Stage Presence - Spring Showcase 2013

Another Spring Showcase in the books (our fourth to be exact)!  I truly love show week.  It's filled with lots of energy.  Pictures one day, rehearsal another and finally the performance.  Morgan really gets into it too.  She loves getting her costume on, and ready for the show.  Now that I have mastered the technique of the "ballet bun" it has become less of a battle between her and I.  Hooray!

Rehearsal is the only time we can take photos and videos.  The girls always enjoy watching the others do their routine.

And then it's their turn to step on stage.  Please remember this is rehearsal so the teacher is also on stage with them, but you'll get the idea.  Morgan is on the far right!

Here's a little video I was able to capture on my phone.  You can tell by the way they move, they really like this song.

Morgan's class is half ballet and half tap, here's a video of their ballet dance.  Morgan is again on the far right.

It's SHOW DAY!  

Of course we needed to take a few pictures before we left the house.

Morgan is all about the sassy lips these days.

The performance is held at the Washington Center for Performing Arts.  If you've been their, you know it's a big theater, especially for little kids.  We check her in at the back of the theater, take a few pictures, a kiss, wish her luck and off she goes. No hesitation, no fear, she knows the drill and just goes for it.  She recently told me she was made to dance on a stage. 
 

After the show, all the parents dash for the back door of the theater to pick up their child.  Morgan has a great group of friends at ballet and a wonderful teacher.  Thank you Mrs. Marianna for another great year.

Check out the smile on this girl.  She's just glowing!

All the grandparents were there to see Morgan perform and of course they showered her with flowers.

 

 

Now that Miss Brooke is a little older, she got to join us for the performance.  She was super proud of her big sissy and even yelled "YAY MORGAN!" after their performance.  Wish I could have taken a picture or two, it was precious.  Brooke was following sissy's routine in the aisle, I suppose all those Wednesdays hanging out at the studio she's picked up a thing or two.  Who knows maybe next year we'll have two little ladies on the stage???

We've been through a couple other performances and it still amazes me that or little lady walks out on that stage with all that courage and confidence.  Looking back at the past two performances HERE and HERE it really shows how much she has changed.  She is growing up way too fast but turning into quite the lady.  We love you Miss Morgan and couldn't be more proud of you.

Running Group 2013 - RACE DAY!

The week leading up to race day was a mix of slow days but a fast week.  I remember a few weeks back I was ready for race day.  I was ready to be done with waking up at 6am on Saturday to go running.  I was ready to have my Saturday morning back to spend time with my family.  Now wholly smokes I'm really doing it, I'm running a half marathon.

Training for a half marathon doesn't only effect me.  I've had a huge support group surrounding me.  My husband who was encouraging me to sign up at the beginning and all along the way to get going and get my miles done.  My children who have yelled "have a good run" as I'm stepping out the door.  My family and co-workers who have consistently inquired about my training and giving me encouragement and support.  Some were along the sidelines today cheering me on and I am eternally grateful.  And lastly having some pretty amazing running partners has been a blessing for me.  I sincerely don't know if I would have approached the starting line as prepared as I am today.  They have been my rock telling me to keep going when I wanted walk the first time I ran 7 miles.  They have told me to lace up those shoes when it was down pouring outside. And they have worked with me and my crazy schedule so we could get lunchtime and evening runs in.  I am in debt to them for their support.

We had about a half hour before the race started which really only felt like about 5 minutes.  We managed to get a few pictures in before heading to the starting line.
 


                                                     

 
                                            

As I stepped off the curb into the crowd of people I looked around and absorbed some of the energy.  I fumbled with my IPod to make sure it was working and selected my Nike App to help me keep a good pace.  I looked around the crowd for familiar faces and it was go time. 

See us on the far right?!?!

I think I was pretty quiet for the first couple of miles.  I know I was looking around at all the people in awhhh.  I remember looking at all the shirts from the different running groups.  But mostly I was thinking "am I really doing this?"  It wasn't until about the two-mile mark before I felt a little less claustrophobic.  Two miles is also where the first water station was. We flew right past a huge pack of runners who stopped for water and waved to Cassie's husband who was helping man the water station.  This is about the time my confidence started to rise and the hills started to approach.  We were cruising right up those hills and passing people.  Wow!  Those five months of training are going to start to pay off.  Cassie and I settled into a nice pace and before we knew it we were six miles in.  I remember Cassie and I talking about what a great run this is and how great we feel.  This was also the time the first marathoner came whizzing past us. All I can say is IMPRESSIVE!  We wound around neighborhoods I didn't even know existed.  We smiled and waved at all the people who came out their front doors to cheer us on.  We were having a really good run.

We finally came into a part of town that I was familiar with, but that also meant we were approaching the dreaded EAST SIDE HILL that we were most worried about.  I needed to get into my zone.  After running 9 miles and then go up a pretty good hill, I needed to dig deep.  We trained on this hill several times.  I knew where it slightly leveled off and I knew that it also kept going.  As Cassie and I took on this hill we both had the same mission... I didn't train for five months to walk up East side hill.  So many people stopped on this hill to walk, but not us.  We found our zone and kept on going.  We passed people and zig zagged up that hill.  Cassie and I didn't talk except for the occasional "how ya doing?" and "oh man!"  We knew once we made it up this hill we had friends ready to cheer us on and it was only a short 3 miles to the finish line.  It felt like forever but we were determined to not let the hill win and it didn't.

As we hit Capital Way we knew we were in the home stretch.  Cassie tells me that we needed to give it our all in the last mile.  In my mind I was going as fast as I could!  But somehow (with a little cursing at Cassie) I managed to pick up the pace.

We also knew that we would have lots of friends on the sidelines.  Seeing familiar faces was very emotional for me.  I had worked really hard to get to that point and having friends and family there to support me was amazing.  But I needed to keep it together.  Crying and running isn't a good combination.  It makes it really hard to breathe!

I spotted these little beauties along the sidelines.  So happy they saw me doing something totally out of my comfort zone.

Morgan was able to jump into the race with me to cross the finish line.  Amazingly, I was able to keep it together (for the most part) and not cry.


                                             

 
 As I crossed the finish line I tried to absorbed what was going on around me.  I squeezed Morgan's hand and told her how happy I was, looked up at the clocks to try and see my time and tried not to trip over the timing bumps.  That's a lot for a brain that just ran 13 miles.

                                      

We were done and we did it without walking one bit.  I still don't know where the drive came from but it's apparently there deep down inside.  I will never say never again.  I may say "wholly smokes!" or "yikes!" but I won't say "no way."