Dance recital and end of the dance season

This weekend was the big dance recital in Fort Qu'Appelle, which is the wind up big end hoopla to the season.  All 3 of our kids have been sick over the last week and home from school.  I was concerned about Dominique even going to dance.  She was feverish Friday.  I took her to her practice anyways on Sat., but she wasn't running fevers.  But then that night as we watched the solo and duo performances, she was telling me her tummy hurt.  No matter, you could not have kept this girl from that stage and she did awesome!  This was Brian's first time to a dance recital.  I had gone last year to see what all it was and to watch the cousins dance.  Then I saw the competition in Regina- still not a prolific knowledge of the dance world, but I guess it had informed me some as to what all goes on.

It hadn't occurred to me that here we were paying out the wazoo for dance and fundraising... and Brian didn't even know what all she was learning.  He was impressed with the dancing enough Sunday to decide that if she really likes it, she could do dance again next year.  The performances are really well done and you could tell that the girls learn a lot and work hard on their routines.

I told another parent that last year I was just watching as a spectator.  It was all together different watching this year.  Now I saw every dancer as someone's son or daughter!  I said that I could never adjudicate because I would give them all glowing reviews just for getting up on that stage in front of all those people.  So much courage!

It was great that she loved it.  If not, we would have looked for something else, but if the shoe fits...

Their song was "A dream is a wish your heart makes" from Cinderella.  The kids were especially excited to realize that Dominique's costume is it's own disco party.  In the sunlight, it makes crazy flashing orbs all over.  They howled with laughter the entire way home in the van as she provided disco mood for our drive.

So disco queen/cinderella princess, you've always shined in our hearts and you do no less on the stage either.  It's fun when they find something that they not only love, but that comes to them naturally.  Ivan is taking off in karate too.  His sensei was reassuring me that although he is one of the beginner students, that he has also had the least amount of lessons, and the sensei could tell that Ivan was picking up things quickly. So we've got 2 in their fields of operation at this point anyways.  Just one more child to figure out!  Emora is also saying she wants to do dance, so we'll see some day if it's her thing too. 

Meanwhile, it's now time for soccer.  I'm coaching Dominique's team and we had our first practice this week.  I passed the "can mommy do this" test and she wasn't totally horrified that I'm her coach, so that was cool.  It was so fun working with the kids and helping them improve their skills.  I'm hoping it will stay fun for all of us, which I am really thinking it will.  I realized last year that I am a bit of a crazy soccer mom- cheering for all the kids and then feeling like maybe I was stepping on the real coach's toes or weird-ing out the parents.  So now at least it won't be weird when I'm hollering at all of them ;)