Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The weekend ~ part 2: the details

Friday: All systems go - and pretty much on-time too. A small miracle to get everything and everyone in the van and on the road before 11am. The ride out to Brandon included a couple stops along the way, quite a few text messages between vehicles as we traveled together (or not) with Carrie & the Petrowski's (they took the backroads....we went that way last time - never again), the kids played gameboy/ds systems and watched DVD's (Holmes on Homes of all things) or listened to Aarica's Faith Hill CD the whole way and were relatively entertained with little bickering and Owen slept for awhile - which helped with the lack of bickering. After last years trip to Yorkton and the trouble Aarica had hearing the DVD player's speaker from the very back of the van, Aunty Sue gave us an adaptor that hooks up to the DVD player and plugs into the tape player of the van so the sound goes to the van's speakers. What a great gift for Aarica to hear what we hear.
We packed food & drinks to take with us which helped limit the cash output from buying food on the road and it limited our stops to bathroom breaks only....if you don't count Carrie getting stuck at the gas station in Teulon for 15mins waiting to pay for her pepsi and bag of chips - darn fried chicken! ;o)



Once we reached Brandon we checked into the Royal Oak and took a quick look around, got settled, unpacked and relaxed for a few minutes before we had to get Emily into her Poltava costume and over to the auditorium for her groups' first dance. They danced in the 2nd session of the day and by the time the 2nd session started it was already half an hour behind schedule - a good idea of how things went the rest of the weekend as far as schedule times went. The girls did great and earned a Bronze medal for their work.


Back at the hotel, while waiting for PizzaHut to be delivered - Al took the 4 kids to the pool for some fun. After we ate poolside, the adults hung out and the kids visited with friends for a bit until the pool area was locked up for the night after which, a bunch of us headed back to our room. We talked, laughed, drank & had some fun. We got the kids all asleep by 1am and everyone got a good nights sleep - even though our room was incredibly hot. The a/c doesn't get turned on in the hotel until mid May and the temps on Friday got up to about +25. Even with a fan the hotel provided and the window open, the room didn't cool off much over night and it was over 25 in the room at 7am when we woke up.


Saturday: Owen, typically NOT a morning person, was amazingly easy to get out of bed. He was SO excited to be dancing in his very first competition. Everything was going so well until he scalded his hand in the bathroom and then when I tried to get to him I smashed his poor toes under the bathroom door. Oh Boy did he scream and cry! I felt SO bad but eventually we managed to get him calmed down, got him into his Poltava costume (he looks so cute in Garrett's old shirt!) and over to the auditorium half an hour before his dance at 9am.......not to worry though - they were behind schedule again - after only one session. When they finally got onstage they were priceless! Ya they forgot some of their choreography, but their footwork was amazing and they did a great job regardless. So cute and so brave to get up there at 5yrs old and preform on such a huge stage infront of so many people. The adjudicator really liked the quality of their footwork in their dance - high praise for such little ones and they walked away with Silver medals! Two dances down and one to go later in the day.


Back at the hotel, we had a quick(ish) breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then the kids headed to the pool for some fun. Owen did not have much fun though. He did something to a toe on his 'not smashed' foot so both feet hurt and he wouldn't put them in the water...plus the water in the big pool was FREEZING cold. Al insisted they put icecubes in it. At least the pool was cool...unlike our room which was still quite warm. After playing in the pool, we hurried to get Emily's hair braided and into her costume and back over to the auditorium where her mixed boys/girls group was doing their Hutzel dance - Emily's favorite! Owen fell asleep on the way from the hotel to the auditorium and we carried him around for an hour and a half while waiting for the session to begin. The photo posted in part1 was from that nap. Too cute with his butt in the air. That kid doesn't nap often but when he does he does it well - he was passed back and forth a couple times and set down on the bench for awhile. He woke up in time for the next session. It was the first time we got to see this dance and it was so amazing to watch. They definately deserved the GOLD medals they received for this dance!




And that was the end of our required dance attendance for the weekend. I'd hoped to go back and watch the Jr & Sr Hopak dances later that night but we ended up grabbing some takeout which I brought back to the hotel and then we went and met up with Ron & Janice at the Keystone center to watch Derrian play hockey. We had a nice (although short visit) with them and did some catching up on what our families have been up to since they moved out to Brandon 6months ago. I wish we'd had more time to spend with them but we decided to head back to the hotel and get in a quick swim before the pool closed and I wanted to soak in the hot tub - unfortunately they closed down the hot tub so that didn't happen. Saturday night was a quiet night - everyone pretty much kept to their rooms and had an early night.


Sunday: Up early and packing in a hurry. We needed to be on the road early. No chance to swim. No time to go watch some dancing. Tyler had to be in Winnipeg by 12:30 (at least I thought he had to be there by 12:30 but infact he didn't need to be there till 1) Since we got there just after 12 we had time to grab a quick lunch at Timmies before going to the bowling tournament. Tyler had some rough luck. He was bowling good but just couldn't get those pins falling the way he needed them to - leaving corner pins standing and hitting headpins too often. After 4 games he ended up in 14th place. I think he was disapointed in himself, but I'm just so proud of all that he's done with bowling this year. His game has really improved. Bad me - I took no pictures at the bowling tournament. I think by this point I was so tired I just plain forgot about the camera.


We finally got home at 5pm Sunday. A long busy weekend over. We sat and watched a movie and everyone was in bed by 10. We were lucky to get home so early - alot of the other dancers in our group didn't get back till after 10pm. Really really long weekend for them. So competition weekend is over for another year. I'm glad it's done but can't wait till the next one. A couple more weeks of practices before concert and then dancing's over till September. Bowling is almost done too. Oh whatever will we do with ourselves on Wednesdays and Saturday's till then?

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