Dance Little Sister

 Recital 2012...holy cow.

On the day Kids Dance scheduled it's spring recital 'Out to Sea', all we had going was a swim meet in Grand Junction for Eve, which Matt would attend, a morning swim meet for Grace and Shane for the Cruisers, and two baseball games, scheduled for 2 p.m., exactly when Gracie was to take the stage. Many helpful parents and buckets of sweat later, we scraped our weary selves into Rock Canyon High School's gymnasium, makeup mostly intact, ready to dance.

 The tap routine was set to Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep', which lent such a spirit of maturity and gravitas to the proceedings that it nearly overswhelmed my darling girl each week as I picked her up from practice...it was a burden of cool that the girls could shoulder only in the recital experience.

 Oh, the sass! The soul! The swagger!

 The ballet number was choreographed to 'Under Water', a lovely but otherwise nondescript piece of music I'm not sure I would recognize if I heard it again. But the girls danced beautifully...she was so proud, particularly performing for her skeleton crew of Crawfords: mom, Aunt Diane, Grandma K, and the Crawford grandparents. We soaked up our applause, accepted our flowers, took our bows, made small talk with the appreciative hordes, then headed home in a wicked downpour to retrieve wet and dirty ballplayers and consume celebratory meal at Red Robin. Happy days, these.