Nationals Review

A picture of the Dolphin Hotel

We're back from our exciting trip! Selena and I had never been on a plane before, so we were excited as we got onto the airplane with our dance friends the Clines, who were with us on all of our flights. We thought that it wouldn't be so cramped though :S

After getting to the airport in Atlanta, we hauled our stuff around finding our gate....then we had to wait for a reeeaally long time for some people who were late. By the time we got to Orlando, it was about 10:00 their time. After getting the Cline's rental cars we drove for about an hour to the hotel, the Disney Swan!! We got up to our room and were surprised to see that there was 1 bed and a pull out couch. Not what we wanted. We dealt with it for the night because it was about 12:30 and we were all exhausted. Next morning we got moved to a nice big room, where we stayed for the rest of our vacation (if you can call it that).

Later we went to check out the venue and watch some of our other dancers, practice, and go to awards.

Sunday was my day to dance. I did a good hardshoe round and was about halfway through my softshoe dance when I landed a leap wrong and rolled my ankle. :( I got do to it again but it obviously wasn't as good because I was in pain. If I hadn't have fallen, I probably could have recalled but I didn't....well, I have an excuse at least. :P Really, I was actually glad because I couldn't have done anything well the way my ankle was. So I was ok with it...and we had a fun rest of the day on the Boardwalk and at awards.

Monday we slept in and went to Downtown Disney to shop a little bit, we went to the pool which was SOO cool, Selena stubbed her toe on some kind of rock making it turn black and blue, and so we had to deal with that. She had a practice later that night and we retired for the night. Tuesday: We got up early and got Sese warmed up. I was so nervous I had to walk around with a friend because I couldn't stand the tension next to the stage. Her hardshoe round was great, although she sort of ran out of energy in the last step. Softshoe was the best she's done this year, and we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the recalls to be announced, so Selena went to the bathroom and I went off to find my teacher. I came back and she was warming up with Fauna again. "???" Turns out that she made it (the recall) while she was still in the restroom and I running around! :) We were very happy and I sort of felt like she made up me not recalling by her doing so. She danced a good set and we rested as we waited for awards...well, I went up to the room and they stayed. =P Sese placed 36th!! We were just happy that she recalled her first time going. See a picture from Shamrock Photo HERE.

Wednesday: After a long wait and a long drive, we made it to the airport and flew back to Atlanta. It seemed a lot more boring coming home...well, maybe that was because I didn't bother to get anything out of my "stuff-to-do" bag. We waited in Atlanta for a while but it was shorter than the first flight...finally we got back home!!! It was so nice to be in MN again. :) Mom made an album of the trip you can view here. Enjoy! I might post some more here later....pics and news from last weekend's feis coming VERY SOON, I PROMISE!!!

:)
~Sonja~