Sunday was the last day of the dance competition. Madeline didn’t have any competition dances on the schedule, but since No Bad News went to the finale, she had another competition day.

For once, I was able to sleep without a wake up alarm. I slept pretty late for me – 7:45 am. The girls were still sleeping, so Andy and I walked to the nearby Denny’s and had a breakfast date. Denny’s is not the best breakfast in the world, but it was not the worst either.

The girls wanted to go to the outlet mall, and we weren’t sure how long that would take, so we did Madeline’s competition hair and dropped the Dream Duffel at the Hilton on our way to the mall. The trip to the mall took forever, both because the bell service at the Hilton was slow, and because traffic was heavy. We grabbed some Starbucks and did some shopping, but the mall was not particularly great, in my opinion, and it was really crowded. We finished shopping pretty quickly and then walked to nearby restaurant called Ford’s Cafe.

As you might suspect, Ford’s Cafe was car-themed. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but we spent the time shopping at nearby stores, so it passed quickly. The food and beer were decent. Our waiter had only been there a couple weeks and was not very fast, but he was nice. When we were done it was time to catch a Lyft back to the competition, and for Andy and the big girls to back to our hotel to do laundry and pack, since we were leaving for Disney World the next morning!

When we got to the Hilton Madeline changed into her costume and did her competition makeup. She was just about ready when we received a message from the dance director pushing her call time back by an hour. Oh, well. I left her with some teammates who were also there and ready and went to the pool to grab a beer.

The pool turned out to be not a great idea. It was extremely hot and extremely crowded. I stood in line at the bar and was amused by the name of the beer I got — Miami Weiss. (Weiss, short for weiss beer, is a German word pronounced “vice.”) While I was in line I spotted a dance grandma sitting alone at a table at the pool bar, so after I got my beer I sat down with her. It was a nice talk, but I was partly in the sun, and that half of my body was extremely uncomfortable. Eventually I said goodbye and headed inside, but on my way back to the hotel I passed a fire pit area that was completely shaded by the hotel, so I sat there instead.

The fire pit was really nice. There were about eight Adirondack chairs surrounding a large stone pit, and there was only one other person there, sleeping. I took a chair across the pit from her and spent a little time on my iPad. After a while Sandy came down and joined me, and then she went in to watch the opening number of the finale while I stayed and watched on the live stream. Eventually I got hungry and decided to go in to the burger bar and grab something.

When I got to the bar, quite a few of Madeline’s teammates’ parents were there. We had a good time eating, drinking, and talking while keeping an eye on the live stream so we could get down to the competition in time for the girls’ performance. Eventually Andy and the big girls showed up to see Madeline perform. When we did go down, it was standing room only, but we could still see well from the back.

The girls danced really well! When they came off stage we all greeted them in the hallway with cheers and hugs. They were so excited! We did some pictures, but it was still about an hour until awards, so Andy, Ellie, Francesca and I went back to the bar to get food. We were back in plenty of time for awards, which seemed to take forever, but eventually they announced that our girls had taken fifth place!

By this time it was 9:30, and we were able to leave at that point. We grabbed a Lyft back to the hotel, but it was probably 10:30 by the time we packed up the Dream Duffel, walked to the front of the hotel, waited for the Lyft, and rode back. Of course, when we got there, Madeline was exhausted, so Andy and I ended up mostly packing for her. I then had to pack myself, and I think it was about midnight when I climbed into the broken bed for the last time.

Our first full dance nationals were over, and our Disney time was just about to begin!