Shall we dance?

I have been in Utah this weekend watching Courtney compete at the Dansport ballroom nationals competition. It was held in the Marriott Center and it ran Wed.-Fri. It was a huge competition with thousands of ballroom dancers of all ages.

Courtney competed in Novice Latin, Prechamp Latin, Novice Standard and Prechamp Standard. (These are all new terms to me but I am starting to get them figured out.) She and her partner, Tim, did a great job. They got to the semi-finals in almost all of their events which means that they were in the top 12 out of 75 couples or so. They had hoped to place in the top 6 in Novice Standard because they had previously won that category at a couple of earlier competitions, but they didn't. So that was a little disappointing but ballroom judging is very subjective and you never really know what to expect. It really is the craziest system. When the rounds first start and the floor is filled with couples, I don't know how the judges see anything. I guess they know what they are doing but it seems very chaotic to me.

Tim Colvin and Courtney in their latin costumes:




Here is one of their latin numbers:



I feel so bad that I didn't get a picture of Tim and Courtney in their standard costume. Courtney's red dress is so pretty and she looks gorgeous in it. The costumes for ballroom are just incredible!

Here is a little quickstep:



Here is Waltz:



I could seriously just sit and watch Courtney dance all day long. She is amazing. I am sure that I was just beaming. Cali and Ashley got to come and watch for a bit with Dougie and Henry. (Cali is watching Dougie while Justin and Angelique are in Hawaii and I am watching their house which I really appreciate!) It was so much fun to have Cali and Ashley's company and it was nice for Courtney to have a little cheering section.

One of the events they had that I really enjoyed where the formation team competition. There were high school teams and younger kids as well. This is the winning high school team who are the BYU Youth team. They are high school age and they were amazing. There were lots of fun routines in this category but this is the winning team:



Ballroom is huge in Utah and they have lots of elementary school programs. It is so cute. Here is a small clip of the elementary kids all dancing together:



There were some amazing ballroom dancers that competed. There are little tiny kids who are better than the college kids. It's crazy.

My personal favorite, though, was Courtney. I am so happy that I was able to be here. (I hated to have to miss watching Kylie and Kendall compete at drill team districts but they still won - yay! All first places all season long!! And plus I get to see them at state in just a couple of weeks.) I was just so happy watching Courtney dance. It was so worth the trip. I am so proud of her and I love spending time with her.

I also got to see Brad, though he spent most of the weekend in Vegas. He and some friends went to see BYU play in a tournament there. Unfortunately BYU lost to UNLV. Dang! I think I know why, though. Cosmo (aka Russian dance pro) seemed otherwise engaged...



It was a great weekend and I love seeing my BYU kids. I am one lucky mom!