This weekend was a whirlwind. Josh had baseball games, I was wrapping up design orders, our family welcomed a new baby into the mix and we spent the better part of our Saturday watching tiny people dance.
When Ella started dancing five years ago, I had no idea competitive dance was even a thing. I was vaguely aware of the television drama that follows a group of dancers around, but that was so far out of my daily norm that it probably didn’t even register. Last year was her first year to compete and we were clearly the new kids on the block. In all honesty, after the complaints about being exhausted all year long, I never expected her to want to do it again (let me interject that she LOVED competing, it was the practice she tried to avoid). The fall of this year was what you’d expect of an extracurricular activity. Some days she was interested, some days she was tired and whiny and other days she was completely over it. I have nothing bad to say about our studio AT ALL. I love the owner, the staff members and our instructors. I cringe a little when I write the check every month, but that is only because it’s half a car payment and it’s hard to shell out any amount of money when you’re not sure your daughter is in love.
Let’s fast forward to January and it’s like a switch was flipped. I’m not sure if it’s her age, her skill level, a new instructor or what, but Ella has fallen in love with dance all over again. She is so dedicated and all that practice has made for one strong body. She has grown so much this year (as a dancer AND as a person) and I think she’s even impressing herself. It doesn’t hurt that she practices all the time, both at the studio and at home. It is not uncommon to see her dancing for a few hours before church on a Sunday morning, all day on Saturday and even 15 minutes before school on a random Tuesday morning. She’s always practicing her “facials” in the mirror and she’s that kid in the checkout line at Publix doing tap steps. I’m sorry.
Saturday was a long day. We left our house at 10:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until almost 9 o’clock that night. Of that 10.5 hours, she performed for approximately ten minutes. Did I mention we took Taz? She and Josh were such troopers, but we were all beyond exhausted when we got home. The upside? My girl had the best day and we came home with all sorts of trophies and awards. Not only did our girls’ competition team shine, but our studio wracked up an insane amount of awards and our cloggers won the biggest trophy on stage for the highest score of the weekend. We pretty much have no voice left.
I have more pictures of Ella in the same costume you’ve been looking at for weeks on the blog and on Instagram, but we can’t not recap the weekend, right? I asked Ella if she’d tell you all about it, so here is the weekend in one giant run-on sentence (with a few clarifications from me).“I was very excited on Saturday because I had a competition it was in Montgomery when I got there I put my costume on and played with my dance friends and then I went on the stage and me and my friends did our dance. It was a tap dance. The song was called The Martian Hop (they danced to The Beastie Boys “Intergalactic Planetary” and she is appalled that I know all the words). The costumes were black it had a belt the belt was black and it had a silver triangle (our new tap costumes didn’t come in on time, so we wore an extra set that actually turned out pretty cute!). After we danced to The Martian Hop I went and put my other costume on and went back to the stage with my friends and danced to Rumble in the Jungle (a dance remix of Welcome to the Jungle, which Ella knew all the words to by age three). The costume was animal print. We are jungle people. We had no props. After the dance we went off stage and went to the Dressing room and took our costumes off and put our practice clothes on and went into the audience to watch the dances when my dance sister Abby (they have a big sister/little sister program for the competition teams) and her sister Tori my teacher came on the stage to do their dance me and my friends Paige Kinlee and Ava screamed because their dance is the best their dance was called copy cat because they did the same thing the whole time me and my friends were screaming after their dance. Me my friends my mom and my friends moms went to the lobby to find the group when we found the group miss Nohe had a talk she picked me to get the jaz prize she picked Kristen to do the other jaz prize she picked Brannah to get the tap prize when Miss Nohe got done we went on stage the judges gave some prizes out then we got three Trophies. We won platinum in tap and jaz we won first place in our category for tap and jazz we won third place overall for tap and first place overall for jaz*. We got some ribbons for doing a good job. After awards we went to the lobby and we jumped up and down I was so happy and after we stopped jumping up and down I went to go buy a t-shirt and a tank top and then we went outside to wait on dad when dad got here we got in the car and went home!”
I loved reading her recap and cracked up at the things she opted to include or gloss over. The girls had such a great day hanging out backstage and watching the other studios perform. They were so sweet to include Sophie for much of the day and were beyond excited when they won. To clarify on the awards Ella mentioned, Platinum Dance awards each dance a recognition based on the score they receive (silver/bronze/gold/platinum/platinum plus), they award a winner in each dance category (i.e. petite large group jazz) and then a top ten overall. Both of our dances were awarded a Platinum score and won first place in their categories. Our tap dance was 3rd and our jazz dance was 1st in the overall awards! Let’s just say the moms WENT NUTS when they called out Rumble in the Jungle for first place. We were so proud of the hard work they have put in since Christmas refining their dances and getting ready for this weekend. We have three other competitions over the next six weeks, so we’re making room for many more memories and a few more trophies on our shelf!
