Spring Ice Show

English was supposed to be my easy class, so what's the deal? It is once again the day a paper is due and again, I am sitting here without even a topic. I am learning that I do not like to write what I am assigned or how I am assigned. I have to take tests on commas and run-ons and fragments and I know what they are and how to fix them, but I don't want to. I have always wanted to be a writer, but clearly that is not in the stars because I hate following rules and I hate rewriting. I can only write what comes to my mind first. That is what feels the most authentic. This rough draft, revision, final draft thing is killing me. I think I am making my papers worse instead of better.

Anyway, the assignment this time is to write about something I believe, like a personal philosophy. Seth says I have to write about choice, because that really is my one true soapbox. You choose to be happy, you choose to overcome, etc. I have lots of examples and could probably whip out a few pages in no time, but I am trying to think outside the box a bit. My love letter to books seemed so inside the box after I learned that my classmates wrote to fireflies, beef jerky, croissants. Yes, mine was to something I truly love, but I don't want to fall in to the obvious again. I have a few other ideas, but none of them are coming together to form a full paper in my mind. So much for my excitement about a writing class.

The good news is that every time I procrastinate, I catch up the blog.

For today, we will look at the ice show, and maybe talk about Mothers Day.

Alyssa's Spring Ice Show was last Thursday, Friday and Saturday (2 shows on Saturday). The theme was 80's rock. The music was awesome and the costumes were the coolest yet...paint splattered, off the shoulder, neon colors, side ponytails, huge hair bows. So cute, except for that Alyssa's number was in red, white and blue. They were supposed to skate to Born in the USA but had their music changed to Comin' to America. Didn't fit with the theme real well, but I think the moms were more disappointed than the kids since they don't know 80's rock/fashion anyway.

I was a little disappointed with their routine because their choreographer jammed it full of tricks, lot of  pinwheels, skate throughs, and even a skate through pinwheel, where half the skaters were forming a pinwheel and the rest formed a train that weaved in and out through the pinwheel as it spun. Cool tricks, but I wanted to see more of their skills. In the end I had to admit that their number showed better than the other Basic Skills numbers. It looked organized and got lots of oohs and ahs from the crowd. Some of those tricks can go horribly wrong and land about 10 skaters belly down on the ice. I saw them go wrong many times in rehearsal but they pretty much killed it in the live shows. Well, in the first 3 anyway. In the final performance, one girl went down and did not get back up. She was saying she could not move. They had to stop the music and send the rest of the skaters off the ice. The girls in Alyssa's group all came off the ice bawling and worried about her head/neck but it turned out to be a wrist injury. That is the first time we have seen someone go down and stay down. Skaters fall ALL THE TIME, and I am amazed at how quickly they get up and plug themselves back in to the routine. This time was a little more serious and made for a dramatic end to the show, but thankfully it turned out to be a minor injury.

On to the pictures though...
 

 
I was locker room mom for the Saturday AM show and all the other girls would pose for me but this cheeto chomping shot was about all I could get from Lyssa.



 
My bun making skills are improving, so hopefully I won't have a bun induced panic attack like I did at last years ballet show.
 
After every show the skaters have gifts delivered to take out for the finale so here is Alyssa with her Saturday AM bouquet/80's glasses. I had school on Thursday night, but Seth's cousin Dan went with him to that show. He is working in the area and probably moving to the area, so he sent flowers that night and we sent them the rest of the nights. Oh, and Dan, you picked the right night to attend. The show was 2 hours on Thursday night but there were more solos/production numbers on the weekend and it was 3 hours long! Seth missed both Saturday shows because he had the YM fundraiser. Yeah, it was a full weekend. Anyway, this paragraph has no real direction but on the last day of the show one of the mom's told me to send the same flowers over and over again. What a great idea. I bought new ones every time. Our house looks like a florist shop.
 
The group! We signed up for the show in January, when Alyssa was in Basic 6. The next week she was moved to Basic 7 and has now been moved to Basic 8, which is the final basic skills level. 
 
And that's a wrap on the show.

I don't have any pictures of Mothers Day, but it was a great day. The YW sold Mothers Day gifts for their camp fundraiser and my friend Kira bought a bunch of them to deliver to people who were not at church and invited me to join her since a few of them are in my Sunday School class. We were able to visit some people we haven't seen in awhile and it gave me a chance to hang out with Kira and her girls, who are honestly some of my very favorite people. When I grow up I want to be Kira.

At home, I got some fun presents. A Fitbit bracelet from Seth. I have wanted one since my friend Jen got one for Christmas, and I had been planting the seed. I love it so far, especially since it has helped me to see that I am not as lazy as I thought I was. I am over 10,000 steps a day even if I deduct official exercise numbers. The kids gave me a popcorn popper, which was also a hint I planted, because Fit in Four (mini Super in Six) started Monday and air popped popcorn is on the good food list.

Since I don't have any pictures of me on Mothers Day, I will show you Alex's blanket that I finally finished. it has been close to being done for a long time so I finally pulled it out and got it done. It was inspired by a size 3T t-shirt that he was obsessed with from age 3, until I made him get rid of it at 8. It was a $3 shirt that I bought at Walmart one day on the way to the park, when I realized that it was too warm for the long sleeves he was wearing. It was the best $3 I ever spent.

The shirt...one of about 8 million pictures of it

The blanket. Do you know how Alex feels about blankets? And about me? To have a blanket made by me...it might have been the happiest moment of his life.
 
After I got 1/3 of the way through, they discontinued the light green I was using. I switched to a different light green but then didn't want 6 of the light green stripes to match and the other 3 to be mismatched so after 3 more rows of light green I switched again for the final 3 light green stripes, hoping it would make the whole thing look intentional. 
 
Alright, off to figure out what I believe in...