ZJ's first real dance

Since ZJ turned sixteen, she has been just dying for the first dance that she could attend.  Oddly enough, just Monday, they announced "MORP", which is Prom backwards, a girl's choice dance.  I thought that it was pretty lame to announce a dance on the week of the dance.  No one knew anything about it!  ZJ did some homework and found out that it was a casual Disney Themed Dance.  Everyone was supposed to come as a Disney character.

The hashtag on this was "Dad always gets the first dance!"

 ZJ wanted to ask Kendall, who she insists is more like asking Quayd.  They spend every waking moment together, driving together to and from school.  She goes to the library and activities with him and girls that he is dating.  She's like the tagalong sister, but they have a special connection.  Zee tells me that she and Kendall are going to get married and have an RV that is filled with animals.  They've named their Ducks and Goats and dogs.  One day, she came home and told me that they needed couples therapy because Kendall didn't like the song she turned up on the radio.  They are just hysterical together.  Layne and Julie, Doug and I just laugh at them.  But, hey... they are good friends and have fun together and I know that she is safe when she is with Kendall.

SO, apparently on Thursday, someone asked them if they were going to the dance.  Kendall said, "I guess not.  I thought I was." I think that he was expecting Zee to ask him.  So on Friday evening, at 9:00, Zee was telling me this and I said, "Go ahead and ask him!"  So, she did!  He worked until midnight and when he pulled in his driveway, across the street, she raced over to him with a gigantuous bag of popped popcorn and said, "I hope it's not too late to PoP the question!  Will you go to Morp with me?"  He said he's ask his mom and let her know in the morning.  We had spent the whole last few hours looking at possibilities for costumes.  And she pretty much knew that Layne and Julie would say sure, go!

SO.  Doug and I met Stott and Wendy for lunch at 11 at Beehive Grill, then we went to the fabric store and grabbed some fabric that felt like suede.  We came home and I figured out a little pattern for a Pocahontas dress.  ZJ had to cut the fabric because I don't have the arm strength yet to use the roller cutter.  But, I sewed, she fringed and then I beaded the dress.  I also made a belt for it while she made a braided headband. She used my mocasssins and voila! Pocahontas!  She looked adorable!

Looking online, every picture of Capt. John Smith was a denim shirt and jeans, so Kendall had it pretty easy.  We had a fun afternoon making her costume, then they went out for pizza, hung out at the USU Library and then played games at Kendall's until it was time to get ready for the dance.

 

 And I put this photo in for Doug.  He just adores Zeej.  It's so funny because she makes us laugh allllllll the time.  She has more personality in her little pinky than most people will ever know.  She is hysterical and so dang animated!  The night before the dance, she was "moderating" the happenings of the house in her "Newscaster", as she calls it, "Professional" voice.  She walked out of our bedroom after prayer and Doug just got tears in his eyes and was laughing out loud.  "She is so wonderful!"  She really is!  Animated much?

ZJ looked adorable and Doug was in tears seeing our baby, going to her first dance. Grace was just excited for Zee to be going!  Grace and Kendall went to a dance together last year.  They are friends, like siblings, but nothing like Zee and Kendall have been since the day that they met.  It was cute to watch him walk in because he is more like a brother to Zee.  BUT.  When he came in, he said, "WOW!  You look amazing!  You did that all this afternoon?"  Zee said that in the truck, he said it over and over, how beautiful she looked.  I reminded her that this, by all rights and means, her first date.   She said, "But, Mom, it's Kendall!"  ha!

Anyway, it was a fun night. They came in just before midnight and she was talking 90 miles an hour.  There was one other Pocohantas at the dance but Zee said that their costumes were nothing alike because the other one was strapless and very short and very immodest.  She felt like a Princess... a modest princess.  WHY do these girls today think that they need to look like the Kardashians?  EeEEewwWWWwWWWW!  That's just my humble opinion!  She said that there were lots of Mickey and Minnies, a Belle and Beast, just lots of great costumes but she loved hers.  I was happy that she was happy.  I will miss these days in the next few years, as the girls are growing.  It's hard to imagine that we will have an empty nest in the next five years or so.  What will we do with ourselves when we don't have teenagers to keep us busy!?

Life is good!  Very very good!