Dance Festival

This is how I can tell that the end of the school year is upon us.  It's time for the annual elementary dance festival.  This year, Eddie is in 6th grade and Angel is in kindergarten, so we got to watch both of them - and a whole bunch more of cute kid antics.

At the last minute, my dad decided to come with us, so we got lawnchairs out instead of sitting on the lawn.  The weather was perfect - nearly threatening to rain without actually wetting on us.  Usually it is blisteringly hot at this time of year, so the cool was a welcome change.  Georgie and Freddie loved watching the kids dance, and sat remarkably still for most of the performance.  

This is the traditional dance of the 6th graders, and they have been doing it for as long as I can remember.  They were doing it when Alec was here in 6th grade, and Ben, Chris, and David have all done the same dance... and I did a form of it when I was there, too.  Only we used stretchy bungee cord things - like giant elastics - and they use pvc pipes that they hit on the boards to keep the rhythm.  Eddie was grinning big, and had a great time.

Angel, here in the bright pink, was so hopping up and down excited to do her fishy dance with her fishy headband with fish eyeballs on it!  And then when she went out to dance, she was concentrating so much that she never cracked a smile at all.

These two grades were first and second, and it was fun to watch the rest of the dances after that without having to try and crane to find my own child or get a reasonable picture.  The last dance was either the third or fifth graders, and they danced to Pharrell's song "Happy."  Oh, it was so cute!  I was actually sitting there with tears running down my cheeks, thinking about how happy these children are.  This is the best time of their lives, and I so hope and pray that it only gets better from here.  There is so much love and potential in a child.

How sappy I am.  But happy and proud to be a mother, to be entrusted with the care and happiness of such wonderful little people.  Dance on!