Divas to the Runway, Please!!

Another fantastic weekend for us! I have a few things to report, so I think I'll be posting a few different times this week. Beware!!

Rozzie's dance team had a national competition in Orlando this past weekend. I was able to chaperone which got me out of school a little bit early. Isn't it funny that getting out 15 minutes early can be such a big deal?

We got to the hotel, which was the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Studios. The Hard Rock hosted the whole competition. It is a really nice hotel in easy walking distance from Universal's parks and Citywalk with restaurants and all that. We had a lot of luggage and so we had a bellman help us up to the room. He was talking to us and asking the girls lots of questions. Then he asked if they were going to the park the next day. Rozzie answered that no, she and her friend Nora were going to hang out at the pool. He questioned them a bit further and finally asked, "If you had tickets, would you go to the park?" They responded, "Yes!" He pulled out his wallet and handed them each a ticket. They were jumping around, yelling, screaming, and generally going nuts. They were so excited. So, early Saturday morning they were bound for Harry Potter World and the rest of Universal Studios. Rozzie is on the far right:
After half a day at the parks, the girls all came home and slept for 30 minutes. Then it was time to get to work. They got dressed. I, along with a few other moms, did hair. It takes about two hours to get all 21 girls ready to perform. They are so funny to listen to. We gathered in the lobby before heading over to Citywalk and the Hard Rock Theater. Here are Rozzie and Nora being famous: (they are so excited that they get to dance this time!!)

Looking like they did, they got a lot of comments, stares, picture requests, etc. One girl I was with was told, "I like your face." We knew what she meant!! The girls did their thing and looked really good. When they came back in the auditorium, they got a standing ovation! It was very exciting. A few other teams danced and scored higher than us, but we held our position. Then, West Springfield High School (Virginia) took the stage and blew everyone out of the water with a dance based on "The Matrix" movies. The dance was so cool. It took us all by surprise. They got the 2nd standing ovation of the night. We ended the competition in 4th place, making finals the next day. We were pleased with the standing and were ready to work hard.

We got to sleep in and get ready before heading to the venue. We were really excited to see "The Matrix" again. Everyone knew they would win - they scored 9.954. We were down at 9.17-something. We had a lot of fun taking pictures - the last of the season. This is Rozzie with her coach, Miss Edmonds:

Here is Rozzie with her two best friends, Lauren and Nora, whom we call "Noren" for short. The great thing about this are the creepers. I know I have addressed the issue of creeping on the blog before. I knew Natalie was creeping (on the right side), but Alexa took creeping to the next level peeking right through Nora's arm!! She is GOOD!

Here they are before the performance - happy to be in finals and enjoying themselves. Rozzie is in the center on the back row. Her hair is enormous.

They danced and brought their game to the floor. They danced perfectly. As they counted down from the final 11 teams, we all got more and more nervous. As they got to 4th place, we waited and it wasn't us! (Sounds like the marching band finals!!) Then they called out 3rd place, and it wasn't us!! Here we are with West Springfield, waiting to hear the results. We knew we were 2nd, and that is what they called out. We raised our score around 4 points. WS was awarded a 9.971. They well deserved 1st place. We truly feel honored to have won 2nd (at the State competition, 2nd felt like losing it all).

The girls with their trophy. They were also awarded the "Technical Excellence" award!!

Here is a close up of the girls from "The Matrix". They wore wigs and WHITE CONTACT LENSES!!! They started the dance with sunglasses and took them off and just amazed us all.

The girls posed for pictures together and were so gracious to us. Our girls were so happy to be ranked up with such a great show.

In my classes, I have shown our team's video and then "The Matrix" video and my students have loved it. Rozzie and I got home at 11:00 on Sunday night and were back to school the next morning. All good things end and reality is waiting for us. I'm still smiling!!

Now for an explaination on the title of this blog post and the last one regarding Rozzie's team: The music has the lines "Divas to the runway, please" and "haters bring me fame". Both statements seem to fit the dance, the year, and the response to the costume.

I can't believe this year is over for Rozzie. We have had a lot of fun with it!!