Day 1: Dallas NCA Nationals

We had the awesome opportunity to visit Dallas this last weekend for Gabi to compete in the NCA Nationals - the biggest and best cheer competition in the US to date.  1,143 teams, 25,484 athletes, 38,000 spectators, 41 states, and 5 countries.  Pretty exciting.  Not to mention we get to see Ben's sister, Jenny and her family and the Strohl family - Tyler's friend, DJ and Gabi's friend, Nikki, who moved away a few years ago.  All of them living in the Dallas area.  Pic of girls at last practice before heading out...

We thought we would be flying into a nice warm state...nope.  Mother Nature decided to send the snow with us unfortunately.  Luckily though, we took the earliest flight and got into Dallas around 8:30am on Friday and avoided the worst part of the storm coming through.  Jenny was there at the airport to greet us.  Martin, Jenny, Travis and Lucas took us around downtown Dallas for a tour and took us to an awesome Mexican restaurant called Cristina's.  We got to see the grassy knolls where JFK was shot - pretty cool.  Since we had been up since 4am for our flight and Mackenzy's school was letting out early, we decided to call it a night early and we went back to the hotel to relax and get ready for the first day of competition.  Gabi was to perform at 8:30am.  11 teams in her division (broken up by size of gym, age and level).