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Greetings! This past month has been an active and enjoyable month! Mark and I spent time in New York City, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Lake Placid. In addition, I’ve been in Edinburgh and London recently, as well as our home, Sheffield. The month was filled with hard work and training, but we were able to find some time to socialize and sight see, as you’ll be able to tell from the photos. We traveled to New York on July 11th. We went there to work with Mathew Gates, who choreographed our free dance, work with Shae-Lynn Bourne, and compete at Lake Placid. It was great to work with Mathew, who is an excellent coach, and it was also nice for us to get to know him better off ice! We traveled to New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, and Lake Placid with him to train. In Simsbury, Connecticut, we worked with Shae, who not only is an amazing skater but a wonderful coach with such a positive attitude! We greatly enjoyed the experience and technical aspects of training with Mathew and Shae. We also had the opportunity to meet up with old friends, as well as spend time with new ones. We had the opportunity to meet up with Sinead and John Kerr, who are good friends of ours. We had an enjoyable day in New York City with them! In Simsbury, it was really nice to train and spend time with Mathew’s teams, as well as Isabella and Stefano from Italy and Kaitlyn and Andrew who skate for Canada! The final week Mark and I were in New York, we competed at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. Mark and I always love performing, and it was a great opportunity to perform before the season starts in Great Britain. We competed senior free dance, Open Austrian Waltz, and Open Yankee Polka. Going into the competition, we were planning on competing the OD, but we were told our last section of music couldn’t be used with the OD requirements. By that point, we didn’t have time to change music before the competition. (We now have music for our OD and are looking forward to performing it in London at the end of the month.) We appreciated all the supportive comments we received as well as the positive and helpful judging critiques. It was great performing and seeing everyone at Lake Placid! Also, Mark’s parents and his sister, Rachel, came to Lake Placid to see us skate, and afterwards we spent two days with them in New York City. We had a great time and really enjoyed the city atmosphere! When we came back to England on August 6th, both my parents were there! My mom visited my dad in Colorado Springs while I was in New York for the month, and my dad came back with my mom to visit me! On the weekend, we were in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival. It was also very special because a close family friend came to visit me in Sheffield and in Edinburgh. Before my dad left to go back to Colorado Springs, we were able to go to London. My dad, mom, and I saw Fame at the West End and toured the city. It was such a special time to get to show my dad Sheffield and Great Britain life! Mark and I had many great experiences in the past month and after spending so much time together are even closer than ever! We are always learning more about each other and feel so lucky that we are such good friends. We are excited for this year and await any chance to compete and perform. We’ll be in touch soon! Cheers! |
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