Weekend Madness

J had another dance competition on Saturday. Friday was spent with me at home organizing the costumes, accessories, and supply trunk and B out running errands, food shopping and picking up last minute items like white bobby pins and "diamond" earrings. J had a birthday party Friday evening and it was nice to see K helping her with clothes and hair. I love that they're so close.

I went out around 10pm to pick up J from her party and K from her friend's house since we had an early wakeup in the morning. At 7am we were all up, B packed a huge food bag for us (sandwiches, sodas, waters, snacks), made us all breakfast, and packed up the car for me. He's amazing. He usually comes with us to competitions, but W had his Communion Retreat from 9am-1pm. B brought him to that.

We got to the venue within 30 minutes and set up all our stuff in our studio's dressing room. J had 2 hours of workshop classes before the actual competition began. This was from 10am to noon. The dancers ideally need to be ready an hour before performance time. We were all a bit worried about the program schedule since 4 of J's numbers were to go one between 1pm and 2pm and her other 4 numbers were scheduled for 7pm to 8pm. Needless to say, the costume changes were a whirlwind. But J and I have done this together for so long that we can go from a head to toe tap costume to a jazz solo costume (that is getting a bit small), with different shoes, hairstyle, and undergarments in about 2 minutes.

During the long afternoon break, we ate lunch and K and I zipped back to Queens to pick up B - and get back in time for the first set of awards (which were at 4:45). First my car battery was dead, so I got a jump from one of the dance dads. See, this is the stuff that totally stresses me out. I'm in a hurry and things like this always seem to happen. But it only delayed us for about 15 minutes. I picked up B at about 4pm, he dropped W off at MIL's (where W was taken out to eat at a nice restaurant), and off we were back to the venue. Then there was traffic all of a sudden. An accident on my highway. Ok, now it's like 4:30 and I know we're gonna miss the awards. I don't know how we did it, but we got there, parked, ran in, and just made it.

The evening set went about the same way. A little less hectic than the morning. And then it was finally time for the evening award ceremony. Our studio did really well. This competition has awards as follows: Bronze, Silver, Sterling Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Here are the results for J's numbers (don't forget, "Open" means a mix of dance styles, "Small Group" means 4 to 9 kids, "Large Group" means 10 to 15 kids, and "Production" means every studio team is in it):

Jazz Solo - PLATINUM (2nd Place overall for Junior solos)
Musical Theater Solo - GOLD
Lyrical Small Group - PLATINUM (1st place overall for Small Groups)
Open Small Group - GOLD
Tap Small Group - PLATINUM (2nd place overall for Small Groups)
Open Large Group - GOLD
Open Large Group - GOLD
Production Large Group - PLATINUM

J's studio's older team (14 and 15 yos) won just about all the Diamond awards given out (about 5 out of 7). They also won overall high score of the day out of the 102 numbers from 4 different studios. J had such a good time all day. She never stresses at all. She just laughs and eats and enjoys herself, all while getting into another costume. I laugh right along with her as I'm panicking inside that we won't be ready in time. I know I should be used to it by now. All in all it was a great time and we were home a little after 10pm. My parents came to watch both sets of J's numbers. After the final awards, they took K and J home with them. The rest of us will go out there today. Full, wonderful weekend as usual.