A Big Weekend

Ah, the Pocatello clogging competition - one of the biggest events of the year for our Footworks Dance Studio. Two crazy days of running around, madly gathering and rehearsing dancers, and throwing them on and off stage. To make things even more complicated, BYUI went ahead and scheduled Gary's biggest college show of the semester, Extravadance, the SAME WEEKEND. Which means I couldn't help him up there and he couldn't be with us in Poky. INSANITY! But everything went really well, on all fronts. We were lucky, and we had a lot of supportive parents and great dancers!

 My little Sophie did two dances with her team (Supercal and Crazy Little Thing Called Love) and a freestyle. She is such a precious, adorable little performer. Loves to dance, loves to be on stage, loves to be with her friends for a fun weekend. Look how poised and ready she is for her freestyle, below. All the other kids had pre-choreographed freestyles that they've rehearsed for months before competition. Not my Soph! She prefers to do it the old fashioned way - she actually makes it up as she goes along, which is ten times harder. Again, she continues to astound me with her poise, courage, talent and sweet charm. And look how tall and beautiful she is (in the purple top and black pants, below)! She is a joy to watch on stage and always knows what step is next. Pretty sure she's ready for her aha! year.

Sophie's team, and all the other beginning and intermediate teams, danced on Friday march 15th. Since Gary wasn't there, I came stocked with games, treats, and the dvd player for Maggie and Spence to while away the hours. (I could happily just sit in the theater and watch the dancing all day long, but Spence... not so much.) We were there until about 9:30 PM, then went to our hotel, the Ameritel, and went swimming - definitely the perk of the weekend! And Daddy came down from Rexburg and joined us late that night after his show! Hooray for dad!

Saturday morning dawned and we all awoke to Spencer's barky cough. Good thing I always pack along his prednisone! So we dosed him up, then went and got our excellent hotel breakfast - the kids love the waffles, eggs and bacon. Since Dad was there, we went swimming again, then returned to the theater in time to see the Pro individual events. Next came Maggie's jazz and lyrical, and the advanced and champ teams danced rawther late Satuday night, after the 6th annual fire alarm drill/building evacuation ritual. 6 out of 8 years, they've had a fire alarm go off! Anyway, aside from a few episodes of Spencer whining and hanging on my leg while I was trying to get teams on and off stage, it was a very fun weekend and very successful too. Our dancer Parker Stone won top Idaho Male Freestyle, the YA dances Egyptian and Demented Circus won high golds, and ALL of our dances won first place rankings. Granted, they weren't judging very hard, but we never have yet come home with ALL first places until this year.  And we won trophies for Egyptian, Senior's a'capella, and overall beginning team wins. Not a bad cache... if awards were our motivation. Which really, they're not. We want the dancers to dance because they love it, not because they can win a trophy. But since we do this competition, it's nice to do well.

Now for Maggie's individual events - technically she has a long way to go, but on stage she BRINGS it. She is a dynamite performer! In spite of her sickle feet and shaky pirouettes, she is so fun to watch. The technique will come, but teaching someone how to perform is so much harder. Get this girl on stage and she absolutely lights up. She's already miles beyond what I was at her age.