Hey it's me!

My name is Victoria Lynn Salsman, as you may know. I feel like most of you already know a lot about me, but here is a quick overview: I dance at Diana Evans School of Dance. I am a captain of Henry Clay Dance Team. I've am a part of Y-Club and have gone to KYA every year since 6th grade. I am in youth group at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church. I love the Disney princesses, especially Belle. I have been starting to learn a little bit of sign language. I love reading Sarah Dessen, watching Glee and So You Think You Can Dance, and listening to country and pop music. One of my favorite websites, on which I end up spending way more time than I probably should, is http://www.stumbleupon.com/home/.

Alright, now that all that stuff is out of the way I can talk about my super fantastic summer! So basically this is how it went down... dance, dance, dance, the best experience of my life, more dance, then the beach. My summer started out with immense amounts of dance rehearsals as soon as school got out and then getting to spend 16 hour days at the Opera House preparing for our annual recital, "Once Upon a Time..." After this, I had a couple weeks of random rehearsals to get ready for nationals and hanging out with some of my awesome friends.

Now here comes the best experience ever part... The next week I spent doing mission work in the beautiful country of Guatemala! I will seriously never be the same. Over the week we built 3 houses, worked in a orphanage, hiked a volcano, and met so many wonderful individuals. The people were so inspiring. We had to haul hundreds of cinderblocks and sandbags down to the site because there was no road to the place we were working. Even the children started to help by carrying cinderblocks down on their heads! There was a bit of a language barrier since most of us didn't speak Spanish and not all of the Guatemalans did either. Spanish was the second language for them, as well as us, so verbal communincation was quite difficult at times. It was amazing how patient they were with us and how well we all worked together, even though we couldn't talk much. Near the end of the week we went to a dedication for one of the houses and the prayer was translated in three different languages! It was awesome to see how we all came together to do such a fantastic thing for these families. It was such an eye opening experience.

That was the bulk of the excitement for my summer. The next week I went to dance nationals in Myrtle Beach and then to Edisto Island where I got to relax for a week... I was exhausted! It felt like as soon as I got back it was time for school to start again, which is why I am writing this post!

Picture #1: Henry Clay Dance Team at UDA camp in Sharonville, Ohio
Picture #2: Diana Evans School of Dance recital program 2011
Picture #3: Playing with kids in Guatemala
Picture #4: Hotel Bambu in Santiago, Guatemala