BYU Dancesport 2008

All semester I have been getting ready for Dancesport. This meant paying about $80 dollars a month for lessons ($160 some months), and dancing about 20 hours a week. Yes, it would seem my whole life was centered around this one event. I went to some local competitions in the area to get competition practice and such, and my partner and I never got called back in any of our events. This weekend was different. Because we hadn't had much luck before, I went to this competition without any expectations to do well. I was, however, pleasantly surprised and this weekend ended up turning out to be awesome. I competed in eight events and this is how I did:

BYU class 285 Rumba: Danced 2 out of 6 rounds (my worst event)
BYU class 383 Paso Doble: Danced 3 our of 5 rounds (I was competing one level above mine)
BYU class 484 Foxtrot: Danced 2 out of 5 rounds (I was competing up a level and we were one vote away from advancing to the next round)
BYU class 380 American Waltz: I got third place, dancing 6 rounds
Novice Latin (Samba/Rumba): Danced 3 out of 6 rounds. My partner and I decided to do this event three weeks ago. We had three lessons to learn routines and practice while others have been practicing all semester. Let's just say I was super surprised!
Novice Standard (Waltz/Quickstep): Matt and I made it to the semifinals (top 12), so we danced 4 out of 5 rounds.
Pre-championship Standard (Waltz, Tango, Quickstep): We made one callback which was way unexpected considering how we did at previous competitions.
Pre-championship Smooth (American Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot): We made it to quarterfinals (top 24).

So overall, it was a pretty successful weekend. I'm excited to start working toward the next Dancesport competition in March. Yay!

Halloween Awesomeness

Okay, I realize Thanksgiving is the holiday to be celebrating this time of year (and believe me, I am--no classes for five days!!), but I haven't been able to put up Halloween pictures up yet.  My costume didn't end up being too bad, considering I decided what to dress up as while I was walking home from campus Halloween day. Yep, pretty last minute. I borrowed a friend's clothes so they'd be extra baggy. The back of my shirt had a picture of a bull and said "Bull Shirt." If you read it really fast....yeah, it was funny. I went to the dollar store to find some "bling-bling" and I found some fantastic tatoos. A treasure! You can't see any of them in the pictures, but believe me, it was amazing. To top it all off, my roommate had a Miami Ink hat. For those of you who don't know, Miami Ink is a television show about a tatoo business....perfect. All in all, I must say my costume ended up being a success.

Zuppa Toscana Soup like Olive Garden's

My work supervisor got this recipe somehow and gave it to me.  I haven't tried it yet-being a poor, busy college student I don't have the ingredients or time to make it-but she says it tastes pretty close to the real thing.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it sometime soon.  Maybe when I'm home for Thanksgiving...

1 lb. spicy Italian sausage crumbled

1/2 lb. chopped bacon

1 qt. water

2 14.5 cans chicken broth

2 lg. russet potatoes cubed or thinly sliced

2 crushed garlic cloves or 2T minced

1/2 c. chopped onion

2 c. chopped kale or swiss chard

1 c. heavy whipping cream

salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet brown sausage, drain and set aside.   Brown bacon, drain and set aside.  Combine water, broth, potatoes, garlic and onion in soup pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer till potatoes are tender.  Add sausage and bacon, simmer 10 minutes.  Add kale and cream, salt and pepper to pot.  Heat thru or keep on a low simmer till served.