Roady to Palmy

On Saturday I had a Dance Comp in Palmy, which means ROAD TRIP!! Some of the coolest people ever came down with me, Tania, Nakita and Reno, and boy-o-boy was it a lOoonngg day!!

After waking up at 5.30am to get ready, we left Hamilton at 7am and got to the Arena at about 11.45am. The rest of Footworks DanceSport Studio (my Crew), arrived shortly after and we set ourselves up in the stands.

Smell my Footworks

At 1pm, the madness (awesomly FUN madness of course) began. I was dancing in 8 events, 5 of those events had Semi's + Finals, and I also danced 3 Guys through their competitions, which had Semi's and Finals (which they all carved up in!!) I calculated, and I think I danced approx 50 times. The competition didn't finish till after 9pm, and then we had the Awards Ceremony.

Me and William dancing a Waltz (couple 64)

Busting out our Latin ChaCha

Footworks did fleepin awesome!! The guys that I danced through got mostly 1sts and a couple of 2nds, I placed 1st in all but 2 of my events (one I got a 2nd, and the other I didnt place), and the 4 Footworks Competition couples did AWESOME! Nikita and Ben, what can I say..they Won Everything!!!! They got atleast 10 trophies, upgraded in both Ballroom and New Vogue (I cant remember if they upgraded in Latin, but they probably did), which is awesome!! Soo soo wish I could dance like Nikita! And we won our 2 group events yayayaahh!

We finally finished everything at 10 and went to Reno's brothers house down the road to watch the rugby. I was doing fine Energy wise untill we got into the car and I pretty much crashed. I was soo exhausted during the game, that I couldn't sleep and could only think 'my feet hurt so bad, im soo tired, I wanna go home'(and Tania/Nakita thought the exact same thing lol). So the Second that game finished, us girls were Up and out the door, and sleeping in the car.

We got home at 5am-ish, dropped our stuff on the floor and rolled into bed. 24 hrs is a looong freakin time I tell ya, and my poor Roadtrip buddies had to sit and watch me dance for 9hrs (sorry guys), but it was fun times!!

Yes there are only 5 Certificates here, the other 2 were won for Group Events and are up at the Studio with our Trophy :)

Rose of Tralee - Friday

I'll try to keep this short (hehe thats funny coz i am short haha) so I will be leaving out the details, so I have some stories leftover to tell :)

Friday, the real fun began. We woke up at 7.30am to get ready and met the Judges at breakfast by 9am. Breaky was lovely and so was the company, it was crazy to think that we were officially in a competition.

Just after 10am, we arrived at the 'Seriously good chocolate company' where we donned hairnets and aprons, and created masterpieces!!

After learning how to make chocolates from molds, we mucked in and got to work. I managed to 'accidentally' get a bunch of chocolate on my gloves, which promptly got licked off(when we were finished of course). Once we were done and they were dried, we packed up our little goodie bags and headed out for a brisk walk to lunch at the Kiln (I am so proud of myself, that paragraph could have been 5 times as long, but now I have some stories left to tell).

During lunch, we met our MC who introduced himself, then went down the line and said who each of us were, and what region we were representing. Pretty impressive I think!!

After lunch at the kiln, we did a little bit of window shopping and stopped in to a few shops/sponsors to have a look, and have our photos taken.

"The New Zealand Rose of Tralee finalists (from left) Ashley Mackenzie-White, Karen Lynch, Kimberley Farthing, Nicole Gourley, 2009 New Zealand Rose of Tralee Lisa Monaghan, Elizabeth Sara, Anna Mills and Laura Young merrily stride down Don St in Invercargill yesterday"

On our way to our mayoral reception with the one and only Tim Shadbolt, we were met by the Southland Times who took our photo which made it to the front page of Saturdays issue(photo above).

Meeting Mayor Tim was flippin awesome!! We didn't get to talk to him much because he's a busy man, but he welcomed us graciously, we had a couple photographs, then we mingled with everyone who was there. There were people from the various Irish societies, Tim Shadbolts people, family of Lisa, and other really awesome people.

The shortest and the Tallest, Me and Ashley

Next on the Agenda was a walk down to H&J Smith Department Store (think Farmers) where we got our makeup done at various makeup counters. I went to Revlon and the lovely beautician beautified me for the Social evening.

After changing into Cocktail dresses for dinner and the social evening, we departed for the Kelvin Hotel. Dinner was delicious!! even though we were so full from Breakfast + Chocolate + lunch + mayoral reception + Dinner + Desert. Soo much food!! They even had nibbles at the social night, also held at the Kelvin.

Mum, Dad and Tania had arrived in Southland after flying in that day, so I finally got to see them and hang out with them a bit. It was a bit scary having all three judges sitting at the table with them during the night, but I got to sit with Tim Shadbolt so it was aall Good!!

The night was awesome, The Roses mingled with everyone and met each others supporters. Some of our Escorts had come to support us which was lovely. During the night we had our first on-stage interviews. Mine was OK, then it was onto the talents. The talents were not judged, they were just a bit of fun. I did a Solo Jive, and after I finished and walked off the floor, Michelle, Rachel and Lynne(our chaperones), started calling for Tim to get up and dance with me. Much to my surprise, my dream came true and I got to bust a move with Tim Shadbolt!!

Me and Tim were best buddies by then, so we had a good time.

The rest of the night was generally meeting more people, singing classic Irish songs (I'm so glad I learnt 'I'll Tell Me Ma' at Camp last year) and convincing Tim Shadbolt to be my dance partner on Dancing with the Stars.

In conclusion, Friday was awesome!!!!

The Rose of Tralee - Thursday

I'm going to try and write the short short story about my weekend, because I was writing the Long Long story...aand I'm 4 pages in, and only half way through the 2nd day. So here goes...

Thursday
Tania dropped me off at the Hamilton Airport and I jumped on my flight. The lady sitting next to me was also flying all the way to Invercargill and she was awesome to talk to.

My first glimpse of the South Island of New Zealand

I told her all about the Rose of Tralee and invited her to the social evening that night at Waxy O'Shea's Irish Pub. She couldn't make it because of work, but when we got into Chch, she gave me a quick tour of the airport and went to visit a family member during our layover. When she came back, she (Sherwyn) found me in the food court and helped me study my Irish line. I was really nervous about reciting it, and didn't want to say it wrong, hence the studying.

New Zealand is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!

The flight from ChCh to Invi was cool aswell.
I sat next to a guy who was going Camping on Stewart Island with a bunch of other guys on our flight, and they became my fan club, the flight Attendant even came over to find out a bit more about the event, and announced it over the intercom (little did I know, one of the judges(Jim Maguire) and some Taranacki supporters where also on my flight).

I had to put on my sash before the plane landed and before I made it halfway down the gangway, my amazing/lovely/awesome/enthusiastic/beautiful chaperones spotted me and gave me a warm welcome.

Michelle drove me to our hotel and I met the other girls who had arrived, and my roomie Nicole Gourley(Southland).

After getting to know the girls a bit, we all met for dinner in the Hotel Restaurant. We met our chaperones, the organising committee, Lisa Monaghan (2009 National Rose), Charmaine Kenny (2009 International Rose), and Nicole (Charmaines awesome Travel buddy). Elizabeth from Otago hadn't arrived yet because her bus had broken down and was delayed almost 2hrs, so we met her after dinner when we arrived at Waxy O'Shea's for the nights activities.

The night at Waxy's was specifically for us to get to know eachother, and meet our escorts, so the judges were not there. Only one Judge (Maryanne Ward-1988 NZ National and International winner of the Rose of Tralee) came, and she was just there for a little while.

While we were waiting to go inside, there was a group of ladies sitting by the window and they had a sign pressed against the window that said 'WELCOME KYMBELY'

My Awesome Supporters in Southland

I had no idea who they were, but when I finally got a chance to talk to them during the night, I found out that they are work mates of lovely Sherwyn from my flight. I was so surprised and felt really special that she had asked them to come and support me because she couldn't make it. Southlanders are ridiculously awesome!!!!

Me and Zena

We were each announced and walked in, then one by one, were introduced to our escorts. My escort was the coolest, and when he came to get me, instead of just handing me a rose like the others, he took my hand, gave it a kiss and twirled me round. The crowd loved that (and so did I).

During the night the Boys had surprise challenges to complete, which was funny because most of them didn't have a clue what they were getting themselves into by agreeing to be our escorts. They had to read out a Limerick in their best Irish Accent, pour some Guinness and make a Shamrock in the foam while pouring, race to peal potatoes (Jarryn totally should have won this one), and dance with us enthusiastically. It was pretty funny.

The Guys pealing Potatoes

In between the challenges, we (the Roses) sold raffle tickets and had a generally awesome time! We couldn't stay too late because we had a massive weekend ahead of us, so we headed back to our hotel (The Ascot) to get our beauty sleep.

I'll try to make the next post shorter, but i doubt it will be because I want to tell everyone how awesome everything was!!!