PRIME TIME DANCE NATIONALS

Live and learn, I guess. This year's dance nationals was very different from last years. The one good thing, it was a lot cheaper because Palm Springs sucks and there just isn't a whole lot to do there. We did go shopping at the outlets and did go shopping in the LA Fashion District, but other than that we danced and went swimming.

The competition was lame. It was spaced out over 6 days and Emma basically did a dance one day, nothing the next, a day the next day, nothing and then all the dances again...or something like that. I felt like it was a lot of wasted time and we could have crammed the whole thing into 3 days. Emma decided to have a dry coughing attack each night as we were getting ready to go to sleep and then wake up again between 3-4 am and continue coughing. Cough drops and cough syrup did not help and she could careless and slept right through and so did the girl we shared a room with,  but me and Elsabe, well that was a different story. Jared and Elsabe like their sleep. You don't mess with it. I am actually surprised Elsabe didn't strangle Emma, she was that annoying with her cough. The last night I made Emma sleep in the bathtub at 4am to try and get her to be quieter. Elsabe and I decided to save a lot of money and stay in a different hotel that was not the host hotel. Yes, we saved money, but that was about it. We ended up driving back and forth to the host hotel every day, using their pool because ours was boring with just the 4 of us and we just felt out of the loop being away from everyone. We will not be doing that again, from now one, lesson learned, always stay their the dance competition is, even if you do end up paying more money!

I could go on about more of the negatives of this competition, but I wont. It is always fun to see Emma get up on stage and do what she loves to do, it is always fun to escape for a few days with her away from the boys in the family and it is nice to see what the other studios do so you can see how you can improve and see the things that we do that we like better.

This was the last time the girlies performed their trio, Footloose. At least they went out with a bang and it was the best I had ever seen it look! Great job girls!

Sunday happened to be Father's Day and we were bummed out we couldn't be home with Jared taking care of him, but since we didn't have dance that day, the next best thing to do was to drive into LA and shop in the fashion district. We went with Stacia who knew all the tricks of the trade. I had always wanted to go there so that was fun. Emma and Bella were so good shopping for 5 hours with us. They never complained once!  They loved buying their new purses and nerd glasses...

and even posed for some big 'ol booty pictures!

Each night we would end up at the host hotel and the girls would swim with all the other dancers. For some reason this year the big thing was making human totem poles...


The girls were a little excited to finally arrive at our hotel after driving 5 hours :)

The nationals this year was live on the web so Jared got to turn it on and see most of it live while Emma was dancing! (Emma is back point in this picture)

The girls and their "Roll It" trophy. This is the little dance that could. It was super hard and technical and it finally got the recognition it deserved! 
 
One of the things I love about being gone away from my boys is Jared will send me lots of pictures via text and they always make me smile :)
Eating Chicken Tortilla Soup...

Playing with water before they went swimming at Grandma Joyce's house

Eating ice cream cones...

They get bribed to eat a good dinner and then get dessert afterwards...

Sunday morning Jared had to go wake up the boys for church and this is how he found Tyson and Tyler

I had a great time with Emma and the Muriettas, but I was super excited to come home to my boys :)