Our daughters have credit cards in their names (on our account). Our 17 year old uses that card to get gas. We pay the bill for her.

Thanks so much for posting this! We will be in Seattle this summer, and I plan to book the Victoria Clipper. I am definitely going to try to book the new ship and the comfort class sounds like it is definitely worth it. I appreciate you sharing!

I have never heard of that! No, we have a drawer in our laundry room which we use to store plastic bags. We don't do anything special with the bags-- just shove them in there.

I will offer my daughters the option of having a party or taking a trip someplace.

There is no way that I can reach 10,000 steps in a day unless I specifically do a long walk and then mindfully work in steps for the rest of the day. I LOVE being sedentary. Seriously, I love to curl up on my couch and read or watch TV. I also don't enjoy being outside at all. So, in a normal day, I get about 3000 steps if I don't actively try for more. When I am in a stage of wanting to get my 10,000 steps (I am trying to force myself to get motivated to do it regularly again now), I get up in the morning and walk on the treadmill for 45 minutes to an hour. If I do that, I will get to 5,000 steps around 11:00 am or so. This keeps me motivated to keep actively walking around my house for the rest of the day. I sometimes have to walk around my house for a bit before bed to get the steps in, but I try to walk around earlier, so that I can spend the rest of the evening on the couch. LOL! The only time I can get to 10,000 steps without forcing exercise is when I am on vacation and actively touring someplace. Also, for the past 2 summers, I have spent 5 weeks in Seattle. I find it very easy to get my 10,000 steps there just by walking around the city everyday. I can see that I would naturally be able to do that if I lived in a big city where I didn't rely on a car.

We put absolutely everything we can on our credit cards. We do not have a mortgage. We always pay it in full each month. We get so much back in rewards ( cash on one card; hotels points on the other). We have been doing this for years.

If you are a mountains and snow person, I really doubt that you will ever love Florida. I moved to Florida (Tampa) when I was 11. I lived there for 13 years. I never came to really like it at all. When my DH asked me to marry him, I told him that I would as long as we moved out of Florida (fortunately he is from New Jersey and he wasn't in love with Florida either). I was SO depressed every winter. I really, really need the change of seasons. Fall and winter were so depressing for me in Florida. The holidays never felt right, and I know that I had reverse-SAD all winter long. I feel so much better since we moved away. I would never consider moving back. DH has had a couple of job opportunities there, but he has immediately said he is not interested once he hears that they are in FL. He knows it is grounds for divorce as far as I'm concerned. LOL!

114 in the last 6 months

We definitely had mean girl culture at my daughter's old studio. Her new studio is much smaller, and she genuinely likes all of the girls and thinks they are all really nice. It is a nice switch. Ironically, there was one mean girl at the new studio when DD switched. She ended up leaving and going to DD's old studio. Yay!! I think she is a much better fit there!

I honestly don't know much about Joffrey-Chicago's year-round training, but Joffrey-Chicago is definitely considered to be the "good" Joffrey as far as ballet training. The other "Joffrey" programs that I mentioned above (the ones all over the country that accept everyone to the summer intensives) are the ones that many people avoid. Joffrey-Chicago is not part of that system. So, I think that I would definitely look into the Academy if you move to that area!

Rat-A-Tat-Cat

I've actually found that my anxiety has decreased these last few years (I'm in my 40s). But I battled anxiety for a long time. I have been a major worrier since I was a child and was treated for anxiety at different points in my 20s and 30s. So, I completely understand how debilitating it can be. I am so grateful that I don't struggle with it anymore. I am sorry that you are dealing with this!

I can understand your disappointment. Big hugs! Sorry you are feeling sad.

We did an Adventures by Disney trip to Italy. It was fabulous! I will have to look into their Alaska itinerary. That sounds like an amazing trip.

We did an Alaskan cruise with Disney. I don't think that Disney would be the best choice for your situation, but I definitely recommend doing an Alaskan cruise. It was one of my favorite trips ever! So beautiful! I agree with the others-- I definitely recommend a room with a balcony. I don't think it is necessary for some locations, but I do think that it is absolutely worth it for Alaska.

My daughter absolutely loves auditioning too! So, your daughter is not alone in that.

That's for sure! Waiting for the email results can be brutal! It is such a relief now that she has made her decisions for the summer. And it seems that she returns from summer intensives, starts school and Nutcracker rehearsals, and before we know it, it is already time to audition again! So crazy!

Yes, I remember thinking the same thing about Joffrey. I think the confusion comes from the fact that Joffrey Ballet in Chicago is a well-regarded professional company. I am not sure of the specifics but something happened where the Joffrey program in New York is allowed to use the name Joffrey as well. The two companies are unaffiliated though. I agree with maize that you should assess a program based on your goals at the time. I know many people whose kids started out at one place and if their goals changed, they reassessed and moved to a different place. My daughter did exactly that. She attended one ballet company for years, but we eventually realized that she needed something different for her training, so we switched studios. That's very common to do.

Thinking about you and your daughter today. Please update and let us know how it went this weekend! I don't know a whole lot about Irish dance and I would love to hear more.

Joffrey intensives are kind of controversial. First of all, you should know that Joffrey Ballet in Chicago is not the same at Joffrey in New York. They are actually two separate programs. Joffrey in New York is the program that has all of the intensives throughout the country. From my understanding, that Joffrey tends to be more popular with competition dancers because they offer jazz intensives, musical theatre intensives, etc. I honestly couldn't tell you about the quality of those intensives because they aren't our focus. As far as going to one of their ballet intensives, Joffrey is not highly regarded. The programs tend to be very large and people that I know who tried them thought they were a waste. The way Joffrey works is that a dancer auditions and Joffrey sends a huge list of all of the locations that she has been accepted to. I have never heard of anyone not being accepted to Joffrey. That being said, I am sure that they can be a lot of fun, but there are many intensives that are considered to be more valuable for ballet training. I think that trying local ones or the one for their own academy is a great idea! Then you can spend time learning more about various intensives for a future year, if she wants to continue along that path.

How good an intensive is can be somewhat subjective. What is good for one person, might not be good for another. And what might be a good intensive for someone one year, might not be good for them another year at a different point in their training. You honestly need to assess each intensive each year to see if it is what you "need" that year. That being said, there is definitely a hierarchy of intensives as far as prestige goes. The top tier includes all of the "three-letter programs" like ABT (American Ballet Theatre), PNB (Pacific Northwest Ballet), SAB (School of American Ballet), and SFB (San Francisco Ballet). Other top programs include Miami City Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Chautauqua Institute. There are also top International programs such as Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. These are all fabulous programs, but sometimes smaller less "prestigious" programs can be a better fit. The main thing is that the program is addressing whatever the dancer needs to work on at that time and that she is getting enough attention and corrections. There are definitely some smaller, less known, hidden gems out there. And one well-known program with very solid training doesn't even require auditions at all. My daughter has gone to 4 different intensives at this point. She went to two different programs her first two summers. Then her third summer she did two programs, neither which were the same as the first two summers. Her fourth summer she went to one of the same programs that she did her third summer. This summer she will be attending that same intensive (for the third year) as well as adding a completely new one. So, after this summer, she will have attended 5 different intensives. As far as what is "done", that varies as well. Some people love an intensive so much that they keep returning to the same one each year. Others go to a different intensive every year. There really is no wrong answer. If an intensive is helping a dancer grow and improve every year and it is one that she enjoys, there is no reason not to continue going there. However, if someone wants to sample different intensives and styles, that is okay too. No, you don't need to stick with Balanchine style intensives. There are some people who believe that it is best to stick with the same style of ballet when a child is young, so it doesn't confuse them, but then it is great to expose them to other styles as they get older, so that they can get more well-rounded. Others think it is fine for them to take other styles when they are young. Your daughter's teachers might have an opinion about that. My daughter has taken intensives in ABT-style, Balanchine, and hybrid styles. This summer she will be studying at one Balanchine intensive and one Vaganova. Vaganova is what she studies at her home studio. To learn more about specific intensives, you might want to check out a board called Ballet Talk for Dancers. It has a ton of information, but it can be a bit overwhelming. I should also warn you that they are super super strict over there. They do not allow any comparison between programs at all. The moderators seem to be omnipresent and are quick to reprimand people for discussing things in the "wrong" way. Just a warning! Still, you can learn a lot by reading over there. Fire away with any other questions you may have!

Wow! You could have a whole dance team! LOL! Ok, my daughter dances at a classical pre-pro ballet studio. She started "ballet" at age 3 and fell in love with it immediately. She now trains 20-25 hrs. a week. She went to her first intensive at age 11. It was totally not necessary at that point, but she really wanted to go. So, we went to the audition (she was 10 at the time). I think it was more nerve-wracking for me than for her! But we figured that it was good for her to start getting used to the audition process early, so that she would be comfortable with the process when the auditions really started to matter. So, her first intensive was 2 weeks long and it was technically more of a "workshop" than an intensive. It was a great first experience though. She did another two-week intensive when she was 12. When she was 13, she did 2 intensives for a total of 7 weeks. Last year she went to one five-week intensive. This summer she will go to two intensives for a total of 8 weeks. For serious ballet students, intensives are pretty much expected at some point. However, my daughter started going to them younger than was truly necessary. She just really wanted to do them, and they have been a good experience for her. But some people say that you can wait until about 14-15 before it is necessary to go away, if you are getting decent training at home. Audition season starts in January each year and most ballet companies hold auditions during January and February. To find a list of auditions for the upcoming season, Pointe Magazine puts out a listing of intensives in their November-December issue each year. I don't know where you live, but if you live near a decent-sized city, you probably have some companies that come there to hold auditions. Various companies have different length intensives. They typically range from 2 to 7 weeks. There are a ton of intensives all over the country. Audition classes are a good thing to experience. My daughter likes to go to gauge herself against other dancers her age. It also helps her to assess her training at her home studio. Just like colleges, some intensives are very selective, others are moderately selective, and some aren't very selective at all. There is even one excellent program that doesn't require an audition at all. It is first-come, first-served. Most intensives have a placement class on the first day of the intensive to figure out which level to put each student in. A few assign levels at the audition, and you find that out when you get your acceptance letter. Most intensives have ballet technique everyday and pointe everyday or several days a week (depending on the level of dancer). Some intensives focus heavily on ballet and might even have two ballet technique classes a day, plus contemporary ballet several times a week. Some intensives offer pas de deux, variations, repertory, jazz, flamenco, Pilates, modern, contemporary, hip hop, etc. It varies widely by intensive, so you have to evaluate each one carefully. Some intensives focus on a certain type of ballet training-- Balanchine, Vaganova, Cechetti, ABT, RAD, etc. Some are more contemporary ballet based. These are the things that popped into my head as far as an overview. Let me know if you have any further questions! I am happy to share what I have learned.

Sure, I would be happy to share my thoughts! No, this is not my daughter's first intensive. She did her first one when she was 11 (for two weeks), and she has done one every year since. So, this will be her 5th year. How old is your daughter (or son)? My thoughts/advice would vary depending on how old your child is. :001_smile:

My 14 year old daughter trains in classical ballet. She just finished audition season (auditioning for summer intensives). Her decisions have been made and she has decided to attend 2 intensives this summer for a total of 8 weeks. In the meantime, she is starting rehearsals for her studio's spring performance. Good luck to your daughter this weekend! I hope she has a great time!

That's where I am with this. I read about this on another board several days ago. I don't care what kind of drama is going on between the parents or what the girl may have done. I can't think of any reason that chopping off a 13-year old's hair is acceptable.