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Wednesday, November 22, 2017

cheer competitions are our jam(z)

the bean and i slept in a little on competition morning - at least, a bit more than we would have had we been driving down to anaheim instead of waking up right next to the convention center.  while she laid in bed watching saturday morning cartoons (which are really just regular ol' cartoons because the damn things are on 24/7 nowadays), i hopped into the shower and found this creepy message she'd left for me the night before.


she's such a weirdo.

after taking care of all the hair teasing and glitter makeup and doing my best to recreate the old lady's perfect red lip from the week before, we got dressed and packed up all our stuff.


the lobby was cheerleader central.  and this was just our team!


she was going through some major pre-competition jitters, but you'd never know it by looking at her.


once everyone had arrived, they lined up and began the short walk out of the hotel and over to check-in.


$15 gets you entry to the arena and this sweet wristband.


the first (early!) session was almost done when we got inside and found seats on the upper level.


and then when awards had been handed out, we parents worked together to secure seats down on the lower level right in front of the mats for the team, coaches and all of the supporters.  the bean ended up sitting right behind me.


one of the cheer teams who has been really helpful and supportive of our coaches and their brand new team sent over a cute little care package with a sweet "good luck" note.  and so whenever one of their squads went up to perform our girls headed down to the floor and showed 'em some love.


i always find it really entertaining to watch all of the other teams show off their routines during these things.  i know it's mostly because i only got to be a cheerleader for one semester in high school, womp womp.  but really though - the moves and stunts that these cheerleaders do these days are on a whole other level than what we used to do back in 1987.  it's definitely much more of a sport these days.

by the way, this is my biggest nightmare - do you see that little brown thing on the floor?  well, as we watch these performances it's not uncommon to see a random shoe come off of someone's foot.  but this...this was someone's HAIRPIECE that came off of their head during their routine.  yikes.


and then finally, it was the bean's turn to strut her stuff.  that's her little head right underneath the left side of the A.


they went through the whole 2:31 routine without any missteps.  no one fell, everyone's shoes stayed on their feet and they were all in sync the entire time.


and with that over with, we went outside with the hub to check out what was available for lunch.  there were lots of concession stands open, as well as a few food trucks that were parked just outside the doors.  and of course, we took a couple of selfies with our little cheerleader.



she paused on the way back into the arena to see where our third team was on the schedule posted just outside of the entrance.


so this time, our younger team ("hope") was up against five other squads while the advanced team ("inspire")had four competitors.  the bean's intermediate team ("believe") only had one other squad to compete against, so we had a 50/50 chance at first place.  and unlike last week's competition, jamz is super organized and while we were still a little bit behind schedule, it wasn't by much.  we didn't have to wait too long to hear the results - while hope and inspire both took second place, believe managed to beat out the other team to take first.  much excite.


yay for first place!


we'd discussed heading over to disneyland after it was all done, and i'd told her that i was leaving it up to her to make the final decision.  i knew she was pretty wiped out after the long day, and as much as i wanted to grab some holiday treats and soak in some disney magic i was feeling a little ragged myself.  i never sleep well when the hub isn't with me, which i know is kinda lame, but it's true.  so when she decided she wanted to go home and just relax, i was pretty relieved.  we stopped in the restroom at the hotel to get her out of her uniform, clean her face and brush her hair out.


and it wasn't too long before i turned around and saw this:


two competitions down, seven more to go between now and march.  i hope i can survive it.

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