Note: The above picture is of the entire Competitive Dance Troupe in their Production costumes (all the 80-something girls are in Production!). They took this group pic to send to the younger sister of one of the dancers who is battling a cancerous brain tumour. She is only 4 years old, and the girls/studio/parents have done various fundraising activites to help support her family at this time. Cassie is in the bottom row, under the Double-L.
April 20-22 we went to Niagra Falls for the CDMA (Canadian Dance Masters of America) Competition which is considered our "big" competition. It is large in that it involves several days, several other studios, workshops, etc. We always turn this weekend into a mini-vacation for the family. We stayed at a Best Western with a really great pool area, and did some of the typical tourist-y stuff. Cassie danced well, although they didn't place as high as they did in the last competition, in part due to some "turmoil" within our studio, which I really don't want to get into here. The girls still did pretty good, scoring a High Gold (94 & up)for Production, and she got 3 High Silvers (85 - 88.9) for her other dances.
On Friday afternoon, we went shopping at the Outlet Mall down the road from the hotel and were able to score a few deals, and couldn't just pass by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory without buying a sampling of a few things! We made sure to go down to the Falls and check out some of shops on Saturday (the Hershey and Coke stores are always on our list of "must-sees"!), and we scoped out some off the attractions. Sunday morning, the kids had a blast posing with celebs at Louis Taussaud's Wax Museum, and checking out all the weirdness at Ripley's Believe it or Not.
The best "line" of the weekend was from Noah (who else?!) after Cassie finished dancing Production on Sunday afternoon. For those not in the know, comps are broken into sections and adjudication occurs at various points in the day after each section. As soon as Cassie's group left the stage, Noah turned to our friends' son, who was seated behind us, and says rather loudly: "I can't believe Cassie didn't win AGAIN! Well, at least she got a High Silver for 'Lucy' [her Jazz number] yesterday." Hehe! At least we know he supports his big sis...even though the scores weren't even in yet!
