Monday, February 16, 2009

Jump

We spent this past weekend in Dearborn to attend a dance convention with Emily and her teammates from the Extreme Dance Arts center. The dance convention is hosted by the company "Jump - The Alternative Convention". We had a long but fun filled weekend, which almost wasn't!

On Friday, Emily didn't have school so she went to work with me. Right before we left the house she said her stomach was upset, but that was it. I checked her forehead, but it wasn't warm at all. During the morning, she sat at the computer all droopy eyed. Then, around lunch time, she started to get sick and began throwing up in the bathroom! After she was done, she went back to my classroom and laid down on a mat to rest while my students were eating lunch. She laid there for most of the day and periodically continued to get sick! My students were so awesome, as I was having a difficult time with the smell! We all know how I am about smells:) One of them even told me, "Mrs. Bojo you can walk away, I'll take care of Emily." And a different one took care of getting rid of the trash bags filled with unpleasantness, as well! They were so sweet!

Anyways, after work, Dennis and I decided to head down to Dearborn anyways, praying it was only a 24 hour bug. She continued to get sick in the car on the way down, as well! We got down there around 7pm and headed out to dinner at Red Robin. During dinner, Emily finally started to perk up, as she began to get mad that she hadn't eaten all day. She finally ate some carrots and Gatorade, so I knew she was starting to feel good.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, scouted out where Emily would need to be the next morning, and then headed to bed, as we had to be at the welcome meeting at 7:45a.m.

The welcome meeting went great, as they introduced the dance teachers for the weekend. The teachers that Emily would be working with were: Mandy Moore, who choreographs for American Idol and has been on the Drew Carey show, Misha Gabriel who has danced and choreographed for Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, Mike Minery who produced the off Broadway show "Slide", Kim McSwain who has worked with Britnay Spears and NSync, Doug Caldwell who has worked in the movies: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 13 going on 30, and The Sweetest Thing, and Katy Spreadbury who has worked with Ben Vereen and Karen Ziemba. Needless to say, these teachers were excellent and Emily was excited to be working with such great teachers.

The convention consisted of dance classes with these instructors from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, with an hour off for lunch. It was a long day for them, but I will say that I was extremely proud of Emily. She enjoyed each class and instructor, didn't complain about the work, and gave her all for the entire time. There were several other student that I saw crying and complaining, but Emily didn't, which made me proud.

For some reason, so many younger people, these days, feel that school, dance, whatever should be easy! I get so frustrated when my students or daughters have that attitude! So, it was nice to see her work hard and stay positive throughout the weekend! Dennis and I were just glad she wasn't sick and could participate.

On a side note, Saturday after Emily's last class, I talked Dennis into taking us to the Somerset Mall. We love this mall and love to shop there, as they have so many different stores. Anyways, I had promised the girls that we could eat at PF Chang's for dinner. This is a restaurant that I have wanted to eat at for a long time and just never have, so we got a take out menu Saturday before hand and all selected our entrees. When we arrived at the restaurant I asked if we could make a reservation or be put on the waiting list. The girl replied, "sure, our first opening is at 11:30." I said, "p.m." to which she replied, "Yeah!" The current time was 6 p.m. so there was no way in the world we would last until almost midnight, nor would we want to eat that late. So, we still haven't eaten at PF Chang's, but I promised the girls that we would go this summer and eat there. Hopefully I can talked my two Somerset buddies into going with me:)