It was a great weekend! The girls got to spend Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning with their dance friends. They went in the pool, ran around to each other's rooms, stayed up late, and just had a blast. We got there around 4 on Friday, the kids met some friends and swam for a bit, then J had the performance team rehearsal from 6-8pm. Then after dinner, she swam for another hour, got changed, dried her hair, and went to bed before 10 to be up by 6 for the competition. Satuday was amazing. She had 4 numbers and the quick changes were hectic, but always exciting. Awards were at 1. Her solo, group tap, and group jazz all got HIGH-GOLD, and her production number got PLATINUM and Best in Show. Also the group tap got an award for Most Original Choreography.

What makes her dance studio different from others is that there are only 17 kids in the Company - 8 on J's team and 9 on the older team (12 & 13y/os). Almost every other studio we've competed against have 40-100 kids in their Company. It's great since our kids get more one-on-one focus time on their dances. Our costumes are all original and custom-made, never out of a catalog, and from what I've read on dance message boards, our overall costs are much less than other studios that do competitions. I mean, her group jazz costume was less than $30! Tuition is low, so the money we spend on competitions (traveling, entry fees, hotels, food, etc) is ok with me.

The nature center Friday was really great, too. We had about 13 kids from 9-13 y/o. They started out doing 3 different experiments with water. Then a group discussion, a nature-trail walk where different things were pointed out and talked about, and then back at the center with more discussions about various animals (which were brought out to them) and the environment. The level was about 6th-7th grade. The kids loved it and I'm definitely going to schedule another one there for the spring.