When Events Overlap (Preference)

(January 28th, 2023)

This is a chunky post, but it combines two events because they (unfortunately) happened on the same day. Ivory knew that the Preference dance would be the same day as a ballroom competition. With the competitions, you don't know until the week of, what the schedule will be, so she decided to ask a nice, flexible guy. She asked Ashton, who she met at FSY this last summer. 

She made a fun poster for him and drove out to his house. (He doesn't live close, which in retrospect was going to make things a little trickier.) She didn't just drop it off since she didn't want him to have to drive all the way to her house to respond, so she waited for a response that evening. Naturally, he said yes because he is a super guy.

The day was becoming harder and harder to plan and I eventually sacrificed my date with Tyler and became Ivory's personal chauffeur to make sure it all worked out. (I was actually okay with this because I like going to the ballroom competitions.) It went kind of like this...

Ivory went to a work meeting and then she went over to the competition. When she got home in the afternoon, she went over to her day date. The group decided to do Bob Ross painting. They did a fun mountain landscape called "Towering Peaks." I like how their pictures are completely different. (I mean, they do both have a mountain in them.) (Also notice that Ivory is wearing a lot of makeup for a normal date. That's what happens when you come from ballroom.)

From there, I drove her back over to the competition where she danced the Paso Doble. I feel like I've posted this one before, but it's still a keeper. I love how the skirt flares!

I had a lot of fun watching the other teams and their costumes. No negative reviews today. I'll just share some of my favorites. This group was so fun. They had tear-away skirts. They started in these long red skirts and the boys tore them off later to reveal the black dress. Cool effect.

Okay, I know you've seen the alien dresses before, but in this case the boy in front with the glasses is the son of a friend of mine from college. I haven't seen her in 20 years but we ran into each other at the competition. It was so fun to catch up.

I like when the boys get a fun costume, like shimmer, or a color pop. Here are some good ones.

This bothered me at first since it seemed the red and orange clashed, but I decided it was like fire dancing back and forth, and I do love shiny stuff.

These lacey dresses seem very piratey.

These might be my favorite, although I have no idea why they added the odd masks, but the shoes are so amazing. It was awesome to watch all the kids dance with light up shoes. I want some.

Then it was time to go back to her date. Ivory did a quick change and we drove over to RC Willey, where we met up with Ashton for pictures. Ivory got fake flowers, which means they will last forever. Great choice. It still takes a minute to put them on though.

Ipo was there to take pictures, but all the other couples were late, so she walked the kids around and got some great shots of them. They are so cute.

A few couples showed up and Ivory got one shot before she had to go. We even passed some other couples arriving as we left. I think the traffic was bad so they got hung up. It happens. Needless to say, no group photos this time around.

We went back out to the competition, this time with Ashton in tow. We had a good time watching Ivory dance the Swing. If you happen to be reading this blog in order, you might notice this is the exact same dance that I just posted for the Basketball halftime event. This time around they had less people and Ivory's shoe got stuck on her dress at the beginning. She did a good job staying in dance mode and fixing the hiccup.

Naturally, I took a few more photos of costumes. This dance was so fun. They made a piano out of people and had one guy play it. I love creative ideas like that.

I'm digging that the guys have the same color on their shirts that the girls are wearing. 

Gotta love suspenders and red pants. And more sparkles. I LOVE the sparkles!

I left at some point to go grab food for the date. They missed the dinner with the rest of the group, but we got them fed. 

They finally got to go to dance and spend the rest of the evening without interruption. It wasn't your ordinary dance, but I would say it was especially memorable. 

p.s. I forgot to mention this, but they didn't get last place on any of their dances. Good job team. They really did a great job.