"The glitz, and glamour"

Friday night Ash, Alana, and I went down to provo to watch the National Ballroom Championships. Every year since we quit we talk about going but it comes and goes and we miss it this year we finally went! As much as I love dance and can't imagine my life without it I have a hard time going to some events because it makes me miss it that much more, plus I can never actually sit down and watch it without "judging them" even on stupid things like arms weren't sharp enough or their lines weren't straight! I'm glad we went though and we saw our old teacher Paul who is doing amazing things (like choreographing the super bowl,olympics, etc) and some of my moms cousins, oh and Alex Boye' sang the National Anthem! One year when I competed we were in the newspaper. I remember a teacher at school laminated like 5 copies of it for me and they announced it on the intercom. It was my 10 seconds of fame in life!

Ryan and I
(The picture that was in the paper)

And the article, it also talks about Ashley Delgrosso who was on Dancing With The Stars before Julianne Hough replaced her.

Dancers having a ball at BYULots of tangos and turns at annual DanceSport event
PROVO -- It's March Madness, with a twist.
And a dip and a spin or two.It isn't college basketball going on at the Marriott Center this weekend. No, this is March Madness ballroom dance-style as Brigham Young University hosts the annual National DanceSport Championships.
More than 2,000 elegantly attired dancers -- some professional, some amateur -- have descended on Provo for the competition, which began Thursday and runs through today. This is The Big Dance -- literally.
Participants include Jonathan and Katushka Demidova from New York City, who are defending their title as National Professional Standard Champions.
A number of local couples are also competing like Jonathan Gulledge and Ashly Delgrosso from Provo High School and the National Youth 10-dance champions. Another pair of Provo High students, John Graham and Leah Kemeny, are the Junior American-style champs.
"It a good event to watch," said Lee Wakefield, artistic director of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company and head of the university's prestigious ballroom program. "We'll probably have about 9,000 people come see it over the course of the three days."
Performing for a crowd is what makes this competition different.

"Others are more of a participant event. Here, it becomes a spectator sport," Wakefield said. "There is a lot of congeniality between the dancers and the spectators. The audience injects the dancers with enthusiasm."
Though ballroom dancers have arrived at BYU from all over the country, Utah is well-represented. Dustin Stout and Laura Nielsen of Alta High School were among those involved in Friday's dancefest.
"It's a lot of fun," Stout said. "It's a little intimidating, but we're here to have fun."
Eleven-year-old Ryan Larsen of North Salt Lake has been ballroom dancing for only three months, but he earned first place in the pre-teen Latin competition along with his partner, 10-year-old Macee Garner.
"I was surprised we won," Larsen said, proudly displaying a first-place medallion around his neck.
Maline Garner, Macee's mom, said coming to BYU for this experience is "like living in another world. We love the glitz, the glamour, the music all day long."
(To this day we laugh at what my mom said but there is no other way to explain it)
On today's slate is the U.S. National Youth Standard, Youth Latin, Pre-teen American(reigning champs for 6 years), Pre-teen Latin(reigning champs for 6 years), Amateur Latin Championships and the final rounds for the U.S. Junior Standard Formation and the U.S. Pre-teen Standard Formation Championships(also reigning champs for 6 years). That's just in the morning.
Then in the evening, beginning at 4, there's the U.S. National Professional Standard, National American Cabaret and the Youth Division I Latin Formation Championships.
Nationally certified judges are judging the wide-ranging styles of dance, which includes International Standard Ballroom, American Style Cabaret, International Latin and Country Western. Dance rhythms on display are swing, cha cha, tango, waltz and fox trot.
Ballroom dance's name was changed to dancesport when it became a provisional sport in the Olympics, according to Claudia Hill, a member of the BYU ballroom dance faculty. "It's grown tremendously," she said.
This marks the fifth consecutive year BYU has hosted the DanceSport Championships, and the school is committed to host the event six more years.