Idaho Ballroom Academy

Shortly after we moved here Alexis came home from school talking about how all of her friends were in ballroom dancing and she really wanted to do it. I admit I was a bit taken aback at first. I even had to clarify with her to make sure I heard her right, and asked if she maybe had heard them wrong. I have since come to find out that ballroom dancing is a big thing here, and everybody does it. A few days later a friend from church sent me a link to signups for pee wee ballroom, which is for 1st-4th graders. Tori was on board right away. Levi on the other hand, was adamantly against it. I didn't push the issue too much, seeing that I still wasn't completely sold on the idea myself. I tried to see if I could get Alexis into a class, but her age group had already started, so she will have to wait for Summer to start. Anyways, a few weeks later I got an email with class lists, and requests for more boys. I noticed that Levi's good friend from school was on the list and mentioned it to Levi. He surprised me by quickly agreeing to give it a try! So for the past few months they have been taking ballroom dancing lessons. I have to say, it is the cutest thing ever. They teach it in such a fun way, and the kids have so much fun! This past Saturday was their spring performance. It was held at the local high school. There were  several hundred dancers and around 50 performances. There were kids ranging from 1st grade, all the way through 12th grade. It was so much fun to see the different age groups and how good everyone was. They did all sorts of styles of dancing. For the peewee dancers they did movie themes for their dances. Tori's was Star Wars, and Levi's was the Lone Ranger. Tori and Levi's dances were very basic, just using a few of the different steps that they learned. Here they are in their costumes before the show

A few weeks before the show Tori said, "mom, you told me that I was going to be wearing a big beautiful ballgown, not playing Princess Lea!" LOL, she ended up really liking the costume, and if she sticks with it, she'll be wearing those ballgowns in no time =).

Here are a few friends Tori made from her group.

My cute Lone Ranger

Here is Levi with his two good buddies from school. They are twins, and people are always mistaking the three of them for triplets, which he loves =)

The end pose. (a little blurry)

Tori's end pose. She was thrilled that they got to use light sabers. 

Yesterday I received a text from a neighbor asking if I knew that Tori was in the paper! Apparently the local paper did a story about the performance and Tori's group was used for one of the pictures. Our friends brought us a copy so we could have one. Tori was thrilled, and has already cut it out and put it in her journal.

I giggled all through Levi's. It was so cute to see them up there running around trying to remember everything. You can see a few of them pulling each other along, and  looking around at everyone else to make sure they are doing it right. It was so cute I can hardly stand it. I know I am being a biased mom, but I don't care =)  I wish the videos has turned out clearer. I'm not sure why they didn't but hopefully you can still tell which ones are Levi and Tori.

And here are pictures of their groups:

It was a great experience and I'm so glad Tori and Levi were able to participate. After seeing the performances Alexis is more excited than ever to get started too =)