Leap

We get an extra day this year and it has to be in February, and a Monday.  Phoo.  ;)

There was a meeting tonight at Kaylee's school for her trip to Europe.  It's getting close now; they leave in less than a month!  We've got most things in order and lined up, with a few yet to go.  The real challenge will be getting her to pack as lightly as she'll need to, particularly when she'll be gone for 10 days. She's going to want to bring her entire bedroom and bathroom along, but she's going to have to carry everything she brings herself, up stairs, through airports, on trains, into hotels, etc., so it has to be reasonable.  Everybody else is going to have their own stuff to carry, so she'll have to deal with it!

What's funny is that she's going to have more structure and supervision over there than she gets at home.  She's not going to like that part of it, doing head counts every block and not being allowed to go anywhere with fewer than 2 other people with her at all times, but that's the way the cookie crumbles when you're 15 and in several foreign countries far away from home under someone else's responsibility.  Still, what an experience.  Hey, I have a passport too now.  Some day I'm gonna actually use it, too, and hopefully I won't be too old to enjoy.  ;)

Kaylee's singing group also had "Critique Night" tonight.  It started while we were in the meeting, so afterwards we stayed out in the hall and just watched from there.  I did this deliberately too, because she'd warned me ahead of time if you come in and watch, you have to provide constructive criticism of the songs, dancing, choreography, music, singing, etc.  I heard some other people trying to critique.  No thank you.  But we stayed out and watched, and enjoyed watching her up close working it.  This Saturday they go to a show choir contest well south of Indianapolis, so they are ramping up for that.  Kaylee said afterwards that two Encore girls (the top dog group) pulled her aside afterwards and said that she really needed to audition for Encore next year.  They said their eye kept getting drawn to her and that she should get in, if she auditioned.  She had been thinking about auditioning for the group, and I think she probably will, now.  It's a more hard core group, they practice a lot more often, the teacher is a lot harder on them, and it's a mixed sex group where each girl is paired up with a guy.  Between you, me and the wall, I don't think they're any better than the Starlets group that she's already in, but they are more "prestigious".  She said she couldn't really tell what the Encore girls said to her to her friends without sounding braggy and weird, but she figured she could tell us because we're her parents and she had to tell somebody or she'd pop.  Where she really shines is the choreography and dance that goes with it.  She really lights up, she loves this stuff.