There was definitely a lot to like about this episode. I will definitely say though, Rarity/Sweetie Belle's parents weren't exactly what I was expecting. This was the first time we've seen a cross-breeding of races so far (at least with the mane cast) since the dad was an Earth pony and Mom was a unicorn. (Unless dad's horn was covered up by the hat and we never saw it) True, it was kind of lazy for the re-use of certain character models, but that tends to permeate quite a bit anyways through out the series. Definitely under utilized too, but their appearance at least did answer a few questions about Sweetie Belle and Rarity's origins. They got their hair and horns from mom and coat from dad. The dad struck me as a sports coach of some kind with his cutie mark and mustache. Not really sure with mom since we didn't see her cutie mark.
And as soon as I saw the team up's in the sister competition, I figured that was going to throw a few wrenches in the fannon works, especially with Dinky. Overall, a very cute episode. The ending got me too and it pretty much re-confirmed why Sweetie Belle is my favorite CMC. Tries so hard and things just go wrong. No RD/Scootaloo with the whole sister theme was a bit surprising considering we got a pretty heavy dose of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. True they aren't sisters, but I figured they'd get a bit of screen time that might have helped explain things a bit more of their relationship.