Arrival and Pre-Judging

Sorry for the delay in blogging but my daughter had all the pics on her camera and we were having trouble connecting!

The weekend began like this... I awoke VERY early Friday morning anxious and ready to start my day but had to wait around for my hair appointment at 9:30 :( The girls and I finished packing, (discovered my son had ate all 24 of my green grapes!), loaded up the car and were on the road to Burlington by 8 am. We dropped the car off at at Canadian Tire for an oil change and hiked it across the parking lot to the Burlington Mall where I was getting my hair done.

Here I am waiting with extensions in hand. I believe this is about the time that my darling daughter informed me that my 2 spray tans had resulted in me looking like an 'Oompa Loompa' (sp?)..and.judging from this photo I would say she is right...oh my!

Here is Sam working his magic. After the first show I told him that I don't want it too curly as it results in a huge mess for me to deal with in the morning but he seems to have trouble leaving it straight...aarrgh.

Anyhow here is the finished product. The girls took some photos so we would know how to fix it after a nights sleep. I was assuming at that point that I would actually sleep!

Now we are off to pick up the car and hit the road...

 We hit the road about 12:15 which should have put us in Ottawa shortly after 5 pm. This would work out well because registration was from 5-8 pm followed by  an athletes meeting at 8:30 pm. We were making great time and should have arrived about 4:30 or earlier until we missed the cut off to Ottawa! As we were approaching the 416 that said 'to Ottawa' I asked my daughter/navigator  (who was talking on the phone) if I should take it....she snapped back "NO! We take the 417!" in her lovely teenage voice and I listened :S

After about 45 minutes without seeing anymore Ottawa signs and plenty of Cornwall signs I decided something was wrong and fired up my blackberry GPS which promptly told us to get off the highway and make our way to the 417. We listened and followed plenty of VERY slow drivers through backroads on our way to the 417. I make have sworn a few times at this point ;)

We arrived in Ottawa around 6:30 and made our way to registration. We then found our hotel, had a bite to eat, threw on some tan and headed back for the meeting. Once again...we were lost and made it to the meeting a few minutes late...

The parking lot was full and this was the only spot I could find! Obviously the principal wasn't going to be there on a Friday night but the girls found this funny enough to be photo worthy.

Back to the hotel to apply another coat of tan and hit the hay. I needed to recruit my daughter and her friend to help get the spots I couldn't reach :S Poor girls!!.Taryn informed me that for all this trauma I had the choice of years of therapy or a REALLY nice present from Ottawa. She insisted that I would be getting off easy with the present as years of therapy would be much pricier :) Can't blame the girl really...can't say I would have been eager to rub brown goop all over my naked Moms butt and back at the age of 16!

After the tan tried I practiced my poses...

We watched a bit of tv and I took 2 'sleep- ease' to make sure I got a good nights sleep. Didn't work...at 2 am I took another one...didn't work...at 4 am I decided I may as well get up eat & apply some more tan. I brewed some coffee, ate my cold steak and sweet potato, got my tan on and waited to call a cab.

While I waited I reviewed the program...

And tried to get my abs to come out...

About 6:30 am I made my way down to the lobby, found a cab and was off to see Mindi at her hotel where she did my makeup.

Mindi and Dennis were a tremendous help and support this weekend and definitely went above and beyond what should be expected from a coaching team. While Mindi worked on my make up Dennis found and made me some oatmeal (very dry according to Mindi's orders;)) I threw my suit on and we were off to the venue.

A quick make up touch up, glaze, posing run through, pump and we hit the stage. I had 2 numbers to keep track of for each of the classes I was in...first up was Masters Short in which there were 10 girls. I couldn't figure out where I stood according to call outs. I was actually was feeling a bit discouraged as I didn't make first call outs as far as I could tell. Apparently I was in a shadow and got overlooked at first..this always seems to happen to me. Then they go..oh crap...look at her...haha. I need to try to avoid this in the future as it messes with my head!

Then came level 2. This was strange because they brought all height classes out together. They thought that because there were only 9 of us that it would be more competitive that way and would avoid bringing several small classes out. I get the concept but it left us even more confused by the call outs. The poor judges were judging overall as well as the individual height classes for advancement to the provincials.

Pre- judging wrapped up and Erica and I had a seat in the audience  and watched Mindi's question and answer session, and prodded Dennis with questions about how he thought we did. He was just as confused as we were and he is a judge!

I this point I realized  my body was finally ready for sleep and headed back to the hotel for a catnap.