Dance

This is Jenna's 7th year of dance and her 2nd year being a competition dancer. She is taking 3 classes this year, 2 of them are competition dances. Jazz - this is such a cute dance! They dance to "Wake Me Up" and she dances on the bed several times. I am helping out as a team mom this year, so I spend a lot of my time backstage. All of these pictures were taken back stage during their competition in Van Wert last weekend She's the first one to pop up out of bed....

Tap - This year her tap class dresses like little old men/women for their dance. It is such a fun dance! Jenna happens to be a little old man - too cute! They have won judges awards for "most entertaining" at both dance competitions.

She is also taking Contemporary dance this year. This isn't a competition dance, but she got to show off her costume (which happens to be her favorite) this week for dance photos.

Dance Competition Season....

Saturday was Jenna's first dance competition for this season. She has been so excited for competitions to start up again! This year she is only competing in tap and jazz. She also is dancing in contemporary, but it's a non- competition class. She decided to do less dance classes this year and give gymnastics team a try...but she is finding that she really misses the dance classes she took a break from this year!

Her dance makeup....

For jazz they perform to "Wake Me Up" and their costume is the cutest pj's! Her tap routine is really fun too, but they can't perform tap at this competition since they dance on a gym floor.

Warming up in the hall before competition time....

Waiting for their turn to dance....

Jenna is the first one to "wake up"....so cute!! Later she comes back to the bed and dances on it.

All finished performing and ready to go watch the other dancers. She did an awesome job. She has improved even more this year and is so fun to watch. Dancing is definitely her thing!!

Dance to the music.....

Jenna had her first dance competition this past weekend. She was so excited to finally perform! She was only able to do two of her dances at this competition since they didn't allow tap.

Dressed and ready to go for jazz..... Close up of her with all her make up, hair, and her fancy earrings....

Jazz - "New Girl in Town" from Hairspray.....Jenna gets lifted up to be the "homecoming queen"....

She is in the middle row, second from right....

You can't tell, but she is totally making a "dance face" during this pose. She practices them in the mirror!

Ending pose....she is in the middle right - one of the first ones standing up...

Ready for lyrical and waiting oh so patiently between dances. Thank goodness for her Nintendo DS!

Lyrical (ballet)

Close up (Brenda....check out that 1" part in her hair!)...

Gotta love those eyelashes!!! She was excited about them at first, but then couldn't wait to take them off at the end.

Lyrical - "Send it On"

She's front row, second from left...

The end of the dance - she holds a candle out front...

Running on empty....

I started this past weekend with a full tank of gas...and ended it with the empty tank light on. It was definitely a busy weekend!

• Chris' last basketball game was this past Friday. His team ended up 19-1 (they only lost to OG...which makes me dislike OG even more than I did before!). They had a great season! Tournament starts Tuesday!



• I took Amy (my ESL student) and her sister Angela (an 8th grader) to the game. When I went to pick them up, their mom had her coat on and was ready to go too, so I took all three of them to the game. Mom speaks very, very limited english - so it was an interesting night. I'm not sure they had ever been to a basketball game before - I hope they enjoyed it.



• Saturday was Jenna's first dance competition. At the last minute, Chris and Jacob came along too. It was a busy, hectic day getting her hair and make up done, changing her into her costumes, and making sure she was in the right place at the right time. Jenna did a great job and loved every minute of it. She has 3 more competitions coming up (Columbus, Dayton, and VW).....and she can't wait! I have photos to share, but I'll save them for a seperate blog post!



• After the competition we headed to UT to watch the girls' basketball game. One of Chris' former students is a senior on the team, so we went to watch her play. We met up with some friends and watched the game together. It was really fun to watch a college basketball game again.



• We attempted to find a Buffalo Wild Wings after the game, but the GPS led us to the a totally different restaurant. After trying a few other places, we ended up driving back to Bowling Green and ate at Frickers - a wings place we both used to eat at when we were in college.



• We had some time to waste between the competition and the UT game, so we drove around BGSU. We showed the kids where we used to live and where some of our classes were. We also browsed through SBX for a while and both kids ended up getting new BG baseball hats.



• We made reservations for our summer vacation! We are going with Mike and Deb on a grown ups only vacation to Jamaica for a week in August. I cannot wait!

photo from Couples Tower Isle website



• If anyone is bored over the next few weekends, you are welcome to join us. We are booked every weekend for the next 5-6 weekends with either a basketball tournament for Jacob or a dance competition for Jenna. Some weekends we even have both! I complain about all the running around, but it's worth it when you see them doing something they love!



• I had a photo session Sunday - 7 adults and 6 kids. Fun stuff!!



• I'm am done with this snow and cold weather. Please bring on the warm weather, green grass, sunshine, and flip flops.

Dance recital ....

Jenna's dance recital was last weekend. She gets so excited for her dance recital each year. She loves being up on the stage and having the opportunity to show her family what she has learned all year. Great Grandma L, Uncle Tony, her BFF Savannah, and her 1st grade teacher all came to watch the rehearsal on Friday night and Grandpa/Grandma C, Grandpa/Grandma D, Becca, Debby, Dad, Jacob and I all came to watch her performance on Saturday. This was her 4th year in dance and her last year in the petite performance. She has really become quite a good little dancer and it was so fun to watch her perform. She really gets into it! This year she got to perform in 4 dances plus the finale. The bonus for us was that she was in the front row for 4 out of 5 of those dances.

I tried to get some decent photos of her performing, but dance recital photos continue to be the one type of photos I just can't seem to get down. The dark auditorium, funky stage lighting, and all the movement are all working against me - but I still managed to get several photos so you can see her in action.

Jazz - "Hard Knock Life (from Annie)"

Ballet - "How Do You Know"

Tap - "Labels or Love"
Finale "Move It"

Jenna and her good friend Kenzie


Jenna and Miss Kim

With all her flowers....A big THANK YOU to my cousin Alaina for sending surprise flowers for Jenna. She was so excited to get them!!!