Monday, May 16, 2016

Why, Hello!

It's been awhile.
It's not you, it's me. ;)
Wow, did the end of the year get insane for me.  I had two weekends in a row of dance competitions, and then the following weekend was full of grading before finals week at my college.  I've been pretty much living at either school or the dance studio, and got occasional bits of climbing in to keep me sane and keep me myself (though not really enough to stay as in-shape as I'd like).
Luckily, all that time at the dance studio paid off.
I couldn't be more proud of my dancers.

They have received amazing scores, and more importantly, they all danced their hearts out and left it all onstage.  They were excited, respectful and polite, helped boost each other up, and were exactly the amazing types of girls that I couldn't be more proud of.

It's always a weird juxtaposition at this time of the dance season- I'm going to be partly relieved when our final special showing is done this weekend and I have a little more time to myself, but I'm also going to be really sad to see some of these dances conclude.

Luckily, the recital is still a month away, so there's a couple more performances of my big groups!

As you can see, my little Revolting Children are psyched. :)
Other news- remember that crash I was in a couple of months ago?  My college has Auto Body as one of their tech certifications, so I brought the truck in for students to use as part of their final project!

It's really cool that we have this service for the employees.  As a bonus, I got to see parts of the process happen right in front of me!
I've been so busy with school and dance, I haven't really had a lot of time to myself.  I usually have been getting home 4 nights a week around 9 to start grading (or sometimes knit one row before falling asleep, exhausted), or occasionally eat a super late dinner while watching an episode of The Walking Dead (finally started it and I'm only on Season 3).
After competitions concluded after the first weekend in May, I made sure to schedule in some outside time for myself as the weather finally starts to turn up here in the north.

BF and I went to Sawmill dome up in Tettagouche State Park for a full day of trying really hard, really sharp, and really fun climbs.  I'm definitely out of shape after not being able to climb regularly for what feels like the second half of the winter, but every time I get out it motivates me even more to get back in the gym.

This weekend was even better- BF and I got to see The Book of Mormon at the Orpheum, which was my second time seeing the show and his first musical in years!  We both really enjoyed it, and it made for a great date night.  Best part- we even started trying to figure out which shows we wanted to see that are coming next season!
Yesterday we went to Willow River State Park to climb up a really steep cave right next to a waterfall.

(My friend Anthea working on a 5.12 called Couch Potato)
It was full of trying hard and hanging out with a great Minneapolis climbing crew.
I even managed to get up a tougher climb called Natural Selection- a mid 5.12 that wasn't too hard, just super overhung (see picture above for how steep the cave is). :)

As you can see, I cut my feet a couple of times and still managed to hang out tight, though I definitely got my butt kicked by the end.  Guess I'll just have to start doing more core workouts... :)
I haven't gotten a lot of knitting done over the past few months, but I did manage to finish a couple of presents.  Now that school is done and dance is beginning to wind down, I'll hopefully be able to share a lot more of my projects and update at least weekly.
Next week I'll truly get a vacation as BF & I head down to Florida to visit my parents.  It'll be a week of diving, beaches, margaritas, crocodiles, and some relaxing time.  Stay tuned, or check out my instagram for much more frequent updates!
Later this week- knitting projects finished in the last couple of months (hint- not many).
I hope you've all been fantastic.
I'll keep you updated more now that things are chilling out a little.  :)