Fort Worth, Texas Cheer & Dance Nationals

We left Friday morning for Fort Worth departing the Norman train depot about 8:30 AM. Here's what our depot looks like. The inside is an art gallery and the building is often used as a venue for small concerts, wedding receptions, etc.


Here's a picture of the group of girls. Kaitlyn is bottom row, middle.

Here's a picture of Kaitlyn and her BFF Lindsey. They were sitting in the last row of our car. I couldn't belive how much room all the seats had. The chairs reclined and had a foot rest (like a recliner) that popped up. You could put your bags in the floor beside you (the bigger ones had to go above like in an airplane). You could get up and walk around, go downstairs to the bathroom or to the "cafe" car which had vending machines for food. I really, really enjoyed the train ride. I knitted the whole way and looked out the window. It was just like I remembered from a little girl. Except I wasn't riding backwards and the seats are way more comfortable.

We arrived in Fort Worth about 12:30 and went to Joe T. Garcias for a mexican food lunch. The food wasn't that great (Norman has better I think) but the gardens and stuff around the place were fabulous. This is a picture of the parents that either rode the train down with the girls or drove down to meet us so they could chauffeur us around. I'm on the front row with the white sweater on.

After lunch, we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards. It was a beautiful day, about 70 degrees outside and not a cloud in the sky.

A couple of the girls tried the mechanical bull. "Urban Cowgirl" Anna is always up for a challenge.

Some of the girls were lined up on the fence to see the cattle drive come down the street.

Here's the cattle drive. The girls are singing their school fight song in the background.

We competed on Saturday morning and again on Sunday morning. I didn't put the girls jazz and hip-hop routines on here because you've already seen them. Here are some of the action shots Joe and I purchased of Kaitlyn's solo routine. I asked her why she wasn't smiling and she said the song is by Kanye West about his mother dying and it wasn't supposed to be a happy dance.

The final results were as follows: In the jazz routine, we got 3rd place (out of 4 teams), in the hip-hop routine, we got 2nd place (out of 3 teams). On the solos, Kaitlyn got 4th place out of 9 people (it was by far the largest group of dancers). We were disappointed, we felt she should have been 2nd or 3rd. There were a lot of politics involved, and we thought the girl that got 2nd should have gotten 1st (she goes to Yukon High School in OK). Anyway, we had a great time during the weekend. Fort Worth is a lot of fun. If you stay downtown there is lots to do and plenty of places to eat, drink, and be merry. The parents got together for happy hour both nights and then we walked to dinner somewhere and ate. The girls had their own itinerary.