Ballroom 2010

January and February are crazy months for ballroom. With three major competitions, regular 3 hour practices, additional Saturday practices, and ballgame half-time performances . . . whew, I'm tired all over again . . . it is a bit overwhelming but in the end it turns out to be oh, so much fun!

At the Utah competition Erika's team won the overall, everything, I-don't-remember-the-title, trophy. In addition to this dance they also did a medley routine to a bunch of Mary Poppins songs but Erika is an alternate in it so I haven't recorded it yet. She will perform it for the spring recital (they better let her or I'm not paying that costume fee!) and I can record it then. Erika also won gold, silver and bronze medals in the syllabus dances (for waltz, cha cha and rumba). Syllabus is a little long and can get monotonous (for dancers and parents) but with the change up of different partners for each dance style and the occasional medal it ends up being worth the hours of waiting and watching.

Can you tell from the pictures which boy is "ok, for a dance partner", which one is "kinda cool" and which one she "would totally date"?

Kara, Caytlyn, Levi, Erika and I all had a lazy time during the 11 hour event. The highlight for Caytlyn was meeting Ryan and Ashleigh DiLello from the last season of "So You Think You Can Dance". It's a bit like "American Idol" with dancing instead of singing and Caytlyn got us hooked last season. She was all googly eyed over Ryan, leaving Levi a bit jealous and rolling his eyes, and it took me completely out of my social comfort zone to go over and ask them if the girls could have a picture with them. Oh, the things a mother will do for her kids!

We almost had to wipe the drool from Caytlyn's face. Then we found out that she wasn't really all that interested in Ryan, just the fact that she was meeting someone from TV and it gave her a really great picture to post of facebook. Still, it made for some good laughs during a really long day.

So, if you want to see any of it live come to the spring concert during the last week of April. You can see all the teams perform (from pee wee to seniors) and hopefully we'll see Erika all dolled up in her Mary Poppins costume. And for those who just wanna see it from the convenience of your home computer, here's a little YouTube entertainment for you.

* Be sure to notice how great her splits are . . . TWICE! For weeks she would sit in split position while doing her homework or reading or doing her hair trying to loosen up those muscles and get them ready for this dance. She did PERFECT!!