February/March Recap

So a LOT has happened over the last 4-6 weeks. I have covered some of it in previous blogs but first things first... my mom is home from her 4-week trip! We have also pretty much completed our competition regionals for both dance and gymnastics. We are also halfway through the soccer season. We are now gearing up for our national competitions.

Just to recap and brag about the kids a little bit

Let's start with my Son:

Over the course of February and March, he has had a total of three gym meets, Paragould, Springfield, and Van Buren. Dad has handled all these gym meets and travel (like a champ might I add). I just wish dad took more photos lol.

Paragould

The Paragould Gym Meet was a success for Brozden once again. He earned overall Champion (second time this year) and placed top three in all categories. This is his first season on a competition team and I feel like he has found his passion. It doesn't flare up his Osgood Schlatter Disease too badly (soccer bothers it a lot, but he pushes through). That being said, he did sprain his ankle two days before the meet. We took him to urgent care to have it checked out to make sure it wasn't too bad. Good news, we didn't have to cut his foot off lol!

I'm so proud of him! He Loves gymnastics and has the best coach! 10 out of 10 recommend Chase at ACE's Gym in Rogers Arkansas.

Springfield Gym Meet

Ok, Springfield was another success for Brozden. He's bringing home ANOTHER Overall Champion. This will make his 3rd overall champion...out of 3!! To say I'm proud is an understatement.

Again, I missed this competition, and Kamdyn and I were in Illinois, but I did get a play-by-play from his dad. He told me that this was probably the biggest gym meet with the most gyms attending up until this point. Also, they had the girls' meet happening at the same time. This was a new one for Brozen as well. Not only did Brozden take over all champ, but he also placed top 4 in all categories and his team too first as well!

Van Buren Gym Meet

This is the first meet where Brozden competed in a new division as he was bumped up. I was a little nervous for him but he still managed to do great. Dad, however... did not get very many photos.... well more like none. Okay, okay he got ONE. I was super proud of Brozden considering he bumped up a division and still managed to bring home 2nd overall. He of course came home with many medals and in all his categories he placed top three. His medal hanger is already getting full! I guess that's a good problem to have, right? Not only did he take 2nd for overall champion, he also qualified for State, but he also had the highest scoring category of everyone, on rings. He said it was a near-perfect execution.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, I am over the moon happy that he finally found his niche and is thriving in his sport. He has something to get excited about and he does so well at it. Especially for it only being his first year competing (he's been athletic and in acro for years).

This is the only picture dad managed to get.

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Now let's recap Kamdyn's past few weeks.

Revive Competition and Convention

Revive was a first for us. Kamdyn competed her first solo bright and early Friday morning, which meant she had to travel to KC Thursday evening. Well, just because she has to be there first thing in the AM, doesn't mean I get off work. Luckily she has an AMAZING coach who goes above and beyond to make sure her dancers are taken care of and where they need to be when they need to be there. They traveled together to KC Thursday, which happened to be her coach's birthday. It was nice they got to have a little time together to celebrate over lunch. They also went to Johnson County Dance and her coach did a master class and she was one of the assistants there. Such a cool opportunity! Back to Revive!

Revive does things a little differently from most competitions/conventions that we have attended. They do their competition in the AM and the convention classes in the Pm. I personally like this layout as the dancers are not tired from going full out in classes all day and can put their best performance on stage for the judges and audience. When I say the competition in KC is on a "whole 'notha level" I mean it! They are on a whole different Caliber up there, it's amazing! That said, Kamdyn and her team held their own and kept up with the competition! Kamdyn earned a Platinum on her colo and her team brought home 9 Platinums and 2 Ultimate Platinums, 6 overall placements, AND a special judges award for "Beauty and Grace", and one of the dances was called back to perform in the closing faculty show. Best of all, our Studio brought home the Sportsmanship Award!!!!! It was such an amazing competition!

After the competition was over, the girls we on to evening convention classes. Kamdyn and two other girls from our studio were selected to be on the Revive Kansas City "City Crew" and perform in the closing faculty show. What an honor! Kamdyn also earned a scholarship, the "Dance Honors Scholarship".

As you can tell Revive was nothing short of a success and amazing, that being said, Kamdyn was fighting a cold. She called me Friday night as I was driving up to meet her at the hotel and said she wasn't feeling great, and she sounded so congested. I happened to have our "immunity pack" that I talked about in a previous post, "Burning your candle at both ends?", however, it was with me in my luggage. I was also short on a few items. So I told her I would run by Walmart when I got close to the hotel to get the last few things we needed and for her to just take a super long hot shower to try to clear up her sinus and just rest and relax. She managed to push through and not let it affect her weekend. After we made the long trek back home, I still have some paper I needed to finish up AND meal prep for the week.

Next Up, Starpower Tulsa

This weekend started out on an odd note for me, Kamdyn had shared her cold me with (or I was just sick from being exhausted). Not to mention I felt off since Brozden was attending his gym meet and I wasn't able to go watch AND I was driving the truck instead of my car (hauling props). I felt like I had been fighting this cold all week and had been exhausted all week. I finished up the last costumes Wednesday, just in time to send them home with the girls and a quick dress run in them.

Friday, Adam picked the kids up from school early since they had a long drive to Paragould, and he dropped kamdyn off at my work so we could leave straight from my office to head to Tulsa. When we arrived in Tulsa, we went straight to the venue and dropped off the props, and unloaded our luggage in our room. Kamdyn headed to the competition to watch a few soloists and I stayed in the room and took a hot shower and some Benadryl. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm super sensitive to Benadryl and normally don't take it. Well, I took two! I also normally don't miss dances if I'm there (whether my kid is in them or not)... Not Friday! I passed out like never before, and early at that! I was delirious, lol!

When Kamdyn got to our room for the night, I could hear her on the phone (she's not exactly the quietest) and at some point in time she was asking me a question... did I answer her, NOPE! lol, I might have mumbled something at her, but defiantly wasn't an answer to her question hahaha! I think she realized, Mom is out for the night and left me alone. Next thing I know, it's 4 AM, and she's up getting ready for competition. Yes, you heard me, FOUR A.M. IN THE MORNING! Now you know why I'm always so tired after comp weekend. I'm typically a super light sleeper so if she's up, I'm up. Well, I was just getting over my Benadryl drunk, but still a little foggy... defiantly not finished sleeping and still not feeling 100%. I think she felt bad so she went to the lobby and got me a warm cookie (we were at a double tree) hahaha! The thought was nice, but I don't think I ate it.

Anyways, the competition was amazing and the girls all did fantastically! Kamdyn had all her dances on one day, which meant a long day for her. All Three of her solos earned a 5 Start Elite and she placed 1st in Category for her Open piece and in the overalls. Her duet earned a % star elite, !st in Category, and 2nd overall (was beaten by 1st by 6 one-hundredths of a point!), her group dances came home with 7 5 Star Premier's, 5 5 Stars Elite's, 8 1st in Categories, 10 Overall Placements, 2 Golden Tickets, The "Strong and Powerful" Judges Choice Award, A Choreography Award AND the ADCC Studio of Excellence award! Like, Come on! They are Rock stars!

Now after 3 weekends in a row of competition, Kamdyn was starting to have some leg pain. She still had 4 more weekends of things to go. I think she was having some muscle tightness and possibly some shin splints. She's a trooper tho and pushed through it. We did take her to do some Whole body and targeted Cryo Therapy as well as some IV hydrating therapy before we left for Masquerade Competition. (I'll talk more about that later). Overuse injuries are nothing new to her. She sees a chiropractor pretty regularly for her back and hips.

Masquerade Dance

Our weekend started with some Friday prep. Kamdyn had her first cryo session and IV Therapy session. She has been suffering from some overuse pain (which as I've mentioned, she's not new to), so we decided to get it a shot and see if it works better than her normal methods of pain management. I'll do a blog dedicated to her experience later. We were able to get a session in on Friday after school as we didn't have to leave for the competition until Saturday morning. All Kamdyns dances were all going to be on Sunday but starting super early so we needed to travel the day before.

Masquerade this year was a new location for us, which means new competition. This seems to be our theme for this year. We wanted to get out of our little bubble of North West Arkansas and see some new studios. We traveled to Collinsville Illinois for this competition. Again, the caliber of the studios in the area blew my mind. That being said, again, The Dance force held their own and showed up and did amazing! The Judges were judging hard, the competition was hard, and the girls were tired after back to back to back weekends of competition, but they still did amazing!!!

Kamdyn earned all Platinums on all three Solos, Her duet earned a Platinum and placed 2nd in overalls, and she also earned a Parade of Stars invitation!! Her group dances also cleaned out. They came home with 1 High Gold, 7 Platinums, 3 Unmasked Elites, 5 Overall Placements, 2 IDA Awards, AND they Won the Encore Award. So I would say they did pretty well overall!

TNT (Triumph National Talent)

TNT is a smaller optional competition that Kamdyn chose to take her solos to. It's in the town she was born in and gave our family an opportunity to attend and watch if they wanted. It was nice to have them come and be her support system.

I also had the opportunity to watch one of my high school friend's daughter (who kamdyn has become friends with as well) compete.

I snagged This sweet photo of them backstage together. Kamdyn was hyping her up before she put her very first solo on stage! What a sweet moment, and let me just say, she did absolutely amazing and I was so proud!

Pittsburg Is where we are from and where the kids were born so it's neat to be able to drive her around and show her where we used to live and where she was born. We went and ate at some of my favorite spots, which are super nostalgic for me... she was NOT impressed hahahahaha! It's safe to say that Pittsburg is not on her bucket list of places she loves to visit, but that being said, she likes to see her friend when we can. While going to Pittsburg is a little bittersweet for me, as I have many memories I wish I could forget, its been fun to create new happy memories in that town with people I care about, people who have been in my life since high school (and still are) or longer, and new people who have recently come into my life.

We only had a few of our mini and petite dances come. They also did amazing! They brought home a Judge's choice award, four top 3 overall placements, 3 high point awards, 2 platinum, and a gold award! One group dance also got to perform in the Encore performance.

Kamdyn also cleaned out. Her Open Solo earned a Platinum Adjudication, Lyrical earned a judges choice award titled "Legs for Days!", Platinum adjudication with High Pint (which means it was the highest scoring in the category), and 2nd runner up for Miss Southern Sweetie Title, her Jazz dance earned a Platinum with high point (highest scoring in category), 2nd overall placement and she won the Explosive Entertainer award. She also earned a TNT performance invitation to perform in their Nationals performance team.

I didn't take many photos this weekend but I did manage to snag a few of her with her winnings and on stage. I also made her let me get a photo before she danced lol.

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Now that our month and a half of weekends straight traveling for competition, I feel like we can breathe a little bit. Next weekend Kamdyn has a photo shoot (which I can't wait to share those with you), but that will be an easy day and we will only be gone for a few hours. Kamdyn is almost coming up on a few-week break. We still have Tulsa Tremaine at the end of spring break and then she will have a week off I believe. While I love traveling and I love watching Kamdyn compete and all the other girls at our studio, I do miss my time with my son.

Brozden is done with all his regional competition for the season and only has State left. Now we are moving into soccer season! I'm telling you, it's never-ending with the kids, but they love it so I can't complain that they are active. Soccer season isn't too demanding, so it's easier for us to manage and handle. I enjoy it because I can watch him on Thursday evenings at practice and games. Thye end late so that's a little harder on him since he's not used to getting home late, so he tends to be a little groggy the next morning but it's still fun to watch him. I always worry about him and soccer with his legs, but he just pushes through and never complains.

Well, I guess this blog has run long enough. I think I'm going to end it here. I'll catch yall up on Tramine and Soccer don't the next blog. I'm trying to stay ahead of the game and I feel like life is starting to calm down just a smidge, so I'm going to use time wisely. As always, thanks for reading!

-Rothrock Mom