Today was Julia's end of the year dance team celebration. Crazy how fast this freshman year went by.
Julia and Emma...
Coach Nikki only gave out four awards this year and Julia got one of them. She got "Rookie of the Year"!! Nikki had such nice things to say about Julia...
We won the lottery ticket raffle basket...
The four that won awards...
So proud of my girl!! What a fabulous year she had on the team! Looking forward to next year!!
We took a quick trip to Florida with Nicholas and Gianna to look at two colleges. First up was Florida Gulf Coast in Fort Myers...
We loved it! Just a gorgeous campus! All the classroom buildings are located together right in the heart of the campus all within walking distance of each other. I just loved everything about this college.
These are the freshman dorms...are you kidding me??? They have a pool!!
And the upper classroom dorms are on a lake!! I mean...come on...
Who wouldn't want to go there?? Nicholas wasn't thrilled with the idea of going to college in Florida at first...but after seeing this campus he went right back to his computer and finished his application process. Unfortunately though he found out he won't be able to go there because they are not SAT optional. They are one of the very few colleges left that require SAT's. But it may still be an option for Gianna.
Then the next day we went here...
Very impressive! It's amazing how different these two colleges are from each other.
Beach volleyball courts right on campus as well as a pool of course...
Nicholas was super excited about U Tampa!! The only problem is their housing situation. It's not guaranteed so we'll have to wait and see if he gets a place to live. He's already accepted and received a nice merit scholarship. He has two more colleges he's checking out over the next few weeks before he makes his final decision on May 1st.
We enjoyed our VRBO community pool each day. This was my view from my chair...ahhhhh...the weather was gorgeous while we were there...
One night we went to a Tampa Lightening game...and what a game it was! They won in overtime...
My kind of porch...
We went to Top Golf...and I was terrible at it but still had fun...
I missed Julia so much on this trip as she couldn't come with us because of school : ( but she joined us via Facetime to watch us play...
This boy did really well at the babysitters while we were gone. If he knew how to behave with his brothers he could stay home...but that's not the case...
Fingers are crossed that Nicholas gets housing at U Tampa!!
We had a lot of fun at Starpower yesterday. Here's what I loved...all Gianna's dances were on one day during very reasonable hours of 1:00 - 6:30 p.m., the stage was really big so all our dances looked better and she danced great and was happy with herself. Here's what I didn't love...the ballroom was way too small with not enough seating, the venue was so ridiculously crowded, the dressing rooms were on the 10th floor so you had to grab an elevator, and they were tiny rooms that couldn't fit all the kids and moms. There were rack 'n rolls literally everywhere you looked. It all worked out though once we got the lay of the land. Nothing was back to back so that was good.
And I took three pictures. Yes three. Oh well. Sometimes it's just way too difficult to take pictures at competitions.
All Gianna's dances won 5 star elite and here were the placements...
Wonderland 3rd place grand line (our junior acro The Birds placed 1st)
Moulin Rouge 1st place (teen large group) - out of 26 teen large groups
The Village 3rd place (senior large group) - out of 24 senior large groups
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