I’ve Been to 24 States, and 3 Countries

A long while back, this was one of the many “Notes” going around to put on facebook. Since I have now been to another state, and haven’t updated it in a while, I thought I’d put it here, just for fun. I also put a few notes in parenthesis, just to show either what I was doing there, or what some highlights were.

“Put an X by the states you have been to. The average is 8; how do you match up? Incidentally, the rule for “visiting” is: road-tripping through it counts, especially if you stopped to use the bathroom. Flying over doesn’t, and neither does only seeing the interior of the airport between flights. (Everyone knows the airport isn’t a proper place at all.)

Should you choose to play, here’s what you do:
Copy my note. Click on “notes” under tabs on your profile page. Select “write a new note” in the top right corner. Paste the copy in the body of the note. Delete my Xs and add your own. Change the number at the top, and add your title. Once you’ve saved, don’t forget to tag friends (including me) on the right. Tag the same # of people as the # of states you’ve been to. Just for fun, put an O beside the states where you have lived.

** My addition: I decided to try to write the highlight of each place that I can remember… you don’t have to do this, I just like doing stuff like that!
Alabama X (Space Camp)
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas X (Beautiful mountains)
California X (Disneyland and the beach)
Colorado X (Skiing, but I was only, like 5 or something – I do remember how pretty it was though, SQL Sat)
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida X (Disneyworld)
Georgia X (Partylite conference, SQL Sat, Coke Museum)
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois X (Wrigley field and the museum – band trip… and Lollapalooza road trip with April, SQL Sat)
Indiana X
Iowa X (Dog shows, SQL Sat)
Kansas
Kentucky X (Meeting an online friend with April)
Louisiana X (New Orleans… though, again, too young to remember much about it)
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan X (SQL Saturday, and visit our friends)
Minnesota X O (lived there most of my life… fishing all over the state)
Mississippi X (stayed at a time share there)
Missouri X (Kansas City-Oceans of Fun, Worlds of Fun. St. Louis – PL conference & Have a Nice Day Cafe)
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada X (Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas)
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York X (Niagra Falls)
North Carolina
North Dakota X (Nicole’s Graduation)
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina X (cute boy at the time share)
South Dakota X (family vacation 2012)
Tennessee X (Grand Ol’ Oprey, SQL Saturday – NashVegas)
Texas X (missions trip)
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington X (Seattle – PASS Summit 2011)
West Virginia
Wisconsin X O (all the friends I made when I lived there)
Wyoming
Washington D.C.

Extra – Countries:
Greece
Italy
Ireland
England
Scotland
Wales
Sweden
Norway
Mexico x
Bahamas X (exploring Paradise Island with Kristen)”
Canada X (Toronto – band trip, senior year)

Where have your favorite places been to visit?

Masquerade Nationals 2012

A couple weeks ago, we went to our first ever National Dance Competition. Grace was competing with the Lake Area Dancers at the Masquerade Nationals in Burnsville, MN. It was an awesome experience!

The week started for us on Tuesday. Grace decided to try some Master Classes. She was only going to do tap and hip hop, but decided at the last minute, she wanted to do all 5 they offered. I was shocked, but considering the other 5-6 girls from her studio were doing at least the first 4, it wasn’t totally surprising. The classes Grace took included: musical theater, jazz, hip hop, lyrical and contemporary. It was 5 hours of very intense dance training. After hour 4, I peeked in, and saw Grace texting. I asked her how it was going, and she gave me the thumbs down signal. Soon, she came out crying that her ear hurt. Being that she can be a bit of a Drama Queen, I figured she was just tired and overwhelmed. I encouraged her to go back in for the last hour. About 45 minutes later, one of the teachers brought her back out, saying she had been crying the whole time because her ear hurt. On the way home, she was screaming and pulling at her ear. I stopped at a Minute Clinic, and sure enough, she had an ear infection. That night, her ear drum ruptured. I felt like a terrible mom.

Wednesday of Nationals week, we stayed home and relax. Grace’s ear was REALLY hurting her. I was glad the ear infection happened when it did, and not the next day, since she had to dance on Thursday morning.

Thursday was a loooooonnnnnnggggg day! Grace danced at 8 something AM, then 1 something, then again around 9 pm. During the day, both of my kids (along with at least 100 other kids) were playing in the fountains outside of the Burnsville Performing Arts Center. It was a great way to spend the middle of the day. We also got to watch some of the other groups from our studio perform, since most of the large groups were performing that day.

Grace’s first dance was their tap dance to “Hungry Like a Wolf”. While their energy level seemed a bit lower than usual, their technique seemed great. It was the first competition that no one dropped their flowers or ears. We (the parents) were VERY excited for them! This was the dance they had won the encore award with, and at least one of the judges at Nationals was the same as at Regionals. We were hopeful that they might get called back for an encore again. Imagine our surprise when they only scored a Gold. Gold isn’t terrible, but with less noticeable errors on a dance they had scored Platinum a couple times, and High Gold on? We were shocked! Luckily (in this case), awards weren’t until after 9 PM, so they were done dancing before they got their scores.

Their next dance was their lyrical dance, “God Bless America”. They did a nice job on it. I think I saw them perform it better once, but their teacher, Mike Dietz (@Mike_Dietz) thought it was the best they had ever done. The judges seemed to agree, since they scored a High Gold on it. It was the first time their lyrical dance had scored the highest of the 3 dances.

After a day of cheering on their classmates, playing in the fountains, and walking over to Subway for dinner, they finally got to perform their jazz dance to “Body Language.” I thought it was the most together they had been on this dance, and was very proud of them. The judges, once again, didn’t agree, and scored them with a Gold ranking. We were all very disappointed. This was not the set of results we had hoped for at Nationals.

While the Angels, the group Grace is a part of, had disappointing results, we were excited to find out that several Lake Area dances had been invited back for Finals on Friday. The Sparkles, the 8-10 year old girls, had their tap dance to “Whole Lotta Shakin’” invited back to go for the “Petite Division National Dance Off”. One of our small groups performed “Steam Heat” in the Petite Encore Performance category, and won the National Title! Three of the girls from that dance also performed their trio “Stylin’” in the “National Champion Intermediate Division Dance Off.” Our teen girls performed “The Olympics” in the “National Championship Large Group Dance Off” category.

We didn’t end up staying for the end of the Final Awards. Michael, being 6, was completely OVER being at the competition all day again. While he did meet some boys who danced for a studio called Madill Performing Arts Center (who won the encore award), he was just ready to go home. Unfortunately, by leaving early, we missed the biggest announcement of the night: Lake Area Dance won the Intermediate Studio of the Year!!! The trophy they got for this huge honor was gigantic! Grace would have loved to have been part of this group that got their picture taken on stage with it!

We had a lot of fun at our first Nationals, despite not getting the results we hoped for. We look forward to another competition season next year!