{Growing} Long Journal Post

Our business.

It's growing. 

At an insanely fast pace.

It's overwhelming, in a great way.

And, very exciting.

This quarter, I have 173 children enrolled in our program. 

173 children enrolled in a community center dance program. Wow. 

There are also another 20 children enrolled in our program through a preschool in a neighboring town.

That is 193 children. 

That is almost 200. And is amazing to me. 

I feel like it's okay to be so excited about these numbers because I don't advertise except for that our classes are listed in the books. I just teach and love these kids and the numbers keep going up :) I love every second of it. 

Sometimes I wonder how this happened. I remember how growing up it was always a dream and now it is finally here and real and it is the most amazing thing in the world. It is such a gratifying job. I get to make kids smile every single day. 

Beginning next week I will have another 10-15 children join that number when I start at the second preschool. It is just surreal. 

These children are amazing to me. I have some 5 year olds who I met as 3 year olds who will be ready to try out for our team in May...I love watching them grow. I love knowing I have a part in their lives. 

I love walking through Target knowing I'll be greeted by at least one dance family. 

It's home. 

I would also like to announce that my husband is amazing. Oh, what's that...I already told you that? Oh, well I'm telling you again.. He's one month into this quarter of school and still has 100% in his math class. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean a 99.78747% because he missed 1/2 point on his test last night and was royally bummed. In high school my parents were proud of me when I got a C in math...oh wait, I never got C's in math...oops. It's amazing to me that he can have that good of a grade in a math class. I remember being in high school saying to my math teachers, "As long as I know how to count to 8, I'm going to succeed in life and these things just don't sense to me and they're not going to." Ha...I was right. (and a brat, oops again). Don't worry....I graduated high school. 

We're starting birthday parties for Emerald City Dance. I'm super excited about it. More time with kids...um let me think, OK! Being even more involved in these children's lives, OK! :) I love it. I hope one day I have 18 year old kids in my program that I can say to,"I remember when you wore diapers to dance class and couldn't be in the room without a binky!" That will be awesome. Doing birthday parties is huge for us. I feel lucky that our apartment has an amazing basketball gym that we will be using for these parties. We can rent it out anytime we want. I already have 2 parties booked. Super fun for me. :) I love that work doesn't ever feel like work. Well, except when I'm having to email people about money because that makes me sad and is not fun. But other than that...it's always awesome. 

Tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, I will be waking up early to go teach 2 year olds at 10:00 in the morning. And what am I? Excited :) They're just so dang cute! Yes...it's a lot of work getting 10 2 year olds to pay attention but it is just so much fun and super rewarding when they do listen and earn stamps on their hands and they freak out with excitement and give me tons of hugs :) 

I realize that this post may be a bit boring to read for people who don't know us. But, I want to stay true to the reason I'm blogging. It's not for followers or comments. Those are super fun and I'm having a blast "meeting" everyone...but the purpose of this is to be able to look back and remember the details. A journal. These are important things for us right now. I want to remember how exciting it feels to get 173 kids in case, just maybe, one day I own an actual building with 700 kids. I want to remember how proud I am of Matt for his grade in math when one day I'll be so proud of the kids I made with Matt for their grades in math (unless they take after their mom...). 

Tonight we spent the night hanging out with Katie, Chris and baby Avery. Katie and Avery came over and we went on a super long walk with Cogsy. Then it was time for our husbands to be done working and we all went to 5 Guys for dinner, yum. We went to Target to get Avery tummy medicine and then I bought Avery cute clothes and then we went to hang over there until we were all way too tired. We loved it. 

Anyone who actually read this whole thing, you're amazing.