The Holdaway Family: Stadium of Fire

When it was announced that Centennial Dancers was going to Stadium of Fire, Morgan was excited and nervous. She was going to have to learn three new dances in four weeks, it would be a lot of hard work but she knew it would be an awesome experience. She asked me if we could sign her up, I talked to Dad about it and we decided that it would be a good opportunity for her. We also decided since she was going to be dancing in it we better get tickets for it! Neither one of us had ever gone so we were excited to take the kids, plus Kelly Clarkson and Carly Rae Jepsen were both performing so we knew it was going to be an awesome show, other than Morgan performing.

The week before the Stadium practices started they sent home a note saying that they needed parent helpers. The parent helpers would help make sure the girls were getting enough water, staying cool and making sure they kept sunscreen on. Morgan begged me to be a parent helper but it was the week before and I didn't feel like it was enough time to let all of the babysitting mom's know that I couldn't watch kids that week. I talked with Dad and Bailey and they decided what kids they could handle and what kids would be harder without me. I sent out a mass text to see how everyone would respond. Everyone said that they would try to figure something out. So I quickly text Chantele and asked her if they still needed parent helpers and she said that not a single parent had responded yet! I told her that she could count on me to be there!

What a fantastic experience !! Yes, it was hot. Yes, it was tiring. Yes, I was thankful that I got to be there for Morgan, her team and a lot of other girls.

There were 42 teams from all around the state and one from just outside Burley, ID that all learned the same three dances. I don't know the amount of time the other teams had but our girls, up to that point, had eight practices that were two, sometimes three hours each, before they all came together.

On July 2nd all the teams met together for the first time. All of the directors had maps of where their teams needed to be on the field. There were two different groups of dancers. Main dancers, which are girls 13-18 and Junior dancers, which are girls 8-12. We had 12 Jr dancers and 5 Main dancers. For the first dance we had 6 Jr dancers on the west side on the south end of the field and 6 on the east side on the south end of the field and the Main dancers were in the middle on the North end of the field. So the girls were all over. We had sports bottles that had straws coming out of them so I could just squeeze the bottle and water would come out and into the girls' mouth with out their mouths touching the bottle, that kept them hydrated. We also had a small hand held weed sprayer that we filled with water that I would go around and spray the girls off with. It was up to me and Jade, Chantele's daughter, to keep them cooled and hydrated. The Head Director usually gave the girls a five minute break every 45 minutes to an hour to re-apply sunscreen and sit in the shade.

One frustrating thing was that they kept changing things. I'm sure that once you get over 700 girls together what you were thinking something was going to look like and what it actually looked like are two different things, but it was still frustrating. A lot of the things were little like, instead of kneeling up with the flag over their head they would have the girls kneel down with the flag over their lap. Or instead of doing a head roll they had them look up and down. Or they would add in a wave. Or they would take whole parts out and add whole new parts in. It was frustrating to see these kids try so hard to basically re-learn a routine that they had been working so hard on for so many hours already. Morgan's spot for all of the dances was going to be in the front row facing west, which was perfect because our seats were on the west side so we were going to be able to see her for all of the dances. One of the first changes that they did was after the first dance they had all the Jr dancers go the the north end of the field to perform the other two songs so we weren't able to see her at all.

I did record her with my phone during the practices because I didn't want to spend the money on the DVD they were offering because I didn't know how much Morgan would be on it.

It was a lot of hard work for both Morgan and me but mostly Morgan but it was so worth it! I am so glad I was able to be there and all three of Morgan's directors told me that I have been the best parent helper that they have ever had. Usually the parent helpers complain about being hot and sit under the canopies. The directors have to come and ask the parents to help out or they just end up doing it themselves. They told me that they would think that the girls would probably be needing water soon and I would be already getting them water. I just told them I would be looking at the girls' faces and I could tell when they needed water or to be sprayed. By the second day I even noticed the girls around our girls weren't getting enough water or being sprayed enough so I just started watering all the girls around our girls. It just wasn't worth getting girls dehydrated and taken to the medic canopy.

Speaking of the medic canopy, Morgan did take a trip there the first day but it wasn't for dehydration. She got sunscreen in her eye from getting sprayed and sweating. She was hurting pretty bad and couldn't even open her eye. They had a nifty contraption, kind of like a short nasal cannula, that they put on the bridge of her nose and they dripped something in her eye, I'm guessing saline solution. Within a few minutes she was feeling better and was on her way, ready to dance!

Overall it was a spectacular show, the girls did awesome, Cirque de Soleil was incredible, Carly Rae Jepsen was so cute, Kelly Clarkson was amazing and the fireworks were spectacular!! Even though it was a big chunk of money, I think it was totally worth it!