The PenaVegas' 'Dancing with the Stars' Blog: Carlos on His 'Magic Mike' Striptease and Alexa on Her 'Scary' Moment

The competing married couple blog exclusively for PEOPLE

Published on October 26, 2015 04:10 PM

Alexa and Carlos PenaVega are the first married contestants ever to compete on

Dancing with the Stars, and they are chronicling their experiences on the show’s 21st season exclusively for PEOPLE.com. Follow Alexa and Carlos on Twitter!

Alexa’s Take

Monday night was a roller coaster of emotions.

I’m very thankful everything worked out with the snake, and Carlos did an amazing job and owned his entire routine, but it was a tough night for [my partner Mark Ballas] and me.

Our scores weren’t the best. I could have done better, and I would have loved to have better scores. But the scores were nothing compared to being in jeopardy.

Your heart just drops to the pit of your stomach. Going through that is scary. You’re sad, you’re frustrated with yourself, you don’t want to let your partner down and you are embarrassed that you’ve worked so hard and ended up in jeopardy.

But I also see it as a blessing in disguise. That moment bonded Mark and me in a way that we hadn’t been bonded before. He grabbed me and held on to me as we went through that together. I’m really grateful America got to see that side of our partnership because the packages that play during the show have really only focused on the hard times we’ve had together. But we’ve really grown into lifelong friends.

It was also helpful that we didn’t have time to dwell on being in jeopardy because right after the live show last week, they took us to a room where we had to choose our teams for our team dance. Bindi Irwin and Nick Carter were the team captains and sweet Bindi picked Carlos, Alek Skarlatos and me for her team.

We all laughed because it’s the short people versus the tall people. But we are all really positive and nice people, which is good because last Monday was a long day.

We had arrived at the studio at 6 a.m., went through the live show and then rehearsed with our team until 1 a.m. But it was a blast. It’s such a nice and loving group. It was like DWTS summer camp.

For our dance, Mark and I are doing an Edward Scissorhands-themed paso doble. Because Edward is not an intense character, this is the first week Mark is taking a backseat and letting me step up and be the intense one in the routine.

The timing of that is good because being in jeopardy last week lit a fire under my butt. It motivated me to dig deep and try even harder than I was before. I want to stay in this competition.

Carlos’ Take

Monday was crazy! Aside from Lex being in jeopardy, I was also scared to do the Magic Mike routine.

The dance was definitely out of my comfort zone, and I was worried people would question my dedication to my faith since I had just spoken out about how much it means to me.

But the response could not have been more positive. Not only were the scores great from the judges, but the fans have all been supportive and thanking me for showing how my faith affects every decision I make.

I’ve been having a lot of fun learning our team dance this week. We’re dancing to the iconic Ghostbusters theme song, which is awesome.

The hours have been long (we would rehearse the team dance for four hours and then our individual dances for four hours), but learning two dances in one week has been much less stressful than when we had to do it for week 2.

For our dance, [my partner Witney Carson] and I are doing a Phantom of the Opera-themed paso doble.

Yes, Lex and I are both doing pasos. I think Andy Grammer is doing one too. That’s a lot of pressure. The judges are going to be comparing us even more directly than they usually do.

It’s been an interesting week of rehearsal because it took me a while to get the choreography down. The paso is a very sharp dance. It’s the complete opposite of what I’m comfortable with. I like the jive where I can be happy and smiley. This is not that kind of dance.

If I can’t nail the paso, it will look really sloppy. But if I can, I think it will be my best dance yet.