Saturday, February 12, 2011

Dance

Carissa has danced for the last few years, but this year she left her Dance 4 Fun class and instead chose to join Next Step, the new youth dance team in Scappoose. She had her first competition in January. It was quite a day.

We woke up bright and early (5:30am... *snore*) and rushed right to the local high school. Miss Riss had slept in her curlers all night, so she'd have curly hair to dance in. All morning long she looked like this...

The kids practiced once on the big gym floor and then loaded the bus for the ride to the competition. I went along as a chaperone and team Mom, but rode with my good friend Melinda.
Once we arrived the chaos was on. First up was practice on the competition floor. We got a whole 8 minutes per team. Scappoose has two teams, one for the younger elementary kids and one for the older. This is the adorable little kiddos of the Mini Makers team during their practice time.

After practice we headed back to our team rooms and grabbed some snacks to eat. After snacks it was time to start glamming these girls up. First was fitting costumes, which had just arrived and which hadn't yet been fitted to the girls. Then it was time for hair abd makeup. The girls did a good job of keeping themselves entertained while all us team Moms worked to get them all outfitted and ready to perform.
Next up was the makeup, and wowee, did we do it all! Carissa has hardly ever worn makeup, even at her dance recitals. A little bit of lipstick and blush, but that's about it. Well this was the full meal deal - everything from foundation and eyeliner, to bright eye color, glitter, lipstick and lots of blush. The first thing I told Carissa that this is NOT how we actually put on makeup. Can you imagine her looking like this every day? LOL

We took a break for lunch then came back to finish getting the girls ready. As soon as they were all done I snuck Carissa out into the hallway to get some photos of her all glammed up and ready to go.

All too soon it was time for the competition to start. The girls all sat down in the bleachers with the other teams to watch everyone perform.

The little teams went first but then came the division for Carissa's age. She was so excited to be out there and put on her best smile. She danced her little heart out!

Grandma Imlah and Grandma & Grandpa Pixley came to watch her dance, so she got to say hi to them both and later got back to our team room and found balloons, a t-shirt and some jewelry sent to her by them. She loved it! (Grandpa Imlah filled in for me at home today and spent it with Tristan playing video and board games and taking him to his basketball game. Thanks Dad!)

After their dance was over it was back to the bleachers to watch all the other teams dance. It was a long day of dancing, but they toughed it out.

In the end her team came in 6th (out of 6) in their division, but they had a great time and it was a good start for their fledgling team. After the competition was over I gathered them all together for this fun group pic.

We finally returned home at about 5:30pm. It was a long and grueling day but also a lot of fun!

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