It was soooooo nice to have that 3 day weekend!  I know for a lot of peeps, this is the first week of school.  But for us it was week 3-and man did I love that 3 day weekend.  No dance, nada!  And guess what we did? Nada.  Unfortunately-it was so hot and we were really tired and exhausted.  Today we had our first "fall-like" weather.  It briefly got up to 74, but most of the day was around 70.  Heavenly!

Tomorrow morning we have to go up to the mountains for another irish dance competition.  Tomorrow is day 1, and my champion, the small one dances.  I worked on her dress last week adding more bling and I'm really thrilled with how it turned out.  First of all, my mother recreated the dress in July.  The skirt that was made with the dress never really made me happy.  It was floppy and never looked quite right.  When I read that the ultimate placing in championship includes things like how your dress looks (totally wrong and unfair BTW),  I knew it was holding her back.  (Her teacher had made a comment that lead me to believe that anyway)  My Mom made a modernized pleated skirt bottom and it looks so awesome!  But then that called attention to the boring top!  So I blinged it up for the last competition but knew it needed more.  I know the picture of the "finished" is out of focus, but it helps to show more the affect you get from the stage.

Anyway.  Little one is on tomorrow and I hope that she has a really good day.  I will try to get some good pictures, particularly if she has a good dancing day.

This week started a huge new change for my oldest-she made it in her middle schools' Chamber Orchestra.  It's a small group of kids, 10 maybe?  And they do advanced music at a fast pace.  The kicker is that she has to be at school at *7* to practice two days a week.  She is not a morning person, and getting her out the door at 7 is bad enough for regular school!  But she did it twice and loved it.  She even said that she wished they had Chamber on Friday too.  Very sweet.  It's nice to see her passionate about something!

My little one had her 10 year check up today (she has asthma and we have to keep her physical current so that she can take her inhaler to school).  Anyway-they had to prick her finger and check her cholesterol!  :(  She is very brave, hardly even flinches at shots (since she was little), but she said this hurt!  She didn't cry or anything, but was not happy.

Well tomorrow is a long day, over an hour drive up and back, then a repeat on Sunday afternoon for my oldest!  We found out that they were supposed to do some dancing at 9 (teams), but then we'd be stuck there for at least 4 hrs before oldest danced so we are blowing off team stuff.  Her teacher won't be there and kind of said, "do if it you want to".  We're out $20 for that but I think it will be worth it!