Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dancing Queen

There are a few things I'm passionate about. Dancing is one of them. No, I don't dance anymore, but I did. And when I did, I loved it. Now I'd never compare myself to my twin cousins, who are professional ballerinas....& something I only dreamed of doing when I was a kid, but I sure loved it! I was in dance from the age of 4 until I got quit around the age of 14. But I blame 99% of that on where we live.

I grew up, & danced, in CA. I was in 3 classes a week & we were in competitions (& won) & everything. I even tried out for, & made it in, the Nutcracker in the Long Beach Ballet. I was one of Mother Ginger's children & it was literally months of practice for like a 3 minute long dance. My twin cousins were Clara for several years in a row in the same ballet before they moved to San Francisco to join their ballet.

Then we moved to MT. Nothing against this place but there's no good dancers here! There was 1 dance teacher here &, sadly enough, I was teaching HER stuff. So needless to say, my dance career pretty much stopped at that point. I wasn't learning anything because there was nothing to learn. Shortly after we moved here a new dance teacher came to town. She was quite good! So I immediately switched to her & she told my mom all the time that she was so glad to have me in her classes. Unfortunately though, not many people take dance here in our town so there weren't many classes. I was in classes with adults (& I was like 14 at the time). Long story...& a few crappy situations later...I got fed up with it all & I quit. Seeing professional ballerinas dance really makes me regret that decision. But it was done & life has moved on.

So...after that decision I knew I always wanted to have something to do with dance & I really hoped I'd have a daughter who would like to dance. Thankfully enough, Cali has a tiny dancing bone in her little body so I signed her up as soon as I could...right after she turned 3. I actually signed her up with the teacher that I quit, so she would get the best lessons in town. And let me tell you what...she loves it!! Now I'm not going to go & be a Toddler's and Tiara's mom (like the insanely ridiculous TLC show) but I will have to restrain myself!!!

Their first recital was called The Nutcracker: All Jazzed Up...& boy was it ever!! Janet (the teacher) has 4 kids, all of whom dance. One of her sons was going to be in it but he's in the Cincinnati Ballet & they have all their performances right before Christmas time. So the only time he could come & be in it was after Christmas. So the recital was the 29th.

Cali had to be there Monday the 26th for pictures & a run-through, Wednesday the 28th for the dress rehearsal, & Thursday the 29th for the performance. So it was a busy week.

Here's Cali the night that we got her costume...she pretty much fell in love with it! :o)

Here she is the night of the recital. First time she's ever worn make-up!
Posing with the aloe vera plant... Hey...she wanted to!
 And here's the performance!!!


During the bow. She's in the red dress in the middle-right of the picture (kind of between the 2 girls in the red & white stripes).

One of the things I remember the most about being in dance was that my mom ALWAYS brought me flowers! So here's Cali with her flowers. :o)

And Cali with mommy (daddy & Brooke were getting a diaper change).

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