Done and done!

Each year as February rolls around there's one thing you can always be sure of .

What is it, you may wonder? The Kick-Off Competition for clogging. Dance groups from all over the place come together to earn a spot for Nationals, which means you get to go to Lagoon in May and dance in between going on rides (ok, so you have to wait to do the rides until you're done dancing...not that everyone does:).

     Anyway, Boise Cloggers was there full force yesterday as we made it through another year of competing. It's kind of entertaining to see how seriously some of the other schools take it - let's just say that I'm glad I'm not there specifically competing against some of them! In fact, since I'm on the adult team with my mom and a bunch of other moms, we pretty much never have anyone in our specific categories!!

 We did three team dances yesterday and they all went well. But we're all so freaked out by competing that we're not really even sure why we put ourselves through it every year. :)

Since I also teach a few classes, I was there in the morning at the beginning of the competition to help my tiny kids, which is the first time I've been there for the whole day of dancing. It was really fun! In fact, I think I'll stick to the "backstage" part of it from now on! We ran through their dance a few times, and then it was showtime. They did good and at the end of the day, they came away with a 1st place (maybe it helps when you're that little and cute!).

Here are the dancers! They're quite entertaining, that's for sure!

   Since our adult team didn't dance until later in the evening, Mom and I got to spend the whole day hanging out at the competition. She was backstage helping with the music, and I ended up getting to watch quite a bit of the dancing in between helping out with odd jobs here and there. It was fun to see the variety of dances and costumes that hit the stage all day.
  This year we debuted our brand new dance, "Americano" at competition. I don't know if it's a good thing or not to have competition be the first time you ever actually perform a new dance, but we've done it once before and it always works out some how.
  But just to get you in the mind set of a dancer before going on stage, here's a sample of what goes through their head:
  "Ok, just a couple more minutes. Why am I doing this again?"
  "What?! There's only one more group before us?"
   "I seem to be walking on stage, but how, I can't feel my legs."
  "Why did people have to come sit in the audience, don't they have anything better to do?"
  And then you get to your spot on the stage and there's a pause as you wait for the music to come on. In those couple of seconds that you're standing there with a room full of eyes on you, you notice a strange buzz inside your head that makes it impossible to remember how to start your dance. You wiggle your toes to make sure you still have feeling in your legs, but you know you have feeling everywhere else because your heart is pounding like mad.
  Then your music starts and you think, "Hey! I know this song!" And all of a sudden your feet start moving and it all comes back to you - whew!
  We did that three times yesterday and believe it or not, we got off the stage smiling and went home feeling pretty darn good.
                                            Here we are in our new costumes for "Americano".

And if things weren't good enough as we left, knowing that we were done and had been able to have a good time, look at the sunset we walked out to! I was so excited to see some colors coming back into the sky!

And now we're all resting a little more easily knowing that the competition is over and we don't have anymore to worry about!

  (And yes, Boise Cloggers will be at Nationals, and our adult team will be decidedly - and comfortably - cheering them on from home)! :)