The Thackeray's: Bree's First Tournament

WOW!!! I am just constantly in awe of how fast my kids are growing up and I am constantly humbled by just how amazing they truly are. A year ago if someone would have asked me if I thought Bree could compete in a TaeKwon-Do tournament, I would have said no. But not anymore. Signing her up for TKD has been the biggest blessing for this little girl. She has learned to blossom out of her comfort zone and try things that made her uncomfortable at first but ended up changing her perspective on so much. A year ago she wouldn't even make eye contact with strangers or sometimes even me. She was so shy and so timid, and yesterday she stood in front of 5 high ranking black belts and beamed like the sun after fresh snow. No matter what she scored yesterday or how she medaled I saw her yesterday blossom and grow, I saw my little girl become a young lady. I have many many pictures from yesterday to share with you but I wanted everyone to know that yesterday she accomplished so much more than I could have prayed for.

Love,
Leona

Bree and Aleksia prior to the start of the tournament with the offical sign behind them.

Me and Bree, I am still very much participating in TKD and I was really sad that I could not compete due to injury but there is always the next tournament!

Not only was this Brees first tournament but she also got called up to compete in the first group of competitors and then....

She competed in the first set against a kid that was one rank ahead of her. I do wish we could have seen maybe some of the other kids compete first just so we could understand the system a little better but with absolutly no experience or any idea what was going on she stepped forward and did her best.

She did not medal in patterns :( and it was a really complicated reason and I am not going to dive into it but as a 9 year old it was super super hard for her to understand what had happened. She did nothing wrong it was just kinda rough luck but after shedding her tears she decided not to give up and to stay and compete in the breaking.

Breaking almost didn't happen because we were without power for a good hour and a half and they were just about to call it and then THE LIGHTS CAME BACK ON!!! The kids cheered and lined up to break.