Pride of Cincinnati Diaries 2008

WGI Dayton Regional
February 29-March 2, 2008

Friday started out like most normal Fridays do.  Jeff and I taught New Palestine’s guard class then headed home to get ready for our big Dayton Regional weekend! Erin had spent all week at my house after her first weekend with the POC.  She was filling a hole and I was SO excited to be performing with her again! We had so much fun that week catching up.  She went with me to all of my high school guard rehearsals and spent lots of time working on her new show.  We all got ready to leave, I made pumpkin bread to take to practice like always and we were soon on our way.  The car was packed this weekend.  Caitlin had gone to Kentucky the night before so it was Erin, Rachel, Nobu, Jeff and I in Jeff’s car.  Jeff wanted to throw Erin’s rain boots out of the car, or have Nobu sit in them since they were “so large”.  Nobu had his body bag full of who knows what.  Jeff also made Erin leave her air mattress at my house because there wasn’t enough room.  It was definitely interesting getting us all in the car but somehow we managed. 

            We made our traditional stop at Starbucks in Greenfield and continued on our way.  We got to the Sports Complex, or Middletown Aquarium as we like to call it, around 6:45 pm.  What was left of the pumpkin bread was gone within 5 minutes.  Jeff, Erin and I had also pre-determined that we were going to make “mmm mmm” (with lips pursed together) catch on with the whole guard before the weekend was over.  Angela refused but pretty much everyone else picked it up before we had the tarp un-folded that night.  We unloaded the rest of the trailer and got ready for practice.  We did the normal dance class and equipment warm up and started on the show after that.  I got new uniform pants since my previous pair had been falling off with about every move I made.  The new ones are fabulous, minus the fact that the waist band is the wrong color.  Practice was over sometime after 10pm and we headed our separate ways for the night.  Erin and I went with Angela back to her dorm at University of Miami.  We got Taco Bell for our “forth meal” and headed to bed soon after watching some videos on Facebook.  Somehow we got my queen sized air mattress to fit on the floor of Angela’s dorm that’s barely big enough for a twin. 

What seemed like 2 hours passed and it was time to get up.  We got amazing coffee and muffins at this coffee shop on campus called Kofenya and drove the half hour or so back to the Sports Complex.  It was an un-naturally warm weekend at the Complex.  It’s usually really cold and sometimes unbearable.  Zydeco was also practicing at the Complex that weekend.  Its always fun to see guard friends and chat it up; it was like a mini WGI headquarters. We did a short dance class, did equipment warm up and then started into the show.  We got Erin into the opening silence and cleaned parts together.

  We had lunch on our own, I had Wendy’s, as did many other members.  We started back after lunch on getting Erin comfortable with the show and cleaning other parts.  My Mom and Jim were here today all the way from Charlotte! I hadn’t seen them since Christmas so it was nice to see them for a bit.  We did chunks of the whole show and then finished with a run.  We loaded our tarp onto the “newer” cart that had really flat tires.  Our old cart has a wheel that basically doesn’t exist anymore.  We REALLY need a new cart.

  We had dinner on our own and got ready at the Complex.  The girls only had one shower but it wasn’t as tragic as we thought it would be.  We shared the mirrors upstairs in the weight room with Center Grove while they got ready.  I think they had about 3 more hours than us to get ready…hmmm.  I was late to my airbrushing because Rachel, Sam W and I sped to McDonald’s to get food at about the same time we were supposed to be getting our makeup done.  Woops!  I was totally stressing by this point because we had about 20 minutes and my makeup was not done.  I got most of it done before we loaded the bus.  The rest I finished on the dark school bus ride to the Trent Arena.  Erin accidentally put the eyeliner on her lips instead of the lip liner, hahaha! Totally my fault, I gave her the wrong stick!

            We arrived at the show site, unloaded the tarp and flags and checked in.  We had about 30 minutes before we had to meet back for Pride Body.  The New Pal kids ambushed Jeff, Erin and I as soon as we walked in the performance space.  They had a pretty decent run and made finals so that was exciting.  We always end up getting time to watch during a break, just seems to be our luck, so we only got to see Carmel today.  The air conditioning was blowing their Mylar balloons off the front of the floor but they pushed through it!  Then it was time to head back. 
We did Pride Body in a small transit hallway and had to watch out for passing SW guards.  I ended my battement across the floor by falling into a split and the guard erupted with laughter and clapping.  Kudos me.  Warm up went well minus Kari and Anglea’s feet falling apart and bleeding everywhere.  We were then off to holding before our performance.  We had a good run but it seemed to be a little dry on an emotional and connection level.  Andy Toth was pretty much bawling when he found us after the show, it was super cute.  We then packed up and headed out within the hour.  We tried to stop at Taco Bell and Wendy’s for food but both were closed.  We ended up just going back to the Complex and going to get food on our own.  A good portion of the guard ended up at Steak and Shake because that was basically our only option since it was so late.  We were staying the night at the Complex for the first time ever.  We eventually went to sleep and what seemed like three hours later came “good morning, time to get up!” from Charlie.  POC was providing food for us today since it was a short day.  Practice went by pretty quickly and today we were doing Show and Tell with Zydeco.  They went first and were fabulous!  I love watching friends perform; it’s so much more emotional and enjoyable when you know the performers.  With tears in our eyes we headed to our “fish tank” to do our show.  Center Grove was there again practicing and getting ready so they came over to watch our run as well.  We got to “count one” and the music didn’t come on.  The stereo wasn’t turned on! We hung out for a hot second while they got it turned on and ready to go.  We finished our show, which seemed to be pretty decent and started getting ready for our finals performance!  I managed to get my makeup done on time today and Erin didn’t have dark brown lips either.

            We arrived at Trent Arena, unloaded and again had a few minutes to watch.  Of course there was a break, and following that break was Plymouth Canton.  They had a great run! Time for Pride Body! We did it in the check in lobby this time around.  Special shout out to Melissa to talking me through warm up! Whatever would I do without her!?! Across the floors were quite interesting today.  I once again did my staple battement into a split.  Then it was time for warm up.  Again, it went well and we headed to holding.  We were on last today, I love that.  I think we had a better run emotionally but weren’t as consistent as Saturday.  The New Pal kids were watching today and sitting on the side.  They always make me really nervous.  I had a great run though, minus some uniform malfunctions…

We hung out until after awards and most of us headed to O’Charley’s for dinner.  Party of twenty something please! That took about two hours longer than we had wished but it was fun hanging out and being the crazy kids we are.  Text message dare game was the highlight of dinner for sure, AND talking about how Chris fell asleep at the end of the silence during our finals run!! Not right Chris.  Around 7:30pm Jeff and I were on our way back to Indy.  Erin went home with her parents back to Georgia and Rachel and Nobu rode back with Caitlin.

            All in all it was another fun and successful weekend at the POC! Until next time…Mmmm mmmm.

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