Struttin' their stuff

Once again, Kaiya and Kinley kept us super busy this weekend. Kaiya had a meet clear down in Castle Rock on Saturday night and Kinley had a 6-hr dance workshop in Longmont. When it was all over, Kaiya told me she wishes she would have just enrolled in the dance workshop instead. Yeah . . . it was that bad.

We were excited about this meet because it was small and looked to be a quick and easy meet. Her coaches picked it for that very reason. It turned out to be a JOKE. The gym backed up to some railroad tracks that had loud trains rolling through in the middle of the meet, there was NO seating for families, it started an hour late, and the judges would have been better suited to judging pies at a county fair. So frustrating! BUT, Miss Kaiya hit 4 for 4 routines and felt so good about her performance that we are going to take it and run! She started on bars and did the same great routine she has done all year and scored a 7.10 (that scored a 9.0 two weeks ago). I thought her coach was going to go postal! After the rotation was over, she walked over to the judge with Kaiya in tow (which is not like her coach at all) and demanded an explanation, showing her the code of points that showed she was wrong. Turns out the judge just finished her training and had all these laminated cheat sheets in front of her and had NO clue what she was doing. I really thought her coach was going to just take our girls and walk out.

I was so proud of Kaiya, though, because she shook it off (realizing there is nothing you can do about a bad judge) and nailed her beam routine. She finally stuck one and she was all grins. This girl has worked so dang hard on that stupid beam and she was so happy. She finished out with great floor routines and good vaults and ended up 5th in the all-around, but just shy of qualifying again. Ugh!! I was so proud of her for keeping her chin up and recognizing that the judges were nuts. Subjective judging in sports is NOT fun sometimes!!

Miss Kinley had the time of her life at her workshop. A professional traveling dance group called Fusion traveled to Longmont and put on a 6 hr workshop. She and her dance buddy did it together today and had a blast. I have never seen a couple of kids learn complicated dances so fast. They had 4 one hour classes and had to learn a new dance in each one. The one posted below is the hip-hop class to "Can't Touch This." So cute! Keep in mind she learned this dance in one hour and then performed it for us at the end of the day.

5th place!

"U Can't Touch This!"