Showstopper Time

February 2, 2010

It’s almost time for our annual jaunt up to Phoenix for the Showstopper Regional Dance Competition. Suzanne and Savannah have been doing this competition for years.

Savannah usually dances a bunch of numbers with her various dance classes and then throws in a solo or two. Suzanne usually does similar but a few less.

This year, Sean will also be doing one dance. While he no longer dances in multiple classes, he is doing one Mexican Folkloric class and will be competing with them. In the dance, he gets to dance with machettes doing a variety of things with them.

I usually make the trip to Phoenix to watch them. That is not for certain this year as a business trip may interfere. Assuming they do well enough, the will then take their dances to the Showstopper National Competition at Disneyland this summer. It really doesn’t take much to make it to Nationals and if I remember correctly, all their dances are in the recreation category.

I will try to get some pics from the competition if I am there.

Posted by Mr Papa | Filed Under Family, Games/Hobbies, Travel | Leave a Comment

Halloween Week Update

November 1, 2009

The kids had a fun week of Halloween Celebrations starting with a school dance on the 23rd. The school’s “Fall Costume Dance” was fun for them. Savannah went as Paris Hilton complete with blond wig and purse with a stuffed Chihuahua. Sean went as a Bank Robber, in all black sweats and a ski mask.

The next day we had another football game against Benson. The team did not play as well this week as they did the week before and lost 8 to 6. However the game did give me a chance to test out my new video camera/digital camera. I was very please with the quality of the video (HD) and also the still camera abilities. It certainly makes life simple for me in that I only have to carry around the one camera and I can do both video and stills. It will be great to take with me on the Rome trip/Cruise.

Monday, I decided to take the kids to Tucson to get the H1N1 vaccination. I had read up on it and decided with our overseas trip coming up, I didn’t want to take a chance of them getting seriously ill with a virus while traveling overseas. The only place to get the vaccine was at the Pima County Health department clinic at the baseball park in Tucson. We arrived around 2:00 and the line was quite long, but it looked to be moving pretty quickly. We waited about an hour to get to the screening station where they asked questions about asthma and other health conditions to determine whether which version of the vaccine we’d get. They had quite a bit of the nasal, but were in short supply of the injection so they were only giving that pregnant women, asthma patients and very young children (Under two?). I was able to get the vaccine as my volunteer work at the VA Hospital qualified me as a health care worker with direct patient contact. We were glad we went on Monday because they ran out of vaccine later in the week and had to cancel vaccinations until they get more. The rest of the week went smoothly with no side effects from the vaccines.

Friday, Sean was supposed to have football practice and Savannah was supposed to have a dance lessons, but both ended up being canceled. Sean’s football game for the weekend was canceled too due to scheduling problems. Savannah and I were able to got to the community Halloween party, and Sean and Steve didn’t find out about the practice cancellation until they were already in town, so they ended up having a boys night and went to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Savannah went as a Hippie and I went as Liza Minnelli. The kids at the party enjoyed activities like a cake walk and haunted house. I had a nice time chatting with some of my friends.

Saturday, Sean went Trick-r-Treating with one of his friends in the neighboring town. Our area is too spread out to go door to door so we had the Friday night party instead. Savannah and I stayed home for a really challenging game of Trivial Pursuit. The kids are really quite good at the game, and though I was the eventual winner Savannah played a good game having all of her pie pieces when I answered the final questions correctly. The kids are really working on Geography trivia as they have both been selected to compete in the school’s upcoming geography bee.