Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there! This Thanksgiving I have so much to be grateful for.

1. My God
2. My family (this includes my loveable fur-baby, Snowball)
3. My friends
4. My jobs
5. My class
6. The great family/work trip I just took (read more below)
7. Three Golden Apple Teacher nominations
8. Facebook so I can keep in touch with family and friends spread far and wide
9. Time off
10. The holiday season
11.  LIFE!
12. All the goodness God has given us...
13. And more things than I can even think of.

 Work/Family Trip

    This week I went to Orlando for a combined work/family trip. Over the weekend we attended a wonderful dance convention called Dance Revolution. It is a faith-based dance convention, but the steps and technique and joy brought to the kids is just amazing. My acro team go rave reviews! It was their debut performance. But, what brought me to tears of joy was my little niece (ok she's really a thrid cousin, but we think of ourselves as "aunt" and "niece" - easier for her to understand) won a scholarship to go back next year - only one from our studio and only one in her age division. SOOOOO PROUD of her. This is only her 2nd year of dance. The scholarship was based on her attitude, work ethic, and skills in classes. :) She was wonderful. This little girl has come so far in the short time she has been dancing...she used to be shake when someone she didn't know would try to talk to her; this weekend she RAN up on stage all by herself in front of probably a thousand people to accept her award. NEVER would have happened without finding confidence from her Lord and in the love of the teachers/owner of our studio and all the friends she has made there.
    On the family front, after Dance Rev, we met up at Universal and enjoyed some great family time. Would have been better if we weren't all so sick and it hadn't been so blastedly cold in Orlando. Forgot how much cooler it can be there than in this area. It was ridiculously cool, but we still had an enjoyable time. Looking forward to maybe going back up for my birthday since we got an amazing price on tickets - $115 for 2 park unlimited until Jan. 31. This is the first time my birthday has fallen over winter break in a long time, so it would be fun to get to do something for it.

Kayla with her two favorite Dance Rev teachers - Ms. Misty & Ms. May Beth.

Harry Potter Land - can't believe it is still so crowded there

My first and probably last Butterbeer - way too sweet & way too expensive, but after reading all the Harry Potter books I had to try it for the experience

My LOWEST score on Men in Black ride...when I lived in Orlando I used to ride this ride like 10 times in a row at least, I was addicted to it - what can I say, I am ultra-competitive - was happy to see after 7 years of not riding this ride, I still had this skills; however it killed my hand