1-10 Wow, What a Super Weekend of Square Dancing

Winter Festival in Waco Texas

You're probably wondering where we've been the last few days, well, let me see. Oh ya, I remember now. For the last five years Wade Driver a caller out of Spring Texas has been hosting a square dancing weekend in Waco Texas called Winter Festival. Wade has been calling since 1957 and is the owner/producer of Rhythm Records and Lone Star Records. Wade and five other callers called mainstream, plus and A tips while Mark Prow cued the round dancing. Mark has been teaching round dancing for over 30 years. He is the first cuer we have seen that doesn't read off a cue card as he calls. There were a lot of round dancers both Friday and Saturday. The five callers that were calling with Wade were Marshall Flippo, Ken Bower, Dee Dee Dougherty, Mike Seastrom and Gary Shoemake. Marshall Flippo has been calling for 66 years and he's out of Tucson Arizona. This year is his last year of traveling and calling but he will continue to call in Tucson. Ken Bower is out of Palm Desert California and has been calling for 53 years. Dee Dee Dougherty is out of Minneapolis Minnesota and has been calling over 25 years and she teaches line dancing. Mike Seastrom has been calling for over 50 years and he also cues. He is out of Los Angeles California. Gary Shoemake is out of Sevierville Tennessee and has been an International caller for over 50 years. KO Jeanes is a caller out of the Houston area and has been calling since 1990. We had a super time dancing to all the callers, each one had their own style and really enjoy calling.

Wade Driver, KO Jeanes, Ken Bower, Dee Dee Dougherty, Gary Shoemake, Marshall Flippo and Mike Seastrom

On Friday there were two dances, a Welcome Dance from 3 to 4:30, it had thirteen squares. In the evening there was a hall for mainstream dancers and another hall for the plus dancers and then for the last tip everyone danced together, had about 30 squares. The evening Dance was from 7:30 to 10, we danced in the plus hall so I'm not sure how many mainstream squares there were. Each tip had a different caller and in between each tip they had round dancing. After the dance Wade and Mike did an Advance tip where there were five squares. We had a great time. After the dance we drove back to Belton. We got home around 11:30, Larry went to bed and I stayed up a little longer to pay attention to Flo.

Me and Marshall Flippo

Louis enjoy square dancing with new friends

Larry, Billy, Cindy, Tea and Billy Ray

Ken and Maureen dancing to Ken Bower calling

Betsy promenading home

Debbie and Becky enjoying the dance

Larry dancing with Becky

Billy Ray and Tea having fun dancing

Saturday the festival started at 9 in the morning, it takes us about an hour to get there so we woke up at 6:15 to finish getting the Minnie ready. Yesterday Louis rode with us to the festival but today he decided to drive separately, he and Judy had made plans to go to the Baylor lady bears game during the dance and he needed his car. We didn't want to leave Flo at home all day so we decided to take the Minnie, that way we could rest in between the dance sessions and we could take care of Flo. We left the house at 7:30 Saturday morning and didn't get home until 12:30 Sunday morning. Today there were three halls, the A hall was for Round Dancing workshops, plus workshop and Advance Tip, the B hall was plus High Energy and DBD and the C hall was mainstream workshop and High Energy. In the morning and afternoon Larry and I danced in the plus hall where they had high energy plus and DBD plus dances. The morning session was 9 to 11:30 and the afternoon session was 2 to 4:30. The evening dance was setup the same as last nights. An hour before the evening dance they had a special mainstream session where visiting callers each called one short tip. We participated in this, it was a lot of fun, we had a super time. After the dance there was an after party where pizza was served and the staff sang and did skits. When we got back to the Minnie we put stuff down and got ready to head back home, it was really cold  and windy. By the time we got home we were exhausted. I was too tired to unload the Minnie. LIFE IS GOOD.

Home Sweet Home

Sunday we just hung around the house. I unloaded the Minnie, Larry read the paper & surfed the internet and Flo played her favorite game of in and out the door. It was way too cold for me to sit outside with her. Friday while I was waiting to leave I started taking down my Christmas decorations and today I finished. The movie The Martian is being released on dvd this week, we discussed if we should purchase the physical dvd or simply purchase the streaming version via Amazon, with the streaming version you don't get a disc but you can stream it as many times as you like from Amazon. The price is the same either way. We decided to buy the streaming version. In the evening we watched the movie. The Martian is based off the fiction novel by Andy Weir. It is about American astronaut Mark Watney who was stranded on Mars by his crew when they thought he was dead. It starred Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig and Jeff Daniels. The movie was well written and we enjoyed watching it.