Obviously, Brynn's biggest joy is cheer. Last year around this time, Brynn was debating between all-star cheer and high school cheer, ultimately choosing high school cheer. She is so happy she made this choice! She had a blast cheering at the football games. She was pleased that she was able to do harder stunts. She loved cheering with some of her old friends and making new ones. It was a great year for her. Now, with a new year approaching, we are so excited. We also have high expectations. This past year at Wasatch, while so good, had some bumps along the way. The coach who they tried out for last March and worked with all summer and into fall, ended up quitting mid-September. In order to provide as much stability as possible, administration bumped one of the assistant coaches into head coach. I can't say enough positive things about Coach Ariel - after a not-so-great coach - she was wonderful. She was encouraging and kind and supportive and safe. But she did not have a lot of cheer experience-specifically, she could not coach tumbling or stunting. She brought in a couple of past WHS coaches to help the girls get ready for comp season, and that was great, but the stunting and the tumbling is where Brynn is strongest and could really use some pushing. The recently-hired coach at the new school has a strong all-star cheer background - including stunting and tumbling. So both Brynn and I are excited and she is ready to get to work, be pushed, and improve her skills. Let's go!
Along those lines, Brynn has always been known to be a hard worker with a killer attitude. She is very coachable and all of her coaches have noticed this trait. She takes feedback really well. More than the skills she has, I am proud of this attribute and know it will serve her well in so many areas of her life. She is supportive of her teammates and is quick to point out their strengths while being modest about her own. She also hates drama of any kind and does not appreciate teammates who come to practice complaining about one thing or another (there are always two or three on every team 😉).
Brynn has done well with the transition from middle school to high school. She does a decent job of staying up on her work and I rarely have to check in or nag her about this assignment or that. She's not a fan of school and you probably won't find her taking any super high levels of anything but I am totally okay with that. She is pretty good at being a self-motivator.
Brynn is easing herself into driving. She wants to go practice driving all the time but she is nervous still to go on any main roads. So far, we have stuck to Little Sweden Road (a little country road right before our own Crazy Acres Rd) and we have also been to the church to practice parking. She has done one stoplight and one round-about. I'm okay to take it easy with her and have told her we will tackle bigger roads and intersections when she is feeling like she is ready. Initially, we were worried about how she would even drive and see over the dash (she is only a little over 4 ft 9 inches) but Justin did some research and we ended up buying her a little booster seat that she sits on when she drives and that has seemed to help a lot! We tease her for it and she takes it graciously.
Brynn will say that her best friend(s) are cheer friends but my opinion is that her best friend is actually Ivy. She can't seem to entertain herself at home without Ivy right there. They have a typical sister relationship: best friends and best enemies, but even on the worst "enemy" day, they can't seem to stay apart. This is especially true on long Sunday afternoons but also on a lot of Friday nights and all-day Saturdays as well.
Brynn has loved having Seminary this year. Occasionally, she will randomly tell me some spiritual tidbit she learned in Seminary and I love it. We don't always give Brynn the credit she deserves - we think her size has something to do with her maturity. She recently has been using the gospel library app to make herself study schedules...for seminary, for Book of Mormon study, and for General Conference study...and she's pretty good at sticking to the schedule!
Brynn is still into skin care/makeup products, etc. Her favorite store is Sephora. Her wish list is mostly full of items you get at Sephora or some other similar store. One of her favorite activities is to organize and re-organize her vanity.
Brynn really wanted to get her full for cheer tryouts. She had it last summer on the tumble track and spring floor but didn't have a lot of time to work on it during the school year. She hit it hard at open gyms after nationals, when she had more free time. It didn't take much to get it, she never truly lost it, but her next goal was to get it on dead mat. One day at cheer class when they had free time, she told herself she was going to throw it...and she did! She is pretty awesome not to have a lot of fear, she just does what she puts her mind to. She did throw her full at one of the tryout clinics but not at the actual tryout but she's confident that it will get stronger and stronger this next year.
Brynn treats our cats like her babies. It is sweet and funny and sometime annoying (when she is hyper-focused on them). No one can accuse her of ignoring them! She takes care of them everyday-feeding and watering and giving them lots and lots of snuggles. She has them pretty well trained!
Brynn is not much of a book lover. She listens to audiobooks and I read to her at night but I can't tell you the last time she read an actual book. She recently got hooked on the Percy Jackson series on Disney+ and decided she might want to read the books. We got the first one from the library, she flew through it, then we got the second one and she finished that one as well and is anxious to go get the third. I told her we just had to find the right book for her to enjoy reading.
Brynn, as of late, has been enjoying "chick-flicks". We watch them together so that has been fun. She is always up for a mom movie night. (Bonus for me because I like still like to have a say in what she is consuming and she is still okay with that.)
Brynn's birthday interview:
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