February Follies

February started out with our favorite weekend of the year at The Cloister Resort at Sea Island in Georgia. Travis attends the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference each year and we look forward to this weekend ALL YEAR!!! This year, the kickoff to the conference was on Super Bowl Sunday (see what I did there?). Everyone was instructed to wear their favorite team's colors. Despite the dismal season, Travis and I donned the purple and gold. During the party, a lady came up and asked if I was from Minnesota. We talked for quite a while on the virtues of living in Minnesota. She lives there currently and I had to tell her how lucky she was. Then her husband came up. I noticed that his name tag put him with Target and so we discussed the virtues of Target. Then Travis found me and we chatted a big longer. The next day, Travis came back from his big meeting and said that my Target friend was the keynote speaker and was a HUGE bigwig with Target. Luckily I was on my best behavior and didn't swear or anything.

February brought about Maddie's first church dance!! She turned 14 in November, but hasn't had the opportunity to go to a dance until this month. Rozzie warned her that guys will ask her to dance and will somehow manage to ask the girl's age. When you answer, "Fourteen," the young man will simply say, "oh." So, Maddie was asked to dance a few times. One young man was a high school senior. He chatted with her a bit and then nonchalantly got in, "how old are you?" She answered, "Fourteen." .... .... .... "Oh." At least the guys know the rules and when someone is off limits, they are off limits. Rozzie, Maddie, and Hannah all had a good time at the dance.
The same weekend that Maddie danced her heart away, Uncle Shan was in town for a visit. We always love to have Uncle Shan around!! He brought his brother-in-law, Clark, along for one night. Clark has a few cats at home that Shan figures he misses quite a bit. When Shan came in for breakfast, Clark was reading Maddie's Cat Fancy magazine!!
This past weekend, Maddie had her first dance competition. She has been looking forward to this for a long time. She was in 4 dances: Tap, Jazz, Modern, and Contemporary. They did very well and we are sure proud to be associated with Art's Edge. She loves her friends in the Company!! These are "The Blonds".
January seemed to go on forever. However, February flew by. It has been very nice to have a break from Cheerleading. I was in bed by 9:00 every night last week. It sure made a big difference. Too bad I can't always do that!

Cheer Champs and Dance Champs

Well, well, well. The last you heard from me was that all was lost. Sadly, Loretta posted her last post. Meet Monique! I have finally figured out how to change the pixel size on pictures so that I can post them on this blogging program.

January was a very long month. Cheer was at its height with basketball games 2-3 nights a week, plus three competitions. It was pretty rough. I knew it from the get-go. I told Travis that January was going to be band and I didn't know what was for dinner...ever. He never complained, I guess knowing that it was just for January (kind of). We survived and February has been a bit better.

The big highlight in January was that both Cheer and Dance won championships and the same competition in Daytona. My girls did so well. We had our struggles throughout the season, but they really pulled it together and performed so well. They went up into one of their stunts and the flyer closest to me looked right at me and saw me jumping up and down, clapping and yelling and she SMILED!! She couldn't see anyone else on stage but she knew everyone made it up and was holding!! They finished the routine and hadn't dropped anyone and we were all so happy. At this competition, when you win, you get a Championship jacket. I handed those out and we posed for pictures - even the coach gets one!! My girls finished out in the early afternoon with their trophy!! We took all that back to the hotel and then went back to the venue to see the dancers take the floor. At that point, Rozzie knew that I had my jacket and she DID NOT want to leave Daytona without HER jacket!! So the dancers showed up and got a lot of stares in their outfits. Here is the entire team: Rozzie is front, just to the right of center.

Their "theme" this year is tribal/jungle and they looked really good! Here is Rozzie with her friends Nora and Chelsea. They looked like cannibals or witch doctors!! Then they got up on stage and danced and it was a crowd pleaser. Next day, they went and did it again. Lo and behold - they won!! Rozzie had her jacket now and I could wear mine.

Here are some of the dancers celebrating on the beach!! YAY!! The two bookends were injured.

All the girls (both cheer and dance) wore their jackets to school on Tuesday (Monday was MLK) and we got this GREAT picture of all of them together. What I really love is that they are not standing by teams at all; they are all mixed together. It really was a great experience!

Somewhere in there the girls participated in the Young Women's Sacrament Meeting program. They always dress alike or at least coordinating and this year it was white shirts and purple scarves. They did a phenomenal job and look how happy they are - both without braces!!

Last but not least, I had to post this of my cheerleaders at their official FHSAA State Competition 2 weeks ago. As they went up into the cheer stunt, the two middle girls realized they had the wrong signs and threw them to each other right during the stunt!! The judges were incredibly imposed with that save. The head judge told us he had never seen kids recover a sign problem like that and he was so impressed with it. Well, it wasn't enough to overcome a deduction from standing on a sign after a tumbling pass. We went from 1st place to 4th. I guess the lesson is that you don't always get what you want (Excelsiorites know the reference). I was really proud of them. I was also relieved that I could go home and be done for the season.

Travis just got home from Toronto - he loves to travel up there. Morgan has signed an apartment lease for next year at The Glenwood. She'll be marching again next year and needs to be close to the stadium. I think it is a great place for her.

Thanks for your patience. I'll post with more regularity now. Oh, our boys' soccer team just won state. Very exciting. Going to meet them at the school tonight. I have to go early to coordinate the banner making.