Chicago Part 2....

When I left off, we were getting in the car to drive to Notre Dame. Now first, I should mention that Chicago traffic is horrible! I mean I think it's worse than the Beltway. But I should also tell you that Chicago is high tech, it has signs that say "X minutes to X spot in the city" so you know, given the current amount of traffic, how long to expect it will take to get to wherever. So that was nifty. So we get through Chicago and cross into Indiana. Okay, don't EVER let me move to Indiana. There's nothing there!! Farms, farms, farms. I am just too much of a fan of civilization for that I guess.
Funny moment #1: Sign reads: Welcome to the Eastern Time Zone. "Susan, we just crossed into the Eastern Time Zone!" "Umm, why?" "I don't know, I thought Karilee said it was Central Time in South Bend." "Well, it's Eastern time here!" "Uh-oh." "I think Notre Dame doesn't change." "Why?" "Because..." "Should I call Karilee and ask her what time it is?" "Yeah... do that." Phone call with little: *Hysterical laughter from S^2... "What time is it?" "Where?" "I dunno, there I guess." "4:45" "Okay but not 5:45?" "Right. Why do you want to know?" "Because we just crossed into the Eastern Time Zone!" "Umm, where are you?" "Indiana!" "Mom, I think they got lost... they're in the..." "NO KARILEE WE ARE FINE! WE ARE LIKE 10 MILES AWAY" "Okay they say they are 10 miles away." "We got it UNDER CONTROL. We'll be back to Central Time soon."
Okay so typing that out it is not nearly as funny. But you should remember (1) Susan had only had 5 hours of sleep (2) I had only had 2 hours of sleep and (3) S^2 is ALWAYS fun, and often funny.
And now for an explanation, thanks to www.timetemperature.com! Most of Indiana is in the Eastern Time Zone and DOES NOT observe Daylight Saving Time, including South Bend. However, Western Indiana is in the Central Time Zone and DOES obseve Daylight savings time. On the contrary, Eastern Indiana is in the Eastern Time Zone and DOES observe daylight savings time. Therefore, one could treat most of Indiana as being in the Central Time Zone during this time of year, since they are not observing Daylight Savings Time. I think. I'm still a little confused. However, you should know that on April 2, 2006, Indiana will no longer be ocunted as one of the three states which do not spring ahead from standard to daylight davings time or fall back from daylight to standard six months later. Additionally, some legislature is voting to change the entire state to either be in Eastern or Standard time. Google "daylight savings time, Indiana" for more info on this confusing and amusing mess. Arizona and Hawaii are the only states left that dostay on "standard time" all day long.
Back to the trip. We make it to South Bend and check in to the Motel 6. It has a pool! Sadly, we don't have time to take advantage of that. Our room is pretty nice - big, clean, you know, all we needed for the night, basically. So, YAY! Perhaps this is the time where I should mention HOW we got the Motel 6 room. My mom's friend lives in Niles, MI and works at this Motel 6 in South Bend. So she got us the room for free, so we would have a place to stay. YAY! Anyway... we eat our salads that amazing Mrs. Pass packed us, and flip channels in the room. Then we decide to go on some adventures around South Bend before finding the campus and my little. Now I'm not sure I should share our adventure goals with the common public, but let's just say Susan wanted to put her newest skills to work. Unfortunately, we failed miserably, and then decided to just find the campus. This turned out to be more difficult than we expected. I blame it on a church that had a lovely cross by the road, just like you would put one up if someone got in a car accident... except it said "Aborted Children" on it. WHAT?!?! Haha. Seeing this, along with being at a road that was not well marked, made us miss the turn for Notre Dame. Ten minutes later we found it and laughed. From there, it was pretty simple to find the Joyce Center. So we walk in, and my dear, there are no words to describe the atmosphere at NATIONALS for BATON TWIRLING. So we call the little, and she's like okay I know where you are, walk up the stairs! And then I get attacked with a hug. Let's pause and remember, I flew to Chicago to drive to South Bend (including delays, a total travel time of nearly 20 hours) to watch her twirl, which basically makes me the best big ever. Haha anyway, we watched their little babies do dance twirl, SO CUTE! Then we went to the other place so Karilee could get ready for her open solo! While she was figuring things out, Kaytlyn (her 15 year old sister) taught Susan & I to twirl! Okay I know everyone thinks its cool what they do and everyone realizes its probably hard, BUT ITS WAY HARDER THAN YOU THINK. We weren't very good, but we made improvements throughout the night. Kate & Kari also promised that we could have some of their old batons for our apartment. The roomie & I are going to make up a routine and perform it for them, even if it takes like 2 years and has no tosses. Hmm so okay, then Kar had her solo and she did SOOOOOOO AMAZING! I still don't know how she placed in that, just that she didnt get like top 5, but whatever, she got top 5 in the preliminary part of it, and this was finals, and making it to finals is still huuuuuge! I'm so proud of her! Her solo looked SO GOOD. There are videos, too! Hooray for Susan's huge memory card. Okay sooo, after her solo we left and she left to go to bed because Saturday was the huge crazy day, with all the team finals starting at like 8am.
Begin the section entitled: SHADY MCSHADERSON SOUTH BEND. So the roomie and I decide to drive around and attempt to complete what we tried out earlier, and we succeeded! However, this success occured in a very unlit shopping center with shady people walking around and shady things going on and it was just plain SHADY. Additionally, the goal was only partially met, since the part she most excited about (proving her ability to do so) was not even asked of her... which is actually kind of shady of the person to not ask her about. So boo! Also, our first choice of means to satisfy the goal were not in stock, so we had to get a substitute, which, while it served its purpose, was still not our first choice. From this shadiness, we drove back towards the Motel 6. First thing we see is this REALLY BUSTED UP CAR and shady people driving it, at which point we decided we were in the shadiest part of town. Then, once we got back into the less shady (but still shady) part of town. At this point, we pass a much better-lit, bigger, and less shady place we could have obtained our goal, and probably gotten our first choice. This was rather dissappointing, but we didn't need additional supplies, so we just drove back to the Motel 6. So we are walking up to our room, and there's a guy standing outside his room on the other hall with no shirt on. Susan is like ahh and makes me walk really fast even though he's CLEARLY not paying attention to us - but she thought it was shady, so we ran back to our room. I then explained to her that he was on his cell phone which made it less shady than she had thought, but still shady... we ARE at the motel 6, what ISN'T shady? So, then there are people walking around shadily and so we lock ourselves in and even put our cooler and a chair in front of the door. Everytime we here a voice or a noise, Susan jumps, because, well, we are in Shady McShaderson-ville. I call the boyfriend, but he doesn't answer, and so we find a movie on TV (Austin Powers Goldmember) and realize that now that we have (at least somewhat) attained our goal, we have to partake in the events that normally follow such an action. Being that we are already the silliest girls in the world, AND we are sleep deprived, the night turns into lots of sillyness and much laughter. Around 11:15pm I remember that my mom's friend is working so we have to go say thanks... but this means leaving our room and going into... you guessed it, SHADINESS! We walk down to the service desk and say hi for a minute, but then Susan's phone rings so we have to go talk. On our way back up we run into a different guy standing outside with no shirt on so we make a U-Turn and walk the other way... and by walk I mean she practically ran, back to our room and AWAY from the SHADINESS. We did not leave the room again that night. We did, however, talk to several people (we are popular girls) before I started to fall asleep while Susan was talking to me. This is much like the 2113: one of us would be sleepy and the other would need to/want to talk. I fell asleep on Suz a few times before we really called it a night... "I'm listening, I just can't respond right now k?"
6:45 came SO EARLY... time to get up and get ready for TWIRLING!! We got there at 8am to find out the poms went first (boo!) but they were still fun to watch. Then the teams! Okay, let's break it down. There are two types of events: twirl and dance twirl. Dance twirl is to your own music, twirl is to a Sousa march. Also, I think dance twirl is more... dancy! And pretty and melodic and stuff if that makes sense. Okay, so then we have small and large teams - small is like 8 and large is like... more, up to maybe 14-16? THEN there's junior teams and senior teams - I don't know the age cutoffs but I do know that the junior team has between 11 and 15ish year olds (maybe older) and that the senior teams have high school and college aged people. So I'm just going to tell you how the teams did. Keep in mind: my little is on all the senior teams, and her sister is on all the teams.

Small Junior Dance Twirl - 2nd place
Small Junior Twirl - 2nd place
Large Junior Dance Twirl - 1st place
Large Junior Twirl - 1st place
Small Senior Dance Twirl - 2nd place
Small Senior Twirl - 1st place (GOING TO HOLLAND FOR WORLDS!)
Large Senior Dance Twirl - 2nd place
Large Senoir Twirl - 2nd place

There ya go. At first the team was pretty upset with the results, because well, THEY ROCK AND SHOULD HAVE WON EVERYTHING... and it was VERY close. Stupid Wheaton - every event they got 2nd in the Wheaton girls won. This makes us unhappy. BUT now they realize (hopefully they do at least) HOW GREAT THEY ARE!!! AND that they ARE going to worlds, yaaaay! Karilee also place kinda high in a bunch of solo events (three baton, open solo, and rhythmic) but did not win any / isn't going to worlds for any. BUT SHE'S STILL AMAZING AND SO ARE ALL THE DYNAMICS. Their "superstar" Bobbi Jo is going to worlds for like 80 things, and cute little Britt is going to worlds for rhythmic in the 10-12 age group!!! Incase you couldn't tell all this twirling makes ME want to be a twirler. They are pretty awesome. :-) Kar is going to teach my baby girls to twirl and make them into mini Miss Majorettes. Hehehe! Okay so by the time all the teams had gone and awards were announced, it was like 1:30 and we said goodbye to Kari, her mom, and her sister. We got some Subway and headed on back to Chicago!

*stay tuned for part 3 ~ i'm tired of typing :-) *