Jacksonville

 We went to Jacksonville this past weekend for a dance competition.  It was the first one of the season which, I'm not gonna lie, was a little bit scary.  Especially since a lot of the girls have never competed before.  There were some pretty good studios there, plus it only lasted one day from 9am to 8pm, which for a dance competition is short.  The girls did really well, too.  The soloists both got Golds, the little girls' group got a Gold (I think they did as well if not better then some of the older groups, but at competition my opinion doesn't count) and all of the older groups got Platinums.  My large group got 1st overall and my small group got 2nd overall!  Woo hoo!  Plus the other dances that I did with the other teachers got 1st place Line, 3rd and 5th place small group!  I know that means just about nothing to most people, but just take my word for it...they did really good.

This is my large group.

And this is all the competition girls in their 'Boot Scootin' costumes.  Cute costumes, right?  I can not even begin to explain the controversy that those things caused.  We are not dressing them to go to church, we are dressing them to compete as dancers.  I just hope that all the parents noticed some of the costumes that the other studios had because this is just how it is.  Everyone looked cute, there was no flab or cellulite hanging out, they looked classy and awesome.

Oh yeah, and Nick and Alexa came with me to Jacksonville.  Let me just tell you how crazy it was to get Hot Stuff to sleep on Friday night.  We drove there after Nick got out of work, so we got to the hotel right around her bed time.  We set up the pack-n-play, put on PJs, read our books, tried to put her down and then the screaming began.  I understand that it was a strange room and she was scared so we didn't get irritated.  Plus, she is usually great at bedtime.  We put her in her crib and if she cries, it's only for a few seconds before she puts herself to sleep.  Well, in that hotel room, she just couldn't handle herself.  Let's just say that, finally, at 9:00 she was asleep in the bed with me.  We eventually moved her over to the pack-n-play and she slept most of the night in there (minus one more hour in the bed because she was woken up by the crazy drunk lady across the hall).  Her lack of good sleep on Friday night plus a crappy nap on Saturday led to her asking to go to bed on Saturday night.  We got back to the hotel after competition and she walked up to the pack-n-play and pointed to it.  When I asked her if she wanted to go to bed she said yes and then fell asleep immediately when I put her in.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Jacksonville Zoo.  It was raining on and off and we left around 2 to drive home but got to see a lot of animals and I think Alexa had fun.  Although I'm not too sure seeing that she had her Disney face on.  She loved the birds (of course) and had to point all of them out like a little crazy.

This bird was especially creeper.  It was huge and it was obviously not scared of people which made me obviously more scared of it.  The guy on the side of this picture actually touched it and the bird didn't move!  Creeper bird.  Alexa thought it was awesome but when we walked passed it (as far to the other side of the bridge as we could) I told it to go away and leave my baby alone.  Seriously.  I tried to take a picture of it, you know, for documentation purposes, but it turned it's ugly head away from me.  Nasty creature.  We walked by another aviary but I told Nick that I couldn't handle it again.

Instead we looked at elephants and giraffes and other animals that are kept in enclosed areas where they can't potentially attack my child.  We walked through the Florida exhibit, more for educational purposes then anything else.  That area of the zoo is like a small collection of my least favorite things.  We looked at alligators (Alexa did the Gator chomp, which I was very proud of, but I still despise those horrible animals), deer (those are OK), snakes, wolves, and bald eagles.  There was a black bear but he was hiding (just beyond our field of vision, I'm sure.  Sneaky.).  As we walked through, Nick pointed out all the cool things about the animals and I explained what to do if you ever saw one.  For example, if you ever see a snake, put your hands in the air and run away.  Of course I had to demonstrate this which caused Alexa to laugh and Nick to roll his eyes.  I'm not sure that they realized how serious I was being.  (The hands go in the air to prevent the snake from biting them.  We are assuming in this scenario that Alexa would have shoes on so her toes are more protected.  What?  When you see what happens to a kid with a snake bite then you can come talk to me about how crazy I am!)  Anyway, that part of the zoo was kind of stressful.  But the rest of it was pretty awesome.  We are going to have to go back another time because we weren't able to do about half of it (due to the rain and having to drive home).