Family

My life often goes through phases of various themes. The current one is of family. Not simply the family I was born into but all the self-created families I have been so blessed to find myself in mostly since coming to Augie.

My grandparents recently celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Neither of them are ever very giddy. That is definitely not a prominent emotion for them but on September 8 of this year and from what I have heard of the same day in '62 they were thrilled beyond belief. When I talked to my grandpa after quite the lengthy conversation with my grandma, he said in his typical grandpa-like manner, "It's been good. It was a beautiful fall day just like it was 50 years ago. I am glad I had your grandma all these years." Lovely.

One of my many Augie families is the Vikettes. My lovely group of dancers. There are only nine of us but we truly love that we get to practice and perform together, but more importantly we have become a unit and know how to be there for each other. Whether we are jumping up and down in excitement for each other or eating wallowing waffles (or wings) we know how to be a family.

One for the Team

I love early Saturday mornings during football season, being out there in the middle of the field in a silent stadium. Its just me and my teammates doing what we do best. There is the occasional glare of sunlight off the glass press box or the eager longtime fan waiting outside the entrance gate with his foam finger and body paint meticulously applied. Our coach lovingly barks drills and we mentally prepare ourselves to perform to our best abilities later that afternoon.

And then we take off our dance shoes, shake out the turf pebbles from our worn pompoms and apply our Ole tattoos on our cheek and spritz our hair one last time with a coat of hairspray.

Ok so it may only seem like I am at football games for the dance team but I do appreciate the camaraderie that a college football team ignites.

This article, "10 Colleges with the Most Powerful Coaches" was sent to me by onlinecolleges.net and can be found here: http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/07/17/10-colleges-with-the-most-powerful-coaches/. It is quite intriguing. Coaches take on a different persona than anyone else involved on a college campus and what makes the good ones, good is inspiring and hopefully can mirror the values of the college.

Dance Family

These pictures from pre-season of dance team this summer recently resurfaced. Back in August we weren't the team we are now. Now we love spending every game together, eating walking tacos and talking about life. We send each other texts at midnight after a really great date and we have "un-hygenic" breakfasts in the wee hours of the morning. Just as I have my family within Solberg, I have my dance team family and I truly love these girls!

Dancing Queen

Many of my conversations during the past couple days have expressed my love of ballet. I even found a video of Stephen Colbert joining the Nutcracker pas de deux! Since my first week at Augie as a freshman I have been on the dance team but I miss ballet so-much-so that I whipped out a tour jeté in my dorm room before climbing into my loft last night. Now this afternoon, before I delve seriously into studying for the Chemistry test that is looming over me, I threw my hair into a ballerina bun, winged my eyeliner, dug out my pointe shoes and listened to the Nutcracker suite. I might always study like this.

Born This Way

My third year on the Augie Dance Team has officially begun. Over the weekend we had our first performance at the first Augie football game of the season. I struggled last year trying to figure out if I wanted to do it for a third year. If you haven't noticed, I am a fairly busy person. At basically the very last minute I decided to try out again and I am so glad I did.

I am the girl with all the hair in her face

Me and Emily: one of my lovely Solberg 1N girls from last year 

I have been involved in dance since I was five years old. Our halftime performance this weekend was to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." I found this very serendipitous because when I was a very little girl I only ever walked on my tip toes and I spent most of my childhood dancing through grocery stores.

Just Dance

I have danced on the stages of the Orpheum, The Washington Pavilion, football fields, basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, wrestling practice rooms, backyards, Becca's basement, grocery stores, my grandparent's deck, dorm rooms -mine and other's- the O'Gorman parking lot, on a cruise ship, roofs, ice rinks, lakes, and now my newest dance stage is my car. Who knew that driving in a car while dancing would be the greatest thing ever? Also, I am sure all of Spearfish is growing aware of the solo dance parties in the little blue car. They are probably all jealous.

Don't Be Fancy, Just Get Dancey

Last night was one of the best nights ever. My cousins are staying at Grandma and Grandpa's this week so of course being the good big cousin that I am, I have all sorts of fun things planned. I learned that the four-year-old loves dance parties so much so that she even raises her voice when she says we are going to partaaaaaaaaaay! That's exactly what we did. The two of us girls had a dance party to the likes of Katy Perry and Pink and the little girl knows every word to 'Firework' and 'Raise Your Glass.' We topped off the night with a more kid-friendly reading of 'The Cat in the Hat.'

I am fairly certain dance parties and jumping on the bed will be an adequate replacement to my normal workouts for the week!

Also, don't be surprised when most of the postings this week are about the adventures I have with my cousins!