Great America

On June 3rd Sarah and Kristen were scheduled to dance at Great America. This is the 5th year for Sarah and the second time for Kristen. We decided to leave after school on the 1st and make a weekend of it. Kurt took the day off from work so that he could get the car packed and ready to go. It was the last day of school for Sarah and Kristen and I still have a week to go but as soon as I got home we took off. The drive out on Friday was very interesting. Earlier in the day a severe storm had gone through the area. This storm caused tornado's to touch down both to the north and to the south of us. By the time we left it had already gone through, but just are luck we drove into it after about 45 minutes of driving. Finally we drove through the storm and we were able to stay just ahead of the storm for the rest of the trip. Just as we got into the hotel it started to pour. The next day we went to the park. I am not impressed with Great America anymore. they have become extremely expensive. We were able to go on several rides. Kristen who loves rides would always whine and cry about the ride and act scared. As soon as it started, she began to laugh and then wanted to go on the ride again. Around 5:30 or so we left the park and headed to Gurnee Mills Mall. This mall has a Disney outlet store that I wanted to visit and also a HUGE scrapbooking store. Archiver's is the name of the scrapbooking store. It is probably a good thing that I live at least 3 hours away from these stores. They are huge and have everything you could possibly want. They also offer some awesome classes. I would be broke and spending all of my free time there. Both Sarah and I purchased some supplies. After this we went to Cracker Barrel for supper. It has been a long time since we have eaten at Cracker Barrel. The food was so good. Once we got back to the hotel of course I had to play with my new computer. On Sunday we had to have the girls dressed and ready to dance no later than 10:50. They moved the show into an air conditioned theater with nice seats instead of bleachers. Of course are girls were the best there. So many of the studio's dressed even their little girls in costumes that were a little to revealing. They even had them shaking and dancing to music that no little girl should hear, let alone us adults in the audience. So many of the groups were also off and not dancing together. It is nice to see other groups dance, because then I appreciate our studio even more. If you want to see the girls dance, go to the family album, link on top of left side of page. Click on the first two pictures under Great America, they are video's of the two groups. We decided to leave around 2:30 and head for home. Remember I still have to teach for three days and Sarah has to be up early to catch the bus back to Great America with her band.