Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time since I have written a diary. A lot has happened in the past year. The major thing to happen was that I grew 4" from last years
Nationals. I am now 5'3" tall and my doctor says I have one or two more inches left to grow.

As for my programs for this year I will be using last years short program Bolero, this program is my favorite program I just love skating to it. For the long I will be using Sleeping Beauty. I fell in love with Sleeping Beauty at Nationals when Angela skated to it. I told my dad right then and there that I wanted to skate to that next year so my dad made some phone calls and found out Angela was not going to use it this year. So I jumped on it. I find that I really have to love the music for it to work for me. That's why I am not looking forward to finding two new pieces of music for next year when I move up to senior ladies. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have worked very hard to make it back to Nationals again this year. First I knew that I had to skate well at Wissahickon this summer to make the JGP
team. 3 days before I left for my JGP in Bulgaria I kicked myself and broke my toe on my landing foot. When we got to Bulgaria I came down with a terrible cold. That was Sunday, September 9th. Then on Tuesday, September 11 the World Trade Center was attacked. Skating was not my top priority at that time.

Regionals were the week after I got home and I was not in any shape to skate. I was glad I was given a bye through Regionals. That gave me a month to get ready for Sectionals. I skated very well at Sectionals and I am looking forward to doing the same at Nationals this year.

My School has been going very well, but this is the first time in two years I did not make the dean's list. I missed too much school in the first quarter.
I made it all up though and got all A's and B's. Unfortunately it was too late to count for the first quarter's deans list. Now I will miss second quarter midterms, because I will be in LA at Nationals and finals are the week I get home. I am going to ask if I can take them a week late so I won't miss the dean's list
again. We'll see how that goes over. J/K! My school has been very accommodating!!

I did have some fun this summer. I got to spend two days a week at my friend Brittany's house and a friend of my dads let us stay at their house one night a week so that helped cut down a lot of the driving for summer ice. I could keep going on and on but I will spare you all for now, but I will be back after National with a full report.

Have a safe and wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year.

Love Louann