched with pure awe in our minds just 2 short years ago. When Rachel first started skating, we thought the pre-preliminary skaters were just the best thing we had ever seen, and that Rachel would NEVER be that good. It's so hard for me to have moms walk up to me and ask for me to teach them the ropes of being a figure skating mom because I still think of myself as the newbie in the group. Guess it's time to grow up a bit and share the lessons taught to me along the way. I just still can't picture myself as the woman that taught me everything I needed to get started just a short 2 years ago....

If you want me to post the video of the test let me know. It's pretty boring, no sound and only about 1 to 2 minutes long with lots of Rachel just standing on the ice waiting for judges to make their comments.