Dance Festival

This is the whole group!

We took a cooler with grapes, strawberries and lots and lots of water.

The lace around the neck is a nice touch.....don't you think??? EEEKKK!

Notice the long sleeves and high neck. The poor girls were about to die in the heat!

The girls are both involved in the Dance Festival at church. For the past few months, they have gone to practices to learn dances that they will be performing at the end of July in the Tacoma Dome, along with about 1500 other youth from the Tacoma region. This last Saturday we attended a preview that was held at a high school stadium in Sumner. There were about 1/4 of the youth at the preview that will be in The Tacoma Dome. The youth 14-17 years old in our Stake learned the waltz and the 12-13 year old girls learned a cheerleading-type dance to the song "Momma I'm a Big Girl Now" from the movie "Hairspray". The Waltz dresses have been handed down from one Stake to another for years and they are truly hideous! Amanda was mortified to find that she was assigned a "gold" colored dress - but it actually didn't look that bad on her. Besides, when we were sitting in the stands and they were clear down on the field doing their dance - they looked really nice. (Distance is the key there....) The 12-13 year old girls had a cheerleading outfit sewn for each of them and they looked really cute in them. As I'm sure most of you know, Sam wearing a cheerleadig outfit is seriously not "her". The first time she tried it on, the look on her face was priceless and all I could do was laugh!!!

Andy and I both helped chaperone all day. Andy was in charge of a group of boys that were part of the waltz group. I was in charge of a group of 12-13 girls doing the "cheer" dance. All the chaperones had a sign to hold up so when it was time to gather them all up again they would look for their assigned group. It was a system that worked pretty well. Of course, as is our luck, yesterday was a blistering hot day. It was the hottest day we've had since Sam had the double-header a couple months ago and we were stuck outside in it. Only this time we had to stand out on the artificial turf on the field, which was AWFUL! Despite the heat, though, we had fun. I love being with the youth and watching them be with each other and having fun. I can't wait for the Dance Festival the end of July. It's going to be an amazing experience!