July

July has been a busy month for me, but not so much in the social/fun categories. I've been working 50+ hour weeks all month. Crazy, but the pay check makes it hurt less. :)
Some of the fun things that've happened this month:

• Peachtree Roadrace and 4th of July at John and Kirsten's (Kara's friends)
• Antique Market with Kara, Artie, and John. (I got some awesome table candelabras for $5!)
• Mindy and Jeran came to visit. We went to the aquarium, where they were able to say "Ooh we saw some of those!", and Stone Mtn to hike up and also watch the laser show. We got very wet, sitting on the grass. We also had some great meals, including grilled pizza and quiche. 

• Atlanta Botanical Garden - Kara and I finally made it to the garden. We've been meaning to go for several months now, and it just barely happened.

• Olympic Opening Ceremonies party at Diana's house. Literally the only thing I've done with my church friends all month. Besides church. I love olympics. 
• Last Call Blues dancing. I really love this monthly fix of blues dancing. 

 Other than those things, my life has pretty much only been work, come home to make and eat dinner, and go to bed. It's very straightforward, which is nice. I would like to have a social life again, though. It adds spice to life.

Here's some more pictures from the Botanical Garden: 

Swing Champions!

It's already on facebook, but i thought i'd put a little something here on my blog anyway. This past weekend BYU hosted the National Amateur Dancesport Championships. Included in this awesome event were the class events, so the kids from the BYU ballroom and social dance classes got to compete against each other. I danced in the quickstep and the triple step. You won't hear much about the quickstep because I didn't get called back even once. The triple step (aka east coast or american swing) was a different story though. Briggs Alsbury and I practiced every day last week to get ready for this, I was pretty confidant that we would do well. We kept getting called back round after round, getting more and more excited.

Every time before we walked out onto the floor, we'd go over what we needed to focus on: high energy, high knees, smile! Our goal was kinda to steal the show, to have so much energy that people would find it hard to watch anyone but us. I think the orange shirt and tie helped as well. And from the feedback we got from friends and random strangers, I think our tactic worked quite well. :)

The final round was very exciting, especially since 4 out of 8 couples were from the same class. We did a cheer for our teacher Giovanna before we went out for the final round. It ended up that all four couples were in the top 5 - Giovanna is amazing! Briggs and I took first place and each got a special trophy. I was so incredibly happy and excited! I've never won something like this before, and it felt so good!

Latin Dance Competition (finally posted!!!)

The other day (now long past - like almost a month) I competed in a latin dance competition for my dance class - the rumba! We danced against all the other couples in the 185 level of dance. I was very excited for it, besides the thrill of competing, got to wear my crazy leopard print shirt from Europe, have two of my besties there cheering for me, and I got to dance with Johnny Freshman. Ok, so his name is Johnny Wilson, but I didn't know his last name for a long time, and he's definitely a freshman, so it just stuck. And no, he doesn't know I call him that. He's a great dancer. (As a side note, he also placed 2nd in the standard waltz competition which took place alternating rounds with our competition!)
As we kept making call back after call back, I got more and more excited! In the end, we placed 5th, out of more than 150 couples! It was awesome! Because my lovely friend April was there cheering for me, we have video coverage of the event! Except that i've tried uploading SOOO many times, and it never works. Even after waiting 12 hours. So i'll just post another picture instead.

Beauty is Pain, darling!

On Tuesday (Sept 15) I bought new ballroom dance shoes! Specifically, Latin ballroom dance shoes. I love them - they're so beautiful! I can tell they will definitely help improve my dancing, but first I have to break them in.

They are a solid three sizes smaller than my previous shoes,

which I purchased on too little information off the internet. My old ones have been adequate for my purposes until now, but since I'm taking a Latin ballroom dance class now, I need shoes that fit correctly. A correct fit for a ballroom shoe is very, very snug. The shoe should be one with your foot! You can see in this picture that my new shoe fits this qualification, while the old one fails miserably. So now I just get to suffer throught tightness and stiffness and blisters until these shoes are broken in. Fun times!

As summer ends...

I start school next week, so now is the time to contemplate on what an amazing summer this has been. It's had its lows and its highs, busy times and boring times, extreme heat and relative coldness, but taken all together, it's been one of the best summers I can remember.

In May I went to Seattle for Camp Jitterbug, where my car was broken into. That was definitely a first. Luckily, thanks to great friends who take care of me, it turned out not to be too much of a traumatic issue, just a learning experience.

June was spent in Europe with Tina, the family, and the Smiths.

Third time in Europe, still love it. I'd have to say that the Alps were my favorite, particularly Switzerland. I loved being able to spend time with my family (including Tina!) and the Smiths.

July I mostly remember for Alyna moving home, getting to hang out with Mom, and for the 24th of July camp out experience. Such a party will not soon be forgotten!

August was our Las Vegas adventure, mostly appreciated for the road trip part, and hanging out in South Jordan.

Also, I had a Relief Society camp out and a Ward camp out, both very fun and chilly. It's been years since i went boating, but it was very fun. Mailee's wedding and hanging out with Aunt Kara, Aunt Leanne, and Shelli were exciting highlights.

Whenever I was not traveling, I was in Provo working 8 hours a day. I still love my job on BYU Grounds, tree crew. I got to be good friends with a lot of my fellow crew members.

On Thursdays, some Fridays, and Saturdays I went swing dancing, either in Provo or Salt Lake. After work, I'd hang out with Melinda, or read a book, take a nap, or watch a movie. Generally just hang out.

As fun as this summer has been, I think I'm ready to move on and get into fall semester. I'm excited to meet new people and learn new things. Well, most new things. Not quite excited for Business Finance 300. or Organizational Effectiveness. but the rest of it, yeah! I have lots of goals for this school year, and one of them is to update my blog at least once a week, so stay posted!!!

Ballet?

This morning was an interesting experience.  I decided to go to Ballet Club with Melinda.  I was kind of apprehensive about this, since the dancing I'm used to - ballroom and swing - uses completely different body and posture forms.  And I haven't done ballet before.  Melinda let me borrow a leotard (which was in itself weird, because ballet leos have no sparkles, no sequins, nothing flashy like the gymnastics leotards I'm used to) and ballet flats.  I figured if I'm going to be doing a gymnastics class this fall, my dance element needs a lot of help first.  It was fun.  In a 'I have no idea what I'm doing and everyone can tell' sort of way.  I actually only did the bar part, not center floor.  I was hopelessly lost during the combinations and some of the skills.  It didn't help that it's the last day of club for the semester, so there were people there preparing for their finals.  Hopefully if I keep going throughout the summer, I'll be a little more capable when it comes time for me to dance on the high beam, or on the floor.  

 (PS - I found out the the BYU gymnastics gym has a power trampoline - yay!!!)

Swing Performance!

This afternoon was my first time performing with our team. We were nice and public, in the main courtyardish area outside the Wilkinson Student Center. It turned out that of the five couple on our team, we only had 2 that could perform - me & Lars, and Adam & Holly (who don't normally dance together). So that turned out kinda crappy, but for a first, it wasn't too bad. Here's the vids:

That's the other team, coached by Scott. I thought they did awesome.

Here's us:

Perfect Day

Since yesterday was wonderfully perfect, I must write about it, and explain why I call it perfect.  

First of all, I got to sleep in.  Until almost 10!  I haven't slept in that late in...a couple of weeks, at least.  Then our ward breakfast was cancelled, so Mindy and I made a big breakfast of hash browns, eggs, sausage, and toast.  It was delicious!  

Jerin came over, and we decided to go on a hike.  (Mindy and Kayla had both left for the weekend, at this point).  We drove up Provo canyon, stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, because I've 

never seen it, and then drove up past Sundance.  There was still too much snow to hike

 anywhere up there, but we had fun driving on the curvy mountain road, and got out and took some fun pictures.  Then we drove back down the canyon and went over to Rock Canyon.  We hiked up the trail a ways, but on our way back, we had a fun adventure hiking on the stream bed.  We did some scree jumping - jumping from boulder to boulder - and climbed over or under big fallen logs, etc.  After that awesome fun adventure, we had a picnic at the fields near Wyview [where we live] and threw a frisbee around.  The weather was so beautifully nice - around 60 degrees, and sunny, hardly any breeze - that we tried to be outside as long as we possibly could.  

 

Then I went to IFA to buy some gloves for tree climbing (success!) and did some homework (not 

as successful!)  Then Jerin came over and we ate some Banana Cream pie to celebrate Pi day!  It was delicious.  

And last, but not least, swing dancing!  I got there around 7, when the lessons start.  They taught us the Shim Sham, which is a sweet line dance created by Frankie Manning (who pretty much originated swing).  We practiced our team routine a bit too, since we'll be performing it on Tuesday (i'll try to get someone to video it).  Fun dancing, plus, Em Hardman showed up!  It was so much fun to hang out with her and Jessame Peterson.  

All in all, it was a wonderful, glorious, perfect day.  Being outside with such great weather, plus swing dancing to finish it off - what more could i ask for?!

Update and Outlook

It's been a while since I've posted anything here.  I figure the most significant thing during the interim was Andrew and Lindsay's wedding, and as a family have posted about 4 albums on Facebook, so I won't go over that now.  Suficeth to say, it was awesome.  I'm so excited to have a new sister!  Although the recepetion was ridiculously crowded, it was much fun to see people I knew but haven't seen in a long time (Aunt Kara, Mary Kirby, Kelsey Hahne, and everyone else).  One of my favorite parts was the awkward family pictures.  

Since then, I've gotten back into school, work, and dance.  Everything seems to be going fine, except the weather.   We had 60 degree weather for a couple of days, but then it snowed an

d pushed us back into the 20s and 30s. Brr.  I really just want it to be warm for good.  There are only about 6 weeks of this semester left.  It's gone by so fast! I'm so excited for this summer!  I've got such plans...

April - Finish with Finals (April 22).  Hike Mt. Timpanogas (probably April 24).  Mindy and I will move to our new apartment April 25.  Visit home for Lisa's wedding and stuff.

May - Finish Lisa's wedding and whatever other family stuff.  Work full time on the tree crew.  Run. Dance. Hike.  Go to a Swing Dance Camp in Seattle (May 28-30). (http://www.campjitterbug.com/)

June - Go to Europe with my Tina Sister and hang out with my family and the Smiths. 

 Work on the tree crew. Run. Dance. Hike. 

July - Work on the tree crew. Run. Dance. Hike.  Celebrate Alyna's homecoming.

July/August - Fly to Tennessee to visit roommate Kayla, and Mindy & Jeran, and Aunt Kara.  I don't know when, yet.

August - Work on the tree crew.  Run. Dance. Hike.

Sounds fun, ya?  I'm really excited for it all... :)

Harlem Nights

HARLEM NIGHTS SWING DANCING!

This weekend was awesome!!!  I got to go up to Logan to Harlem Nights, a big swing...convention...thing.  There was a Friday dance, and Friday Late Night Dance, Saturday Workshops, a dance, and a late night dance.  I learned a lot, met many fun new people, and had a ton of fun dancing.  I rode up with my friend from Swing Team, Derek, and his friend, Chani.  Chani and I had so much fun hanging out, and became great friends! 

  

I think my favorite part was the Friday Late Night dance, at Club NY.  I've never been to a dance club before, so that was sweet.  I loved meeting new people and trying to figure out what the guys were trying to lead (that often didn't work so well for me).  I did

 not like dancing with guys who didn't know how to dance.  That was uncomfortable and happened far too often.   

I didn't have my camera with me, so I didn't get many pictures, but thanks to cell phone camera capabilities, I did get a few.  This one is me and Chani with our new friend, Grant.  He was so much fun to dance with!

I might post more pictures and/or videos once other people have posted them on facebook.  

 My other favorite part of the weekend was watching the competitions and performances.  There were sweet moves - air steps (lifts and flips and stuff), and styling moves.  If I can find a good video of the intermediate or advanced competition, I'll post them so you all can see how cool swing dancing can be!  

I don't really know what else to talk about, so if you want to know more about something, let me know, and I'll discuss it in my follow-up blog (once I actually have some pictures).  

"Life is too short to wear shoes you can't dance in." 

Swingin' Good Time

I'm sure everyone's heard, but I just thought I'd blog the fact that I'm now on the BYU Swing Dance Team!   I tried out a week ago, and found out the results on Tuesday.  As you can imagine, I'm SUPER excited about it.  On Tuesday when I found out, I was bouncing up and down and had this ridiculously huge smile on my face all night.   

I'm not exactly sure what team does, though.  I know I have team practice Tuesday and Thrusday nights, and there is a dance every Saturday night.  I think that we do both competitions and performances, but I really don't know.  I guess I'll find out sometime, right?  As it is, I'm looking forward to improving my swing dancing a LOT. 

As a kind of related, kind of not, topic, I've started exercising a lot more this week.  While watching two hours of training videos for the Tree Crew, I realized that I'm going to need a lot more arm and core muscle than I currently have.  Also, my roommate Kayla is talking about her eating/exercise diet, and that's helped motivate me as well.   Lisa and I went to water aerobics last night at the Provo City Rec Center, and it was so much fun!  In a painful, muscle-fatiguing sort of way.  So I think I'll be doing Water Aerobics Monday and Wednesday nights, Swing Dance Tuesday and Thursday nights, and some combnation of them and/or other activities on Saturdays.  It'll be so good for me!  And don't we all just love the feel of sore muscles?  I'm just excited for spring when I can do more out of doors! 

What a day!

    Today has been a long, busy, rather productive sort of day.  I realized last night that I had utterly failed to use the holiday to do homework, and that I had a ton to do today.  Yay for me, I managed to get done everything that I needed to!  Mostly because I only went to work for one hour instead of 3 or 4 like i normally would on Tuesdays.  

    Tonight was Swing Club!...and Swing Team try outs!  It was really fun!  I was a bit nervous, just because I'm not very experienced.  We did handstands against the wall (one of the lifts involves the girls doing handstands), which I rocked at - yay tumbling and gymnastics!  I didn't do so hot on the jazz choreographied part, but not terrible.  Then we did partner dancing, with switching partners every couple of minutes (which was good, since there were a lot more girls than guys).  I've never done blues swing before, but I did ok, even if it was awkwardly NO personal bubble.  And a lift, which turned out pretty well.  After the jazz circle (think, people showing off at a stake dance, in the big circle...yeah. like that), which i went into once.  I did a round-off back-handspring, just to see if I could.  I could, if i did a step out.  I think that earned me points.  All in all, pretty good, I think.  I'll know if I made the team on Saturday night or Monday sometime.  I'll let you know!

    Also, just as a side note, I was a sadly unpatriotic person today.  I didn't watch any of the inaugeration.  In my defense, I was on campus for about 14 hours.  I'll watch some coverage of it sometime. :)

Short and sweet!

   I think, from now on, I'm going to write little shorter blogs more often.  That way I can write when i don't have something monumental to say.   

    Last Saturday I went to a Wyview "Dance through the Decades" Dance.  It was kinda fun, but mostly I really liked my outfit.  It was that dress I found at the DI when I went with Mindy Hall after Christmas.  I don't know what decade I was dressed as though.

    For work this past week, I've been working with my new crew.  It's an interesting collection of individuals.  I think pretty much everyone on the crew is a Landscape Management major, and most of them are emphasizing on Arboriculture.   I was a little scared of some of the crew members at first, but I think it will be a fun crew to be on.  I even got to be up in a tree the other day.  We're taking down Christmas lights right now, which is a pain, because 1) it's really cold, and 2) the lights are done Temple Square style, which means there's about thirty strands to a medium sized tree (medium is about a foot diameter trunk).   It'll take forever!