Pom Regionals at Heritage High School

What's up, gang.

Abby and the Northeast Pom team had a performance (exhibition, game - whatever you wanna call it) today for the MPA Regionals in Saginaw at Heritage High School.  Their team this year, while stacked with a lot of younger kids opposed to last year, has been performing much better - they're tighter and more in sync, having been together for a couple years now.  Going in to the early morning event, Abby was pretty confident that they'd do well enough to advance on to State, which was taking place next month.

Unfortunately, they didn't - one of the new kids on the team screwed up a few times, bad enough that the judges decided Northeast didn't qualify to advance on to the next level.  The girls took it hard - lots of tears, which, for a bunch of drama-prone, teenage girls, should be expected - but Abby eventually let it go.  I'd be surprised if she decides to stick with pom next year (she's mentioned before an interest in joining the Swim Team instead), but we'll see.

Anyway, here's a brief run-down on how we spent our Saturday morning. . .

Warming up with some Tik Tok crappiness in the Heritage cafeteria, before all the performances kick off.

Team selfies while waiting to perform.

Kids have to get sick of making the same damn faces all the time (I know I'm already sick of it.)

Northeast Pom takes the 'stage'. . . or whatever the hell we're calling it these days.

The mandatory Kick Line segment (you can see here why we didn't advance on to State.)

These pics were all taken by the official MPA Regionals photographer - we were forbidden from taking pics or video during the performance (but, as you'll see in a sec, I snuck a video anyway - they're crazy if they think I'm not gonna record my own kid at one of these things. . .)

The Team, following their disqualifying performance.  Of course Abby is giving Ella rabbit ears in the official team photo. . .

After Regionals wrapped up, and our kids' dreams were unceremoniously crushed by the judges, us and the Johnsons drove over to nearby Timbers - a cool bar/restaurant sorta by my school - to treat the girls to some lunch.  While Erik and I had a few beers, Kris and Courtney scrutinized the girls' routine in order to figure out where the mistakes were that kept them from advancing to State.  #pommoms

- Brian