School Starts

A couple of things happened this last week. Of course, school started back up for the girls. Caitlyn got Emily's former 6th grade teacher so she was pretty happy about that. Emily finally got her schedule for her classes this year and ended up getting stuck with Spanish as her elective this year (she did not choose it) and she was not overly thrilled about that.

The girls also started going back to their Polynesian dance classes which we had taken about a 6 month break from. But they kind of had to hit the ground running as they did not have their recital back in June like they were supposed to. At some point they had postponed it until the end of summer because of personal family issues but because of everyone's vacation schedules, there were not a lot of lessons going on and not a lot of students attending the lessons so basically, no one is ready for the recital still.

The recital is now set for mid October but our girls have not learned any of the new dances so, they will only be partially participating. Their dance teacher had invited them to join the Jr. Wahine group this year. They will be dancing with the older girls now. Most of them are in high school although, some were in jr. high as well. Caitlyn is a little young and small to be in this group but it would be too difficult to separate the girls so they will end up moving up together.

The Keiki group, which was huge when we stopped going, now consists of one lone little Keiki. Emily and Caitlyn has agreed to dance one number with her so that she doesn't have to dance by herself. There is one other Keiki but she has not shown up much over the summer and they have not gotten a hold of her yet to see if she will continue to dance or not. 

Emily and Caitlyn will dance the Keiki Tahitian number with the youngest Keiki that has been the only one attending lessons regularly. Originally, their teacher wanted just Caitlyn to dance with her but Caitlyn won't dance without her sister. They were originally going to send one of the more experienced Jr. Wahine's to dance the number with her but she was not happy dancing with someone she is unfamiliar with. Anyway, Emily and Caitlyn mostly learned the dance after all of two lessons, which is partially why we are happy the girls are moving up to the next level. The lessons were a bit slow for them when combined with much younger and inexperienced girls.

The girls will also do one number with the Jr. Wahine group as they just started a new Maori Poi Ball routine. The Jr. Wahine dances are quite a bit more complicated than they are used to but since no one has quite learned this routine yet, they are not feeling quite as overwhelmed with this one. In fact, they are 2 of 4 girls that can actually manage some of the more difficult moves. The other 5 girls has not yet learned them.

Emily and Caitlyn has also managed to learn the Samoan Sa Sa routine that the older groups are doing but I think that they will not be able to perform this number due to the lack of outfits available but they are reviewing their options now and we will know for sure shortly.