Dance has always been a part of my life and so celebrating the joy and fun of it with a room full of people today was so awesome.  I started dancing as a small child – I started as many children do by taking ballet, tap and jazz.  I did that for a few years before narrowing my focus on just ballet and later pointe.  I continued to study ballet and pointe all through high school and even in my first year of college.  There were many years when I hoped and dreamed that I would make a living through dance and it was wonderful to have those dreams.  In high school I started driving to Macon to take classes from a more challenging studio and with instructors whom I could learn more from.  I was in the high school drama productions each of my three years of high school and was named “Best Dancer” in the production each year!  My highlight was probably dancing as the white cat in our school production of Cats.  After I moved to Tallahassee at the end of my freshman year of college, I shifted my focus from the strict and precise study of ballet to the crazy world of aerobics at the end of the 80s!  Women were still wearing leg warmers (or at the very least big thick socks) and many of us wore those awful thong leotards with our tights!  Despite the fashion disaster (which of course I didn’t realize was a disaster at the time) I was having so much fun and quickly traded in my ballet shoes for tennis shoes and in my early 20’s became a certified aerobics instructor and was teaching a number of different classes at two gyms.  After a number of years of doing that I got hooked on clogging and had fun with that for a few years.  My favorite thing about clogging was getting to perform on stage again (although teaching classes was much like being on stage as well  – with a microphone no less!!)

Currently, I am enjoying life back in the gym taking group fitness classes and one of my favorite classes right now is Zumba.  It is so much fun and a wonderful workout and incorporates many of the dance moves I have learned over the years.  I love the feeling of looking in the class mirror and seeing so many bodies all doing the same thing together.  It feels like home to me.

National Day of Dance is something that is promoted on the t.v. show that I love called So You Think You Can Dance.  They promote the day of dance in part to get people up and moving but also to raise money for the Dizzy Feet foundation.  Premier Gym organized an event for Zumba dancers in Tallahassee and we had a bunch of great instructors come out and we danced hard for two hours straight!

Here are some photos from the event…

My very favorite Zumba instructor – Kelly!

These were our amazing instructors!

This is the group of us that was left at the bitter end – I would say this is only about half of the people that showed up!

On Saturday, July 7th we hosted a four family party at our house.  For this get together we decided to do a modifiation of the food tv show called Chopped.  Each family would get an ingredient and a course and they would have to put those things together to come up with something for everyone to enjoy!  The Brocketts didn’t fully participate because Jim was out of town, so for the families that were in we had Scott and Crista bringing an appetizer that contained lime juice, Cheri and Craig bringing a main course that contained coconut and we had to provide a dessert with chocolate (we got lucky with our pick!).  As always, the food was plentiful and the conversations were fun and never ceasing.  We ended this party with a serious BANG!  We had received from one of Conner’s friends at work some fireworks.  Let’s just say these were not the kind of fireworks you can buy at Wal-Mart!  They were AWESOME!  It was as if we had our very own fireworks show in the backyard.  There were a couple scary moments – when they shot into the trees for example – but no one got hurt, and everyone laughed, and we made memories that will last for a long time to come!

Here are some photos from the night (although I didn’t get any of the fireworks show!)

Lime, appetizers

We know how to eat!!

Thank you Chris for the yummy cocktails with lime and coconut

Chocolate, dessert!

The Moms!

Three of the Dads!

Only six of the ten kids were able to make it – one day soon we will get them all together again!

On the weekend before my 41st birthday I was blessed to be a part of something truly amazing.  Nearly 4,000 women from around the world gathered to celebrate Jesus and learn more about the gospel.  We were all hungry to know how to better apply the gospel to our lives and the lives of our families and friends and our local churches.  The event was put together by the Gospel Coalition and it was their first ever women’s retreat.  It was held at the Hilton Orlando on a rainy weekend in June.  I was there with over a hundred of my church friends from Four Oaks and was roomates with my sweet friends Ann Ross, Cindy Stockstill and Pam Post.  What a blessing to spend so much time with these three beautiful people.  The conference started on Friday afternoon and ended on Sunday at noon and nearly every hour in between (that we were not sleeping) we were learning from some of the most respected and well versed Christian scholars and teachers in the world.  We heard from Tim Keller and John Piper and Paige Benton Brown and had the Getties play amazing music to us all weekend.  The power of that many women singing hymns of praise together was awesome on so many levels. 

I am thankful that Four Oaks made the investment in the women of our chruch by paying for our transportation and hotel rooms! I am thankful to my family for taking care of everything on the home front so I could be there without worry.  I am thankful to God for the blessings he showers on me everyday but in particular for the blessing of women in my life who love me and pray for me and care deeply about my soul!

It was very hard to get a good picture of the entire group at one time – but this is the room we would all get together in

This isn’t everyone from Four Oaks – but not bad for putting together a group shot at the last minute.

Here we are being silly – what fun!

What wonderful roommates – Ann, Pam and Cindy

My sweet sister in Christ