Moody Gardens :: dancing, lights, ice skates

Hello everyone!

Last Friday, half of the Rice Formation Ballroom Team took a road trip down to Galveston, TX to perform our routine at a square and round dancing festival!

I have to admit, I'm not sure what I was expecting to see at a square dancing festival,

(perhaps cowboy boots and cowboy hats?)

but it was definitely not what we saw when we arrived.

 look at these costumes!

I didn't know people wore costumes for square dancing!

People were so nice there, and it was really awesome to see and talk with couples who love the dance,
who have been dancing together for over 50 years,

and who plan on doing it for many more years to come  ;)

Oh, and by the way, square dancing is quite difficult!

Photocred: Angel Bush

Here's our team looking confident before we actually began dancing.

Let's just say that this confidence quickly dissipated and we had to be rescued by another 4 couples who actually knew what they were doing and decided to take each of us under their wings.

Even as 2 squares with 4 veterans and 4 of us in each, we were still incredibly lost most of the time...
so many weaving and twirling and changing partnas...
They told us that they usually take classes for a couple of months before they can actually begin to dance!

It was really fun to try nonetheless!

The caller (the person who call out the moves we are supposed to do)//
the quilt that they made together for the festival//
decorations.

After our performance, the wonderful people at the festival provided us with the tickets to go see the light show, so the whole team took a stroll through the lighted wonderland.

I have to say, it feels a little early to have all the Christmas lights up already,

--what about Thanksgiving?!!--

but it was so much fun to walk around the park with the team and have random photo shoots  ;)

Partnas photo shoot

Team jumping sessions

jingle bells, jingle bells...

and somehow in the process of strolling,

the 4 of us fell behind...

perhaps because Angel and Andriy were doing things like this,

and David and I were too busy laughing and taking photos   haha

 so anyway, we had a mini photo shoot by ourselves by the gingerbread house  =)

the odd ones above and the cute ones below   haha

Oh, and they also had an ice rink!

We didn't know that!

so we had an impromptu ice skating adventure!

"no forming chains or trains"

so of course, we did just that!  haha

 Partna and I attempting ballroom dancing on ice,,  

rather difficult, I must say  lol

And the team found out that night that David had never had Dippin Dots ice cream before!

Gasp!

so that had to be changed.

I'm happy to report that we have successfully brought him over the dark side  =p

 It was such a fun night, and I'm so excited to take the trip down again with the whole team next year!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend as well!

--Janny