St Louis Highland Games

Friday night the girls & I left for St Louis for their last Highland Dance competition of the year. We stayed at the Marriott hotel (WOW!!) b/c it had a wonderful discount for competitors of the Games this year. The girls were soo enchanted by how fancy everything was!! We got in the hotel about 8:30, and ate some dessert w/ another family who was also dancing on Saturday. Afterwards the girls went swimming in the indoor pool (coolest pool according to Katie b/c it had a huge glas partition separating it from an outside pool & inside pool. The next morning we had room service delivered to the room. Since there wasn't a McDonald's or another breakfast place around the hotel, we had to do something about b-fast. I noticed a kids breakfast was only $3.95, and had two eggs, fruit cup, hashbrowns, bacon & juice/milk == so we had a healthier breakfast than if we had donuts. :)

Saturday we left for the games. The games was in the Forest Park, which is a beautiful area in St Louis == where the zoo is, as well as a Natural History Musuem, etc. There were so many joggers, walkers, parachuters (yep, hang gliders?) -- it was really neat. Maddie went first in her competition, and had a hard time w/ her first dance, 16 pas de basques. She didn't really want to go up (nerves probably?), and of course the piper was moving along quite quickly for the speed of the music, so it threw her and a few other dancers completely off. She did her three dances, and they were then awarded: she got two second places and a fourth. Yay for Maddie!! After dancing, she changed into her capris, and commenced to climbing on the stands like a monkey. The thrill of her day.

Katie was next .... she is still a beginner, and so she was placed in the 8 and up age group for beginners, which had 10 dancers. The majority of the dancers were in their teens ... and VERY good too. The weather was so hot, sun was so strong and hot .... I felt bad for all the dancers. The organization for this competition didn't do a great job, and had hot bottled water for the girls, so they had nothing cold to drink. Anyways, Katie did 4 dances, and did a fantastic job!! Her teacher was there watching as well, and is also a judge around the US for other competitions. She was keeping tabs on who should win the medals, etc. Katie won first place for ALL her dances!! PLUS she won the Best Dancer Award for her age group!! YAY for Katie!! She was so proud of herself. I told her to do her personal best and have fun. Her teacher told us after the competition Katie was the best dancer out of all of them in her group!

We tried to go to the zoo after the competition, but it was SOOO packed, that we couldn't get it. We went on home and made it in good time. I think I'm all High School Musical'd out, if that makes sense. :) That's all we listened to on the way home. SIGH I've got "I'm Fabulous" running through my head at all hours of the day ....

This week the highlight will be Katie and her play == on the 11th. :D Her first play for that day is at 2:45 and then the other is at 7:00.