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There’s been tons of stuff on this site about Holly’s athletic accomplishments, but she is also a very good student. On Friday she was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. Because of the lighting, we couldn’t get good photos of the ceremony itself, but we’ve got some gorgeous photos of Holly both before and after. Click here for the gallery.

For a 3rd grade science project, Holly had the choice of doing a video demonstration or an in-class demonstration of anything at all “scientific”. I’m so glad she chose to do a video, because it is so much fun to watch, even four years later. Some of you may already have seen it on boomsmith.com, but I just now uploaded it to YouTube and it is being well-received. Here’s the description:

This is a “How Boomerangs Work” video from the perspective of a 3rd grader. The video discusses some boomerang flight science, shows construction, throwing, and catching.

This video was done for Holly’s 3rd grade science class and was so well-received that it was shown to all the other classes as well.

And here’s the video: 

In Holly’s first-ever track meet, she took first place in the long jump with a leap of 12 feet 4.25 inches. Even though there was a 20-25 mph wind, her jumps were not wind-aided, as she was jumping into the wind. That same wind made the low-40s temperature feel like low-30s. There were lots of near-miserable kids huddled up in blankets waiting for their events to start.

Holly’s second event was the high jump, and this didn’t go as well for her. She failed to clear the opening height in 3 attempts. She hadn’t had much practice, and hopefully will get a chance to do better next time.

Her final event was the 400 meter run (one lap around the track). She says that by this time her feet were nearly frozen solid. She was assigned the outside lane, meaning the staggered start had her way out in front early in the race. I warned Michelle that it’d look like the others were catching her quickly as they made the final turns. Holly took off like a shot, though she looked a little stiff from the cold. It turns out that she took off too fast, not having enough experience to get the pacing right. Holly looked like she had the proverbial monkey on her back after about 2/3 of the lap. Though the other girls were trying to make up the stagger, Holly was able to hold off all but one of them. She finished 2nd in her heat and 5th overall. It was the first time she had ever run that race and I’m sure she’ll improve tremendously with experience.

Despite the cold, she enjoyed herself lots. She didn’t know she’d be hearing her name cheered by so many people in the stands, but I think she liked it. I for one, can’t wait for next week’s meet.

The Lady Cubs are rapidly improving their volleyball skills, and have won a couple of games, but have yet to win a match. In Monday’s matchup against the Coble Coyotes, the entire team did well in the very close first game, and continued to impress in the second game, even though they had some tough breaks and allowed the Coyotes to take a huge lead early. The fact they never gave up, and continued doing their best even when they were down, was great to see.

Also great to see was Holly’s individual performance. She’s really learning to use her height and jumping ability to great advantage. She had some legitimate kills and a couple of stuffs. Here’s an excerpt from the Coach’s report on the match:

The A-Team fought but couldn’t come up with enough to overcome the Coyotes (22-25, 13-25).  Outstanding Player of the Game was Holly Armstrong.

Holly’s volleyball team has been through some tough times in their short history. It was great to hear them say that they wouldn’t let a few bad experiences turn them off of the sport. During their first tournament, their perseverance finally paid off when they finally captured their first win. I was lucky enough to capture their reaction on video. Enjoy.

Holly’s 7th grade Art class had a discussion on Aboriginal art and Holly mentioned that her family happened to have “a few boomerangs”. The teacher wanted to see some, so the next day, Holly took a few to school. With all the questions of “Do they really come back?”, the whole class soon ended up out on the football field with Holly giving an impromptu demonstration. Luckily, she had also taken a lightweight Carlotta to show how more “modern” paintjobs contrast to the Aboriginal. So she had something easy to throw to start with. After she threw and caught the Carlotta, the teacher and other kids wanted to see one of the bigger boomerangs in action. Though Holly had never thrown anything so large, she made a go of it and got some good returns. The class was very impressed and now know that yes, they really do come back. The teacher sent me this photo of Holly holding some boomerangs in front of some of the class’s aboriginal art.  

Holly felt good about her chances all throughout Volleyball team tryouts, and just watching her play around with the ball (and actually doing some bumping and setting with her) I felt good about her chances too. I’ve got to admit though, that I was a little worried about how she would take it if she turned out not to make the team. It turns out no worrying was needed. She made the A-Team! Some of her close friends (Taylor, Lulu, Amanda, Kelsey, Karolyn) also made the team, so this ought to be a fun season.

Holly decided she wants to play volleyball at school, so we signed her up for a volleyball camp (actually a “day camp”) to see if she really liked it. She does. Her and her friend Taylor attended the camp and had tons of fun and learned tons of stuff. We’ll see if this pays off when team tryouts come around after school starts.

At the beginning of this soccer season, Coach Shan told the team that this would be the last time he coached. The team complained strongly, begging him to come back again. He thought he was in the clear when he told them he would agree to come back only if they went undefeated this season. So of course they did it!

This was the Waxahachie YMCA U13 Coed Soccer league. Last season was also a coed league, but our girls were a strong enough team to compete against teams of both boys and girls. This season, we brought in 4 brothers to make up an 11-a-side team. This included one of the girls’ twin, and her other, younger set of identical twin brothers. This was also our first league on a full-size field, so running was strongly stressed in the twice-weekly practices.

Holly continued to improve and scored some goals on offense, but it became evident that she was most valuable to the team on defense. Her and the other tenacious defenders were sometimes so effective that they gave our goalie a half where she never even needed to touch the ball.

The end-of-season party was at Pizza Hut where trophies and team photos were handed out, and where Coach Shan assured the team that he would be true to his word and coach them again in this Fall’s U14 league.

Click here for the full photo album.

The Strikers soccer team celebrated their season with a pizza dinner at Double Dave’s. Afterwards, they were presented their trophies. They also played games and pumped quarters into a gumball-type machine to collect plastic rings. (If only older females were satisfied by such cheap jewelry!)