Model material

Look at this girl, she's model material! Violet is SUCH a doll. I just want to hug her and give her kisses all the time. Tom took this picture and it turned out amazing. Tom is so talented and it also helps when you have someone so pretty to take pictures of :)

Leah's graduation

Leah graduated from KSU today! As staff of KSU, I was fortunate to be able to sit on the floor for the ceremony and greet her on stage after she got her diploma!

Yay! Leah and Kerry smiling for the camera.

Coaching, a profession of love

"Coaching is a profession of love. You can't coach people unless you love them."
-Eddie Robinson

I love the ladies I coach and feel very blessed to be doing something I love so much. These two dancers are my seniors this year. I've coached Nat for four seasons and Kay for two. Especially Nat, I've seen blossom from an 18 year old into a beautiful woman about to graduate college. I'm so proud of all my dancers and I'm especially proud to send these ladies off and welcome them as alumni to our program. This picture was captured on our last night at Nationals during our special team dinner. Nat and I didn't realize it was being taken but Kay, the ham smiling, knew :) They edited it and put "We will always be KSU Dancers!"

We always have an end of the season banquet for Spirit. I give the girls gifts and they give each other gifts. It's a bittersweet part of the season where we say goodbye to those that are leaving us and hello to a new season for those that are staying. I am so grateful for the gift they gave me this year...a scrapbook of the entire season. They gave me a scrapbook last season also and I selfishly hope it becomes a tradition. This book is phenomenal and they spent so much time on it. I choked up when they presented it to me. I couldn't be more thankful and here we are enjoying it.

"Less me, more WE...K, S, U know!!

Southern Lights: Atlanta Youth Cultural Celebration

The Atlanta Temple in Sandy Springs, GA was closed for renovation for nearly 2 news. When a temple is closed for construction and then re-opened, a few things occur. An open house is organized and open to the public for a couple weeks and then the temple is re-dedicated by the prophet of our church, Thomas S. Monson, allowing temple recommend holders from re-dedication forward to enter. In April 2011, our temple was reopened and re-dedicated. Customary to a temple's re-dedication is a cultural celebration by the youth of the church in that area. There are temples all over the world.

Kathy and Rene Alba were the co-directors of the show and I was asked to be one of the choreographers and cast directors for this production...and production it was. There were over 2,000 youth that participated from all over the state of Georgia and they took such pride in it. It was such a blessing to part of. The production theme was the history of Georgia with dialog and dance. It was called Southern Lights. The opening number was "Waitin' for the Light to Shine" by the youth choir (who sang a number of songs). I choreographed 4 routines: the Stomp, Salsa, Flags and Cheer. I also taught the Charleston to the youth in my area. These youth worked so hard. The whole event took months of preparation and the show was one night with a pre-show by an adult choir. The Prophet was in attendance and he took about 15 minutes to start off the evening by speaking. Truly touching and inspired. The whole event was memorable and I got to meet some fantastic people in the process. But the highlight would have to be when the Stomp received a standing ovation by not only our Prophet but the entire audience (the only group number to get a standing “O”). I was backstage the whole time so I didn’t know until after the show. I couldn’t help but get emotional from that. What we do humbly and put ourselves honestly and whole heartedly into makes a difference. The standing ovation was an added bonus but to see the pure joy and excitement that these youth had and how proud they were of themselves was amazing. Most of these youth didn’t have dance training, we made the dances simple yet effective and the teachers in their area did a phenomenal job teaching them the choreography and perfecting it. All of the choreographers taped their routines teaching with counts, performing it with music and then the reps in each area taught them. I had youth performing my particular dances from Sugar Hill, Macon, etc. Too far for me to travel multiple times a week to work on so how thankful I am to everyone for collaborating and making this a group effort for success.

Tom being so talented in his music, video and audio ways did an "I'm a Mormon" video by highlighting about 6 youth from all over the state and compiling this really neat presentation. If I can upload a video here, I will. It’s worth sharing. Tom also got to be backstage when our Prophet arrived and be one of the photographers for the event. I was back with the cast directors around the time our Prophet was arriving and shortly after, Tom came into the room with a face that I knew he just experienced something special. He pulls out his camera and shows me the pictures...amazing... I know that Thomas S. Monson is a man of God. Tom got to take pictures during the show and captured some great moments.

I am grateful for the Atlanta Temple and for the opportunity I was given to be part of this. Here is a picture of all the cast directors and assistant cast directors.

Shooting Star 2011

I'm looking forward to dancing and cheering for the WNBA Atlanta Dream Shooting Stars another season!! This time as a veteran to the team.

Rookie of the year 2010

The Atlanta Dream Shooting Stars got together one last time, before tryouts, to celebrate our 2010 season. It was a banquet and we had a good time. At the end, we had awards. I was given the award for Rookie of the year, voted on by my teammates. I felt honored. These other two teammates got awards also. Thanks stars!!

Sassy hair

Laura decided to make some changes upon returning from her mission. They came to visit GA after a few weeks of being home and one of those things was cutting off those long locks! Look at her sassy hair! It looks so good. Another is going by Lee now (her middle name).

Part puppy, part human

Is she not just squeezable!?! I love this sweet girl. She is part puppy, part human. I swear it.

Welcome home, La!!

My sister, Laura, just returned home from her 18 month mission in Belem Brazil for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What an amazing and life changing experience her mission was for her. Life in other countries, especially where she was serving was so different from what her life was like in the states before she left.

She left September 2009 and returned March 2011. When she left, she spend a couple months in Sao Paulo in what we call the CTM (Center for Training Missionaries) to learn the language, discussions, etc. Laura is a smart gal, always has been, but Portuguese is tough. She diligently studied and before long, she was fluent. Once missionaries get to the CTM and all through their mission, they have a companion and their with them always. Companionship's often change throughout the mission when transferring to different areas, new missionaries coming, etc. Her companion once she left the CTM was completely fluent in Portuguese, and Brazilian...very little English. So needless to say, when that is your only option, you learn fast. You're fully immersed in it 24/7.

She had amazing experiences, met amazing people, learned valuable lessons and went through some tough things. I could write for days about it but, I won't. We got to talk to her on Mother's Day and Christmas and email with her every Monday. Every Monday and those holiday's we got to talk with her were very special days to our family. I would cry over some letters that I wrote to her and I would cry over some letters that I got back. I was and still am so proud of her. She always had a firm and solid testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but she came home even stronger and more beautiful than when she left.

So needless to say, we missed her and were happy to welcome her home...but my parents were the ones that got to welcome her first because they now live in Virginia and Laura came home there. So what did I decide to do? Road trip with Leah and Violet to SURPRISE Laura in Virginia. My parents were in on it, too, so on a Thursday after Leah's school class and my Dance Team practice at KSU, we were off!

We drove through the night and made a pit stop at my Uncle Dean & Aunt Rebecca and family in North Carolina to stay the night and the next day. If we were going to this effort of making a 9 hour drive with a baby in the car, we were going to see as much family as we could and use every minute to the fullest capacity. We had so much with them and are so grateful they let us stay with them. Their kids, Nathaniel, Grant, Julia, Emma and Sammy are so sweet! Emma and Julia showed us some gymnastics tricks, I did Emma's hair, Sammy wowed us with video game skills and overall we're just so blessed to have loving family. Saturday morning, we left to make the last leg of the trip to Virginia. I was in touch with Mom as Laura and Dad were running errands. Fast forwarding through the fuel stops, etc. we make it to their house and park behind a tree in an attempt to hide the car. Luckily we see them eating at the dining room table and Laura's back it to the window. I documented in video, but the footage is filled with tears and so I'm choosing to keep that for myself. We sneakily move to the front door and my dad sees us walking up the driveway (we find out later he started kicking my mom under the table to get her attention..too funny!). The front door is open with the screen door. My dad passes us as we ring the doorbell and asks Laura to get it. We hear her say "sure" and no sooner than she makes eye contact with the front door than she lets out a typical Laura "squeal" and throws open the door and into the arms of me and Leah. Of course, we are choked up and I ask Laura "are you excited?" to which she replies through the tears "I'm thrilled." Mission accomplished...

So the rest of the trip is filled with random goodness, church, a trip to New Jersey to visit my Grandparents and another Uncle who hadn't met Violet yet nor seen everyone in a while. I unfortunately had to miss the New Jersey trip because I came down with something that turned out to be strep throat and my Grandparents have fragile immune systems due to health problems in the past and current recoveries, so I had to stay behind. That was the worst, but I am so glad they got to see everyone else. We left Tuesday morning for the drive home to get back to everyday life. Too bad we couldn't stay longer but that was definitely a trip that will go down in the books.

Here are a couple pictures from our weekend:

 First picture above: Grant, me, Emma, Vi/Leah and Julia (missing Nathaniel and Sammy)
 Second picture above: Uncle Dean and Aunt Rebecca

Next set of pictures:
First: Laura's tender moment putting Violet to sleep for the first time.
Second: Laura with Mom, Vi and Grandma and Grandpa
Third: 4 generations- Grandma, Mom, Leah and Violet

Alumni of the KSU Dance Team

Not only am I the head coach of the Kennesaw State University Dance Team, I am also an alumni of the program. I danced on the team for four season and was captain all four. The program is nothing like it is now, as that comes with growth of the University, talent, etc. but the program means a lot to me. In more ways than one. 

This year was the inaugural year of the alumni performance. Each year, we have an alumni basketball game and it had been a hope of mine to put an alumni routine together. So I decided to go for it. I taped myself teaching a routine, uploaded it to our youtube page and then the alumni practiced together twice to practice before the actual performance.

19 of us performed this year. It was so fantastic, I wanted to cry. It truly came full circle for me that day. Everything I do for the team, I experience on a coaching level. I LOVE what I do but to also be able to experience it as an alumni this day was really neat. The feedback was incredible to needless to say, it was the first of many to come. Many others that weren't able to participate this year plan on it for next season. There is a youtube link below the picture if you want to see the performance. We were jamming. Out of the 19 of us, there were those who hadn't danced since their college years, new mothers, mothers with more than one kid, out of towners, professional dancers, etc. Great night!

http://youtu.be/9QQ1xXy6TAk

Photoshoot

Back in November, Tom got a professional camera. A Canon T2i. It's amazing. The three of us walked around downtown Kennesaw and he took some pictures. This is one of my favorites. Snuggles xoxo