ABT Training and NY!

I was trying to give you a non red eyed version, but I this is a good as it gets!

At the wax museum on my last day. These are the only three pictures I bothered people to take a picture of me with.

I bought this outfit at Ann Taylor Loft in NY. I seriously loved this store, I love these skinny jeans because the fit nice without giving me muffin top, like most skinny jeans do.

I am on the bottom right in the blue shirt.

Nicole, and me. She sat next to me for most of the training.

myself, Laura, and Leslie. I went and took a ballet class at Steps on Broadway with Laura right after this picture. It was fun to get to know her better. She lives in Twin Falls, Minnesota and married her ballet teacher's son. She was staying with her brother Mikey in Brooklyn for the training. I really liked her and thought she was really nice and gorgeous! Leslie lives in NYC and also went to the U of U for ballet. She was going to auditions for a company soon, but just found out she is pregnant. Everyone always looked at me like I was crazy when I told them, I have 4 kids.

Brenda from Victoria, Texas. We sat by each other most of the time in classes and went to lunch a couple of times. She was a Modern major at the U of U. She was really easy to talk to.

Oh, there were many attempts at a good self portrait! But not any successes. Although I love this dress I found in NY.

I look bored and it is a nice arm pit shot.

This picture reminds me of a bobble head.

ABT women's locker room. They had rules about what we could and couldn't take pictures of, so this is one of the only.

If I would have had more time I would have go to this show, Spider man Turn off the dark.

One of the times I was waiting for the subway, there was this older chubby white guy singing on the platform across from me. I don't know what the song was, but he was singing it in a real deep voice marching around a pole . Everyone around him was holding back the laughter. It was so funny! Weird people. This is not a picture if that! Just a picture of the subway!

Me and my super high puff. At the met with Melanie Hawkes (she was in my ballet class at the U, and she also attended the training) waiting to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit. The exhibit was really interesting, very Gothic and dark. They had slightly pornographic video playing on the walls, Hello!

view from the window

The bathroom was not too bad, although I did wear flip flops when I showered because the tub was questionable.

It is pretty cool that I had a kitchenette, although I was way to busy to use it. I made instant oatmeal 2x and was already sick of it. What can I say, I am a girl who loves change! That is why I am always trying new recipes, well and I love to cook.

hotel room, I really only watched TV twice the whole time I was there. You can see the hair dryer on the dresser, that's because my bathrooms outlets did not work! Trust me this in nice for the money I paid for NY. I met a girl at the training that brought her own bug protecting sheet cover for the crappy hotel she was staying in.

The joys of walking and walking and walking. My feet had many wounds from walking around lost a lot!

My hotel room!

August 1st and 2nd- flew to Dulles, Virginia to visit the Rasmussen's. They had their baby a week early, so Eric came to get me from the airport. We drove through crazy rush hour traffic, I think we finally got to there house about 7 or 7:30. We ate dinner and then headed out to do some late night sight seeing in DC. We went to DC Cupcakes (it is a reality show on TLC) and I got a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. The frosting was to die for. We stopped by a CVS, so I could buy a disposable camera because I could not get mine to work (that is why I don't have any pictures of DC or holly's house or anything on this blog- but I will blog those as soon as I get them). Then we went and drove by the hotel where Watergate took place, a handful of monuments, and got out and walked up to the Washington monument. I felt so bad that they had to take out their brand new baby, but it was fun to see all the cool stuff. By the way Holly had a boy and he is so cute, they named him Finn. I could not believe how perfect and cute their townhouse was. Every room was decorated so cute and they definitely have a chic style. I took some pics, that I will post later. The next morning we ate breakfast, then all got ready and took me to Grand Central Station in DC to catch my bus to NY. Wow, that was an excruciatingly boring bus ride. I was really cool to drive through the different east coast states but it was a 4 1/2 hour ride, I was really wishing I had a smart phone... I was SO bored. We stopped for a break about 2 hours in, and I bought a couple magazines and a bunch of food to keep me occupied. I still ended up downloading Tetris on my phone because I was SO bored.

Anyway about 5 that evening (August 2nd), we arrived in NYC. I found a taxi pretty quick and went and checked into my hotel. It is called Metro Apartments and is a hotel that used to be apartments. Over all it was not too bad. I was starving so I went for a little walk (I was staying in Hell's Kitchen, so there were tons of nice restaurants close by). I found a fancy little place called 44 1/2. I ordered a beet and goat cheese appetizer (which was so good), and a bacon wrapped Cod with Avocado, Mango, and Tomato Salad. I was all so Delicious! But it did cost around 50 bucks. It was the fanciest place I went the whole time I was there, so worth the money. I came back to the hotel and ate some Ben and Jerry's I picked up at the local bodega (corner store- I feel so cool I know what that is!). I tried to get to bed early but, no such luck. I was way too anxious about my training, and I was sticky from the bus ride, and it felt damp in my room from the swamp cooler. Anyway, I did get a little sleep.

August 3rd-10th I left a little early so I could figure out the subway. I made it to ABT okay, and was still feeling a little nervous and excited. They have one of those old school elevators that has a elevator guy that pulls a little gate closed, then the elevator door, and then off we go. And it was a tiny elevator. ABT has studio's on multiple floors in the building, we did most of our training on the 4th floor. I sat in the front row and kinda kept to myself at first, and was reminding myself to be brave and talk to people and make friends. So I did introduce myself to the people I was sitting by, and from that point on I really was not that shy. We dove right into learning, and it was fabulous. Raymond Lukens was our presenter most of the time. He is Italian and speaks many languages. He was very entertaining to listen to and learn from. In creating this teaching program ABT went all over the world researching and watching classes in the different styles of ballet. They have a physical therapist, a nutritionist, and a psychologist on their team that discussed with them which way is better and why. I have always struggled with knowing which way is better, and I loved knowing the reason behind everything. I have started teaching a Level 3 at one of the studio's I teach at, and it is going so well. Having a plan with research behind it, gives me so much confidence.

I recently have found out that I have passed my exams and am now certified to teach primary-through level 3. Yay! I passed with 94% total for both tests. I just checked and my name is on their website. You go to www.abt.org and click on education and training, then on training for Dance educators, then ABT's National Training Curriculum teacher training, ABT certified teachers, then Primary-level 3, under P, BAM there I am! I am super excited about it all!