A year ago when Emma made the All-Star team at Dance we knew that we would be going to Las Vegas in July for Nationals. It seemed so far away and here I am already writing about it being over. It was truly an amazing experience for myself and Emma, dance wise and just for the two of us to be together. We don't get to spend a lot of time with Emma because she is always at school and dance and when she is home she might be playing with a friend, helping a brother, helping us out, etc. This week is exactly what we needed together. We got to hang out as friends, hold hands, laugh, eat, etc with just the two of us and we got along so well, I will be forever grateful for this opportunity we had. The rest of the week I will tell through pictures:
MONDAY:
As soon as we pulled off the freeway and were waiting at the light turn left so we could go on the strip and get to the Mirage, the first thing Emma sees is a giant billboard which is the backside of a woman in a g-string. Emma says very loudly, "SICK!! don't look at that!!" I giggled to myself and thought, wow - good for her and we have a long week ahead of us!
Next we get into the lobby to check into our room and there is a TV behind us showing an advertisement for something and Emma says to her friend, "ew, look at that ugly woman on TV!" Another lady with us says to Emma, "that's not a woman Emma, that's a man!" Emma is now even more grossed out.
Then we start to head up to our room and I keep hearing Emma say, "Yuck, look what that man is wearing", "sick! did you see her?" etc. I had to quickly and quietly tell her, "Emma, you will see a lot of nasty things, you just need to look the other way and not pay any attention to it and let's not talk about it so we don't hurt any one's feelings!" I am not quite sure that was the right thing to say, but I knew I didn't want her dwelling on what others were wearing, I didn't want her talking bad about other people and I was just kinda hoping she could ignore it all and continue to live in a sweet innocent bubble!
We got into our room after swimming for a bit and then got ready to head over to Serendipity's for dinner. The girls played in the Beetles Love phone booth while we waited...
Haleigh, Elsabe, Paige, Sydney, Tatum, Peyton, Rylee, Bella, Emma, Ella and Tiffany
Bella, Emma, Peyton, Sydney, Rylee and Ella
Me and Em sharing a Frozen Hot Chocolate!
Emma and Bella sitting in the "E" at the Revolution bar
TUESDAY:
The next day was competition. Emma had 2 dances in the mini age category and 2 dances in the junior category. She had Never Fully Dressed and Money. Tiffany and I are the only ones in our caravan group with daughters in the Money dance. As we sat there and watched them perform we got giddy and teary eyed, the girls had never done it better. It was perfect. They were so in-sync you would have thought it was one dancer up there! We were so super proud of them!
Here are the girls waiting backstage until it was time for them to perform.
Here are the girls being silly on stage while the judges made their final decisions
Here is the judge handing Emma the award for first place in her category for her Money dance
This is Emma up front while they are calling up the Top 10 over dances in the Mini category. The top 8 teams get to perform in the Gala on Friday night. It is a big deal to make it to the gala.
Emma's dance made it to the gala. It was truly amazing. There are girls that dance that never get to perform there, she has no idea how lucky she is. It was hard to celebrate though since the other 3 girls with us did not make it. It was tricky for me to figure out how to express how happy I was for her but yet keep it on the down low because the other girls were sad and crying about not making it. Unfortunately for Emma, she sorta got the short end of the stick with me and I didn't celebrate it as much as I should have, Em, I am sorry.
After the minis were over, we headed up to our rooms for lunch and then over to the Secret Garden to see the Mirage's dolphin and white tigers exhibit. The girlies loved the baby dolphin the best. We had to find some way to occupy them during their 4 hour break before they had to compete again without messing up their hair and make-up to bad.
She danced that night in the junior category with her lyrical piece "Eternity" and then the production number "Grease." Eternity did not place and Grease got 1st place (although if I am being honest, it was the only one in its category, ha ha! It is a really neat routine though, but honestly it scored very very low - but until Emma reads this, she will just know that she got first place and that's all that matters!)
WEDNESDAY:
The next day was convention. The lack of sleep was finally catching up to her. Going to bed at midnight every night and waking up early was finally starting to take it's toll on her. She didn't even have to get up until 9am but as you can see, it was still a struggle. As soon as I pulled back the curtains she grabbed a pillow and covered her face.
Lucky for us Emma was still in the mini category so she only had to do conventions for half days instead of all day long. Her favorite class was with Lauren Froderman from season 7 of SYTYCD.
After conventions that day we headed back to our room to have lunch and then we went to the pool and hung out there until it was dinner time. This night though, we got one of the older dancer's from the studio and payed her to babysit our girls in her hotel room while we went out to dinner by ourselves. It was a lot of fun and next year I think we will include a little dancing of our own on our moms night out :)
THURSDAY:
This day the girls had to wake up with little sleep again and turn on the charm. Their first class was auditions for a scholarship. During this class we waited outside since we weren't allowed in to watch and just kept an eye on things and made sure they weren't coming out and running around. We had good girls, they stayed in there the whole time. This is the first convention where I have not bought the wristband that lets me sit in and observe. I am always there to help Emma change her shoes and just sit in there and watch, but this time around me and the other moms didn't want to pay that much money to do that since it was broken up over 3 days we knew they could handle it on their own. I asked Emma if it would be ok if she went by herself and she said that was fine but she just wanted me there in between the classes for shoe changes (yes, she is old enough to do this herself and does this daily at dance but for some reason at conventions I baby her and help her, ha ha!) I told her I would be willing to buy the pass so I could do that OR I would use that money to buy her new dance outfits, she quickly opted for the new dance outfits :)
While the girls did the rest of their convention that day we went shopping inside Caesars Palace. We met back up with the girls and took them to McDonald's for lunch and then they had been dying to go to the M&M factory. We made the long trek over there and only bought treats for the boys. Emma did really well about not throwing a fit. She got a bag for Tyler of all different shades of green m&ms, a bag of different shades of blue for Tyson and then a bag of orange and black ones for Eli and we called it his "tiger m&m's". (They were a big hit with the boys when we got home!)
The long walk on the strip exhausted everyone so we took the monorail back to our hotel to get ready for the the Cirque Du Soleil show, "LOVE".
After we got ready, Elsabe and I went down to California Pizza Kitchen to get tables for dinner that night while Haleigh and Tiffany took the girls for a professional photo shoot out on the strip. (more pics of that to come another day)
We ate dinner and headed off to the show!
Some of the other girls from the studio also got tickets to the show the same night, they were 4th row in the front, we were 4th row from the back, but hey, who cares! Emma's face the entire night made it all worth it. She was in awe and loved the entire show (keep in mind, it started at 9:30pm so any show that keeps our kids awake and happy until 11pm is pretty amazing!)
FRIDAY:
The next morning the girls had to be up at convention at 7:30am, but we decided to let them sleep until 8am. We finally got them up and ready and took them down and then we came back up to our room and got ready. While we were up there my phone rang and it was one of the studio owner's calling me and I thought she was calling to give me the details about the gala, instead she was asking me if I knew where Emma was. I told her she was in class I thought, she said, ok well we don't see her in here so she must be in the bathroom, but do you know what number she is? I did actually, only because they gave her a number ending in an odd number and I hate odd numbers so I switched it out for a nice round number - she was 840! Then she said, ok then I think you need to come down here just before class ends because I think she is getting a scholarship!
Well, we headed down there a few minutes before it was over and then it was time to pass out the mini scholarships. I am not sure exactly how many minis there were but at least 100 and much to my surprise and happiness, Emma did get 1 of the 4 scholarships! Again she was so thrilled! We both were. She gets to go to the WCDE regionals next year for free - so it saves us $250 - I will take it!
It was another hard celebration though, tears from others who didn't get one. I know from first hand how hard that is to deal with the girls in tears. Last time Emma tried for a scholarship she got kicked out first round and came out crying. It's hard. You never know what the judges are looking for. I have a feeling next year at Nationals there will be many tears from Emma as well, how can she go her first year and make it to the gala and get a scholarship (2 things which a lot of people never get to experience) and then come back next year and get nothing - which is really what her odds are - oh well, it was a great first time :) We didn't really celebrate it there or talk about it because we didn't want to seem like we were bragging or make others feel bad so we will be having a family celebration later this week :)
Here is Anna and Emma after they won their scholarships!
When the convention was all over we headed to the venetian to show the girls the inside of that hotel and check out the gondola rides.
After that we grabbed some lunch and headed to the pool one last time. The girls always had so much fun swimming together for hours, we loved it.
We headed back to our rooms so we could get the Emma and Ella ready for their gala dance and we were going to order room service but one we realized how much it was for nothing they would want to eat, we ordered California Pizza Kitchen again and just brought it back to our room to eat and get ready. We promised the girls that this would really be the last time they had to put this costume on (even though we promised that on Tuesday - they hated this costume because it was so "itchy").
The gala tickets were $90 a piece and we didn't want to pay that and we were sure glad we didn't because the food wasn't that good, we would have had to been there from 5pm until midnight and the girls wouldn't have lasted that long - good lesson learned. Because we didn't have tickets though we weren't going to be able to watch the girls dance but then Andrea told us we could put the bench on stage and be the prop girls so that way we got to watch them dance from the side of the stage.
Sydney, Sophie, Ava, Emma and Ella
Ms. Andrea - the co-owner and choregrapher of "Money"
Emma, Sophie, Ava, Anna, Avery, Sydney and Ella
When they were done dancing an hour later we took the girls back to the rooms to get changed and head out to Bellagio to watch the water show. Only catch was, they would in deed have to put their costumes on AGAIN and we would have to come back for awards. We left and told parents to text us when they were 8 dances away from awards. We felt good about leaving and we made it through two water shows no problem!
We started to head back to the hotel knowing that the end of the showing was approaching - I will leave out all of the details that involved swearing from people, the sweat dripping down my face, the drama between a couple of moms, etc and just skip to: We were causally walking back when my phone rang and it was a mom saying that all the dancers had to be back stage NOW fully dressed in costumes. I said, "Crap, i will try, we are on the strip!" I hung up the phone, grabbed Emma's hand and we started running. I didn't even look back at the rest of the group and say good-bye or anything. I felt bad but I knew I had to haul buns.
We were running in the street trying to avoid getting hit by cars 10:30pm at night on a Friday, cutting through grassy areas where we weren't supposed to be walking, gently nudging people with my purse to get them to move, etc. It was an adventure. We made it inside, we were still running...I saw a dancer from SAS and her mom and I don't know her name I only recongize her, but she was my saving grace at that moment in time...I said, "hey! you go to SAS right? She has to be back stage dressed in her costume for awards right now and her costume is upstairs...can you please run her to the dressing room while I grab the costume?" She kinda looked at my like I was crazy with the sweat pouring down my face, but I didn't care, she said she would and her mom giggled at the site and I apologized to her for interrupting whatever it was they were doing just standing there. I grabbed her costume and got her dressed just as they were calling her group to line up.
When they took the girls backstage, Tiffany and I headed to the doors to go into the gala but they were still being blocked by security. Lucky for us, we knew how to get in through the waiter entrance so we walked down the hallways and entered the room like we were waiters and found empty chairs and sat and watched. They had a giant stage for the girls to perform on, 5 jumbo trons, etc. They brought all the girls on stage and announced the winners in last place on up to first place. 8th place was last place....that is what our girls got. They were sad but they were still happy they won $400 and hey - 8th place was still better than all the other dancers that didn't even make it there :) so there! ha ha!
The next day we woke up and got some waffles from Blizz and headed home. It was a FANTASTIC week in Vegas and one that I hope Emma will remember forever.
On Sunday we went to Nate and Jenn's house for dinner and had an ice cream cake to celebrate Emma's big dance accomplishments!
Before I end this novel, I want to give a few shout outs! THANK YOU to Jared for letting me and Emma go on this adventure together. Thank you for staying home with the boys so willingly and letting us spend and do whatever. Thank you for having patience with the boys and taking them out on little outings every day. THANK YOU to my parents for babysitting, buying Jared dinner, making Jared dinner, taking the boys to the movies and all the other help you gave him.
Emma had a great first day though. She got up, got her hair done the way she requested it, wore the new dress she wanted to wear, had on the crackle nail polish she wanted and was out the door. Stephanie and I went to the school like we do each year to make sure the girls found their line and everything was good and she was great. She was very polite to me, but I got the feeling I wasn't really needed. I told her I loved her and then turned around and left and I glanced back and she was all smiles surrounded by tons of friends and giving hugs to everyone. I am happy she is happy.
Being the excellent parent I am, she only went to school for half day today. I pulled her out at 12:30pm to take her to dance, yes that is correct, she is missing school on the first day for dance. She was picked to be in a small group lyrical routine this year and they hired an outside choreographer to come in and teach the girls a brand new dance for this year and they are learning it today from 1pm until 7pm. She was excited for that as well. She was all smiles when I picked her up from school and went on and on about anything and everything from her most favorite lunchable to who she sat next to in school.
She had a great day today and that makes me happy !
