Ally's Dances

Here are some videos from our new camera of Allison at some recent rehersals for the upcoming competition season. They're not all complete but coming along nicely:

Large Group Tap - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtwCANoqSBU (check out those facial expressions!)

Large Group Jazz - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhwwfDydp9w

Tap Solo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcAfP4EHp9A (too cute!)

Dance Photos

After posting about the dance competition last weekend, Heidi pointed out that we hadn't posted any good action shots of Allison doing her routines. So here they are (click to enlarge)....

Hey Daddy (jazz) flying leap...
Hey Daddy (jazz) again... Ally is 2nd from the right.
Scooby Dooby Doo (hip-hop) beginning...
Scooby Dooby Doo.. Allison is on the left.
Scooby Dooby Doo ending... Peace!
The Shoop Shoop Song (tap).. Ally is on the right.
The Shoop Shoop Song... it's in his kiss... that's where it is....
The Shoop Shoop Song kick line...

Talent On Parade National Finals - Des Moines, IA

This weekend was the Talent On Parade National Finals at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, IA. If you ever have 7 1/2 hours to spare and want to ride in the car with virtually NOTHING at all to look at, point the car west and take a trip to Des Moines. I've heard it's a boring ride and that is an understatement. Luckily, we broke up the drive out there by leaving Thursday night after my softball game and stopping about half-way for the night in Princeton, IL. The following morning we took a quick dip in the pool and headed out for the rest of the way to Des Moines.

While the drive wasn't that fun, the competition was pretty cool. There were groups from a bunch of different states and it was fun to watch the different routines (I think Nathan just likes looking at all the girls!) Luckilly, Allison performed all three of her dances on Saturday. Her group was the first of the day doing The Shoop Shoop Song (tap). Then she had a break and did Hey Daddy (jazz). A couple hours later, they did Scooby Dooby Doo. The girls did a GREAT job and performed each of the songs better than they ever have. Perfect time to nail it! They received an Elite Top First ranking (based on scores) for each of them which is pretty impressive. In terms of awards they did great too. The Shoop Shoop Song took 2nd place in the large group category (behind another BLDC routine done by kids in the next older age bracket). Hey Daddy took 5th place in the line group (larger than a large group). Plus, the judges give out "special" awards for whatever they feel like... The Shoop Shoop Song won one judges "Tu-Tu Cute Award". By about 6pm all the awards were presented and we headed back to the hotel for some pizza and swimming.

I must say I'm extremely proud of Allison and the way she's thrown herself into dance this year. She was a bit nervous during the first competition (and who wouldn't be when on stage in front of a crowd of about 1,000 people, judges sitting right in front of the stage, TV cameras, etc?). By the time Nationals came around she was like an old pro. She was clearly just having fun and enjoying herself and it really showed. And of course I let her know just how proud I was...

Heidi & Allison at the entrance.
Prior to the first dance of the day...
Stretching with the other BLDC dancers in the early morning...

Allison's Dance Recital

Today was Allison's dance recital for Body Language Dance Company at the Zeeland High School. They have these recitals once a year so you get to see alot of the non-competition dancers as well as the competition routines. Ally lucked out and got to do all of her dances in one show (her friends ended up having to be in 4 shows in one day). At the end of the recital they handed out awards. Allison received a 2nd straight perfect attendance award. She also received the Shining Star Award. That is an award handed out to one kid in each age bracket that the teachers vote on as the one that is "always ready on time, excited to be there, is a joy to teach, and makes it fun to come to class". That was quite a surprise to Heidi and I, but a nice one.

Hannah and Allison at the recital...

Showstopper Dance Competition - Battle Creek

We just returned home from Allison's second dance competition of the season. We were in Battle Creek at Kellogg Arena for the Showstopper Dance Competition. Luckily, all three of her dances were on Saturday afternoon so we didn't have to do an overnight. Grandma Anderson and Breanna were there to cheer Ally on. Allison was FAR less nervous this time around compared to her first competition. She was having a ball and even went up on stage to dance during breaks just for warm-up. The kids did a great job and ended up winning a couple trophies and medals. Allison had the honor of receiving the awards for The Shoop Shoop Song (tap). They took 1st place in the division and 10th overall for that song. They were 9th overall with their Hey Daddy (jazz). For Scooby Dooby Doo (hip hop) they took first in their division but didn't make it into the overall.

One dancer gets to receive any awards for each song and Allison was lucky enough to have the teacher pick her for The Shoop Shoop Song. When they announced it, she went up to the center of the stage and the announcer asked her a couple questions and then had her say her name and the name of her studio. She spoke up clearly into the mic so everyone could hear "Allison McDaid from Body Language Dance Company!". It was too cute! Congratulations to all the little dancers who are pretty impressive!

Also, Allison is considering doing her tap dance for the school talent show as well. We'll see if she follows through on that and does it by herself. Here are some shots from the day. Click on a picture to enlarge.

Warming-up on stage by doing "The Freeze". It's a move they do in the Scooby Doo routine...
The ending of the Scooby Dooby Doo performance... (hip hop) Allison is front & center.
The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)... (tap) Allison is on the far right.
The beginning of Hey Daddy (jazz)... Allison is on the far left.
Accepting the 1st Place award for The Shoop Shoop Song...

Allison's First Dance Competition

Ever since last fall, Allison has been practicing three dance routines for competitions:

Jazz: Hey Daddy
Hip Hop: Scooby Dooby Doo
Tap: The Shoop Shoop Song

This weekend was her first competition where her dance team performed their routines. The Talent On Parade (TOP) Kalamazoo Regional competion was held at Miller Auditorium on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. It was pretty cool to go back to the campus Heidi and I both graduated from. So much has changed since we left (about 14 years ago... yikes!!!). Anyway, Nathan was playing in a hockey tournament this weekend so after his early game Saturday morning we zipped down to Kalamazoo to catch Ally's dances. Her first routine was Hey Daddy. It's kind of a fast country number. All the girls are dressed in jean skirts, jackets, and lots of sparkles. Her whole group did a great job. We could tell she was pretty nervous. Who wouldn't be nervous performing for the first time in a giant auditorium with tons of people, judges, photographers, and videographers watching?!. But she kept smiling at the judges during the whole routine and looked like she had fun. Even with all that she did great.

What was really funny was I think Nathan was more nervous for her than Heidi and I put together!! He was always asking when Ally was up and when she was coming up he would get all serious and focused hoping she did good. How cute!

The second routine she did was Scooby Dooby Doo. It is a hip hop mix. The girls wear white hoodies with Scooby Doo airbrushed on the back along with white tennis shoes and visors and a purple sparkled skirt. During this dance, Ally looked less nervous and was clearly starting to get a little comfortable. The last number was her tap dance. The girls wore very poofy skirts with bright pink and even more sparkle. By this time, Ally didn't look nervous at all and did great! I think this was their best performance of the three. It's funny... there were probably about 20 girls in the routine and I didn't ever watch any of the other ones. At the end, her groups did well in the scoring and won some awards. She brought home six ribbons. But I'd be lying if I tried to say I understood them. I don't know if they took 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in anything. Everything was "First place", "Top First", and "Elite Top First" whatever those mean. In addition they also won awards for overall categories. Hopefully the instructors can explain how that all works this week at practice so we at least know what they're shooting for. But for a first competition it seemed to me like they all did a great job. We've got a few weeks before the Battle Creek competition. Here are some pictures of Allison back stage before the performances.

"Hey Daddy" - Jazz

"Scooby Dooby Doo!"

"The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)"

Jenison Junior Wildcat Dancers

Allison can't seem to get enough of dancing right now. Aside from her competition routines, she learned another one this week. The Jenison High School Varsity Dance Team held a fundraiser that allowed the girls to learn a routine in about 2 hours on Monday night and then perform it at halftime of the varsity basketball game tonight (Thursday). This is similar to what they did during football season when they performed at halftime of a football game. If you ask me, they do pretty well considering they learned it all in only 2 hours. I've posted a video of the performance on our YouTube channel.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PERFORMANCE!

We've also gotten some sneak peeks at Allison's three competition routines and they're looking pretty good. They're coming down the home stretch for her competition dances with Body Language Dance Company. Her first competition is the first weekend in March. She's been getting a little nervous about the competitions but she seems like she's getting over it especially after tonight's performance. She had a lot of fun! Enjoy!

Allison with some of her friends before the performance...

Blast From The Past

As promised, here's a little gem I stumbled across while backing up photos from the computer. This is a video clip from Pat & Anna Weiss' wedding reception back in August of 2005. Allison was a dancing machine at the reception and had us all stunned. She was only three at the time but she clearly has some rhythm... Enjoy!

Just Checking In...

With everything that's been going on lately, I haven't had a chance to update with what we've been up to. Basically, we've stayed busy doing the same things we've been doing the last couple months: work, school, dance, and hockey.

Parent-teacher conferences went well and both of the kids are doing a good job keeping up with their school work.

We finally got to put up our Christmas tree last week. Traditionally, Heidi insists that we go get it the day after Thanksgiving. But this year, we were in Lansing for the tournament so that didn't work out. But fear not, it's up along with the lights and endless decorations. I still can't believe Christmas is in two short weeks. Where does the time go!?

Allison is enjoying her dance practices and is getting ready for her competitions coming up in March and June. She may also be performing at Festival in downtown Grand Rapids but no details on that yet. She's competing in three different routines: tap, jazz, and hip-hop. I don't know how she keeps all those moves straight. When you see her, have her show you the "freeze" move they do in hip-hop... too funny. Heidi has been able to see her do the jazz routine a couple times and said she does really well. I guess I'll have to wait until the competitions to see it. Also, stay tuned 'cause I've got a really cool "blast from the past" to post soon...

Nathan is having a great time with his hockey team. I think he really has a good time with his teammates. Since the Lansing tournament, the team beat Southside 4-2 and then travelled back to Lansing and dropped another game to Capital Pride 2-4 on Sunday. This week has been the play-down against the other HAWK teams to see who will go to the district tournaments. Monday, we beat Hawk #2 3-1 and tonight beat Hawk #3 6-2 so we'll be heading to the district tournament at the end of the season. That's about all I know about that at this point. Overall, the kids are really starting to skate as a team and play aggressive hockey. I just commented to Heidi at tonights game that Nathan has been improving every game over the past month. And it's showing. He's got 5 assists in the last 4 games.

Dance Like Nobody's Watching...

That's what Allison's T-shirt said this morning. How appropriate! Allison signed up for a one night "dance camp" at school on Wednesday night led by the Jenison High School dance team. And today, all the girls got to do a performance at halftime of the cub football game at the Jenison High School football stadium. They danced to the Hannah Montana song Rock Star. I have to say for only practicing for 2 and a half hours, I was pretty impressed with the routine. Allison loved it. The girl has got some rhythm. After the dance, we headed over to the next field to see a couple other cub football games for kids we know. It was a really nice day and we even got a little sun burn! Crazy. Here are some pictures of the big day...

Warming up & last minute practice...
The big moment... (Click to enlarge. Allison is in front just to the right of the 50 yard line. Look for the long white sleeves)

Let the craziness begin...

Sorry for the delay in posting. But we've been trying to get back into the school groove and everything that comes along with it. The kids are back at school now. Nathan is in 4th grade and Allison is in 1st grade at Bauerwood Elementary. They both really like their teachers and are getting off to a good start in class. In addition to school, Allison is in dance at Body Language Dance Company and Nathan is playing hockey for HAWK.

Allison is doing a tap, jazz, and hip-hop routine and will get to compete at a few competitions this year. She definitely loves to dance! We don't have specifics on any of the competitions yet but one may be in Grand Rapids, one in Kalamazoo, and possibly one in Detroit or Chicago. I know nothing about dance but I did get to help teach her how to do "the worm" for her hip-hop class. How funny! Who would have thought that would come in handy after the breakdance craze of the 80's fizzled out!?

After the draft/tryout skates a couple weeks ago, Nathan got to meet his coaches and team. He's on the HAWK Squirt #1 team. Home rink is Walker Ice & Fitness. This is considered a "house" team but they'll be travelling around the west side of the state playing quite a few games. It sounds like he'll be playing from Holland to Lansing, from Kalamazoo to Cadillac to Ludington. Practices have started and there are even a few home games slotted on the schedule so far. You can view the latest schedule here (just make sure you're looking at the Squirt #1 Team schedule). The schedule and opponents are in the process of being put together right now. But the game on October 4th is coming up quickly.

It should be a busy (but fun) winter with all the activities going on....

Dance Camps

This past week was very busy for everyone. Allison had a 3-day dance camp. On top of that, cousin Breanna was staying with us for a few days and her and Allison went to another dance camp at Body Language Dance Company. There was a lot of practicing going on at night. Aside from the dancing, the girls made crafts, painted nails, and met some new friends. Here is a picture of the girls with thier nails painted and a video clip of their dance routine. Allison is in the bright blue shirt. Breanna is in the far corner in the light purple shirt. Sorry for the low-quality video but it's a big download...