The curtain dropped.....

 

The Stage

WooHoo!! Dancers Only rocked!!! They pulled in first place in each of their 7 routines!! So proud of them all!

They did awesome considering it was the first time most of them competed. We had a junior group (the younger kids) doing tap & jazz, then the “Elite” and “All-Starz” teen groups doing tap & Jazz, then there was a teen trio.

Whoever comes up with the scoring for those competitions is retarded. OK, there are 3 judges, each able to score up to 100 points. If your total score is 276-300, you win a diamond first place. 270-275 is first place, 260-269 is second place, 255-259 is third place. So then it breaks down further to “first second, second second, third second”. How stoopid !!! But I guess saying you got a 2nd place (for example) sounds better than 8th, which would be more accurate. Then the top 10 scores got plaques for the studio.

But no matter what the judges said, I thought all 3 groups were awesome! (just a little bit biased =D) I hope I can post the videos…..I am still so proud of Angel. She wasn’t nervous at all and even when she stumbled over some tape on the stage during tap, she was right back in step like nothing happened.

Maloree & Angel dressed for tap

I have to confess that I think some of the other studios out-classed them – just by the difficulty of the routines. We don’t do all this tumbling & stuff like others did. And our teachers didn’t choose to dress the kids like little hootchie-mamas either. Our costumes were appropriate for the ages & songs. I’m not a prude – I swear!

Tap

Maloree, Angel Shelby, Ashley, Kerrigan

Jazz

Ashley, Maloree, Angel, Kerrigan

Whew! But that was a long week / weekend !!! Regular classes Monday, pictures Tuesday, more practice Wednesday (that evening is when she told me she was tired!), regular classes on Thursday and Friday we left right after she got home from school for Lansing. Saturday was the competition.

I took Friday off work to get the oil changed in the car & get some munchies to take along & got us all packed, etc, etc, etc. It took about 1 ½ hours to get there & then I had no idea where to park. I had Angel text Terina & while we were waiting – gee, the Capitol building was like 2 blocks away from the hotel! So we got some pics & dinner before checking in. The girls were ~supposed~ to be in their own rooms, calming down by 8:30. Pppft! Yeah right! Btw – the Sleep Number beds sucked very much bad. Angel ran & dove onto the bed when we first got there & it was like she dove onto the floor. She didn’t bounce at all. It was good for a laugh.  Laura & I decided whenever the studio has overnight events like this - we're going to be roomies.  It worked out well.

The Capitol Building

                     

        

Angel turning herself in!

Michigan Veteran's Memorial

Terina made goodie bags for each girl, including a purple glittery star with their name on it for their “dressing room” door and decorated water bottles filled with rice for the audience. When Angel & Lauren went down to the pool, I stayed in the room, getting us settled. Then I went to find anyone else to hang out with. I was standing outside 2 doors with the purple stars when a woman & 3 girls from another studio walked by making comments about said stars. One of the snotty little brats brilliantly decided they belonged to one studio & that they should just rip them all down. I stood there and crossed my arms over my chest & just gave them “the Look”. Such wonderful sportsmanship!

Anyway, we had to cross the human habitrail to get from the hotel across the river to the Lansing Center by 0645. I really don’t know why the place made a schedule of when dances were. They sure didn’t follow it! Apparently there were a lot of costume change “issues”.

Anyway, we stayed until the second round of awards because of the trio and we wanted to see how they did. They got the only diamond first place!! So anyway, I got us checked out of the hotel & put our bags in the dressing room in our area. Then when we left, I took Angel on a little cruise thru the Michigan State Campus, since we were right there only a couple miles away. She was so excited!!

Posing outside Spartan Stadium

Sparty !!

We got home around 8, Randy took us out to dinner & she was in bed at 10. I woke her little butt up Sunday afternoon at 1 !!! Then we did absolutely nothing the rest of the day. It was rainy & cold so we just stayed in and made a pizza guy bring us dinner.

Green Skittles!

A tired girl!