Marching into March

The calendar may say March, but it feels like December. The weather is so cold and dreary! Nonetheless, winter activities are wrapping up and spring activities are already in full swing. At the end of February, we were lucky to have sunshine for these beautiful dance team pictures. The wonderful photographer, Scott Olmos of Scott Olmos Photography, took these pictures. And while it had just been raining, the sun peeked out for the five minutes he needed for these amazing photos. He takes these pictures for the Sheldon Colleens free of charge - I highly recommend using him if you need a photographer!
Sadly, Brailey's individual picture caught her with her eyes in the middle of a blink. But she still looks gorgeous! The varsity girls had the idea for black dresses and black heels, and it sure was a good one. They all look so beautiful and the pictures turned out looking so classy!
The end of February and the beginning of March meant the start of golf for Brailey. She has joined the Sheldon golf team. This means she has two practices - golf for two hours after school, and then dance practice after that. She actually isn't sure if she wants to continue with golf, after the first week. The weather has been really nasty, and it is super cold outside, which isn't much fun. She is giving it one more week before she makes a final decision, though. She does love golf, and the girls on the team are nice, so we shall see what happens. Her life is full, to put it mildly. And while Brailey was golfing, Britt was taking selfies on my phone with his headband and shades on the way to one of his basketball practices. This was on the one sunny day we had was last week. He does look mighty fine in those shades. He also really needs a haircut, but we can never find the time to get it done! This past Saturday, Brady and I left the house at 6:30 in the morning and got home at 9:00 at night. It was a long day, but a good one. In the morning, Britt had basketball up in Salem. He had some great post moves and was 100% on his shooting! We were super proud of him! But despite that, he didn't look quite right to me. He just seemed a little lethargic and "off." Turns out he was sick, but we didn't know it until that evening.
Britt and his best friend, Camdyn, are both wearing one of Britt's headbands in the picture below. They have become such good friends, and we are so happy about that! Sadly for Britt, Camdyn is not going to play spring basketball, since he is doing track. Britt is really going to miss him! I thought it was so cute that Camdyn wore one of Britt's headbands. After the game, Coach Steve said, "Keep wearing that headband - you played great in it!"
Like a dummy, I forgot to check my camera battery. Or rather, I checked it a couple of weeks ago, and it was good. However, it was dead when we got to the games, and so I had to rely on my cell phone for pictures. All I can say is, thank God for cell phone cameras!
After dropping Britt off at home on our way by, we rushed to get to Brailey's afternoon dance performance. We were afraid we might be late, but we really needn't have worried. Not only were they running a bit behind schedule, the fire alarm went off during the first dance, so we all had to evacuate the building. Not fun! But once they determined a kid had pulled the alarm, we were able to go back in. After the dance, I found the girls in their room. Alyx was cutting their wigs out for them and happened to be working on Brailey. So cute!
Although Brady and I really wanted to go home, we stayed so Brady could see Brailey in his favorite event, the drill down competition. Here is a link to the video in case you want to see it: Thrill Down. Brady has renamed it Thrill Down, because he loves it so much. Brailey, for the first time ever, made the Top Ten! They usually give medals away, but this time they gave beautiful pink ribbons! She was very happy, but not even close to as happy and proud as Brady (okay, and me, too!) was. It is not an easy thing to do by any means! On this particular day, she was the only Sheldon Colleen to make the Top Ten.
 A quick JV team picture with Coach Hillary.
Brailey with Coach Hillary and Coach Karsyn and that beautiful pink ribbon!
Going back in time to the week before last, these are pictures from the dance competition in Salem at Sprague High School. And here is a link to the video if you want to see the whole dance: Creepy Snow White Dance. It was a really fun one! These are pictures I bought from the photographers there - you picked them out on the computer and they printed them on site. It was great! They captured Brailey's facials in this dance so perfectly. She is a master at facials!
I was happily surprised at this competition at Sprague, because some of my favorite people were there! As I walked in, looking for a place to sit, I heard some folks calling my name, and it was our dear friends, Steve Daily, his daughter Heidi and her husband Troy. They were there to watch Heidi and Troy's son Brady, a senior at Sprague, perform in the Guy/Girl dance. I had a big time talking to them, and it turns out Heidi used to do dance team in high school, also, so Steve was very familiar with the way things worked. And bless their sweet hearts, they were able to pick Brailey out of the Snow White dancers. That isn't easy to do! Heidi thought they should have won their division by a mile, but they lost by .5 of a point (they got second). It was seriously fun to watch Brady do his dance, too. Them being there totally made my day! And back to the present, as I mentioned above, Britt was down with the flu by Saturday afternoon. And by Sunday, he was really down. So unfortunately, he had to miss his last two games with his winter TRBO team. That made him sad, but he will soon be on to spring basketball, and we are looking forward to that adventure. Hopefully he will get over his flu bug today. Rosin, our pug, has been keeping him company on the couch. Ironically, this is the first year we've gotten flu shots, and apparently they were a bad mix and only about 30% effective. Oh well! We've kept healthy until now. Hopefully this will be the end of it. In any case, March is here and so is nasty weather. Our fingers are crossed for good health and warmer temperatures to finish the month out. As they say, in like a lion, out like a lamb!