Reflection of 2012

On New Years Eve Kyle and I started talking about all the events and changes that took place in 2012.

Our 2012 began with a cruise to Cabo! This was the first time either of us had been on a cruise and we were able to go with lots of friends. We ultimately decided we liked being on the land better than the ship, but we had a great time celebrating our 1 year anniversary and spending time with friends.

In February I began my student teaching at Lehi Jr. High and Westlake High School. It was an intense, stressful but very rewarding experience. I especially fell in love with 7th graders.

In March Kyle and I competed at our last National Dancesport Competition. We both grew up being very involved with that competition and always looked forward to performing/competing in the marriott center. A couples week after we traveled to Maryland to compete in the USA Dance Nationals. This was our last competition as amateurs.

The summer of 2012 was insanely busy for us both. Kyle and I were both finishing up school. Kyle was involved in an internship in which he got to travel to Texas for a conference. I was busy choreographing my senior project - the last thing to do before graduation. I was also organizing Special Olympics Ballroom for the 4th year in a row. In the meanwhile we began competing professionally in the American Smooth style in June. One of our favorites comps was in Manhattan because my mom and sister Courtney took the trip with us. We saw Newsies and loved it! And if we weren't busy enough we were both studying (like CRAZY) in preparation for our USISTD Standand exams. Graduation was in August and Kyle and I were both asked to speak at our college convocations. Our grandparents came into town and we had a fun time celebrating our graduation and the end of the summer.

In Sept. we competed at USDC - the national competition in Florida. We made the semi final in the RS Smooth competition. We hope to be in the top 3 this coming year. Right before nationals we had to move out of our small apt in Provo. We moved all our stuff into Kyle's parents garage. AFter much contemplation, traveling to Washington, Texas and California to check out our options we decided to move to Orange County, CA to teach at a new studio called Sway Ballroom Dance. It has turned out to be a great decision. We love the studio, the area, the close competitions and coaches, the ward and even our callings as primary teachers :)

My family drove here on Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with us! I was so glad to have my mom to help me cook the thanksgiving feast. It was also fun to show my family around our new home.  Christmas was wonderful this year as we filled up every minute of our time home in Utah.  Here are a few pictures of our eventful 2012.

As of late

So this past week was a really great one. Let me go into detail.

Work was great because Kyle and I both had the largest amount of lessons in the week as of yet. Kyle taught 22 privates plus group classes. I taught 10 privates plus group classes. About half for each of us were DE's (introductory free private lesson) but a few of them bought into a membership. It's good that work is picking up for us even during the down time. The rest of the year will get difficult because people become busy with the holiday and also more frugal with their money. My assumption is that by the end of January we'll both be pretty busy with our jobs. Yay!! The work day goes by SO much faster when I'm teaching lessons opposed to sitting around or doing small errands. Plus once we get off the guarantee we can start to make more money, which living in California we definitely need.

This was also a great week for our personal dancing. On Monday we practiced at Southcoast with Slavik and Marzena. I love practicing with them! It becomes hard practicing at our studio because we are the only people there. We always do better when there are others practicing with us - especially the world smooth champions :) They are also such great people, so genuinely kind. Tuesday we had lessons with Heather. So much good information it was hard to take it all in. She really is reshaping and changing our standard. Who knew we had so many crapy bad habits? Thursday night we had smooth rounds with Toni and Jonathan. A few ways to describe it:
Intense exercise
Top smooth dancers in the area (we were the 2nd lowest placing couple there)
So inspiring/motivating
Challenging (try dancing with your eyes closed, difficult, but forces you to trust your partner).
Telling of our weaknesses
Good prep for Ohio
Hope we can do it again soon
Friday we had two lessons with Toni and one with Jonathan. We had Jonathan work a bit on tango choreography. We can't wait to work with him lots more in January. I think he'll be able to bring out some of the key elements were missing in our dancing - risk, weightedness, surprise, ultimately help us not be boring haha.

Saturday was our first Team Match at Sway. We competed against Century dancesport, the studio we almost went to. The event was fun but got really long towards the end. We were there from 9am - 4pm. I danced with Joel, one of Lisa's best students for a few dances and Kyle had two students participate. Ultimately our team lost (we were extremely outnumbered) but we did win team Spirit, and it was well deserved if you ask me.

Saturday evening Kyle and I went to the temple. We had to schedule the session Saturday morning and we were both so tired in the evening that if we hadn't scheduled it we might have stayed home and slept. I'm so glad we didn't! I loved being in the temple. And truly felt like it was just what we needed at the time. After the temple Kyle and I were starving so we went out to Cheesecake Factory. My favorite! Oh it was so good. And definitely a special treat sense were working on staying in our tight budget.


Needless to say it was probably my favorite week here in Cali so far. I am definitely starting to miss home though. So glad my family is coming here for Thanksgiving and that we're going to Utah for Christmas. I get really excited thinking about it!! This week is Ohio Star Ball. Our goal is to push our way into the RS final! Wish us luck!

Lessons!

Today we got lessons with Heather Smith and Olga Forponova. Hurray! We haven't had many lessons since we moved here and being close to amazing coaches was one of our big reasons for coming here. Today we were able to get one lesson each from Heather and Olga, before we had to go into work. We worked mainly on standard sections with Heather. I am seriously amazed by this women. Maybe it's partially because we haven't had standard training for a while, but I think there's more to it than that. She has repositioned our dance frame, and not only does it feel better, I'm sure it looks lots better (at least that's what Heather says)

On a side note I also got to teach a lesson today to my first "Real" student. Kyle's getting students more quickly than me, because so many more women walk into the studio. But the extra fun thing is that this student came into the studio on Monday, decided to buy after the first lesson, came in for the second lesson today and is coming back again tomorrow! Exciting eh? I also have another DE (first lesson) on Thursday. So we'll be hopeful for another "Real" student to jump on board with me.

Up and Running!

I have been meaning to create a blog since Kyle and I were married in Dec. 2010. Well it's 2 years later, but I finally got around to it. That being said I really have no clue what I'm doing so if you have any blogging tips to send my way that would be appreciated. Last night I was trying to come up with a cute title for our blog but my creative juices were on a low. Again... suggestions are welcome :)

My plan for this blog is to help keep in touch with family and friends, especially since we moved to California. I also hope this will a good way for me to journal, because I've NEVER been good at that. Well here it goes... first post up! Enjoy!