See You Down the Road

Today was the big wrap-up for our recitals, the yearly Spring Recital for the dancers.  There are so many dancers that they have a few different performances.  Madison's was today at 2:00.  Nana and Ba-Ba came up to see her dance with jazz, and as you can see above, watch her dance ballet.

These pictures were actually taken during the dress rehearsal, but they came out very nice.  You can't take pictures or video during the recital itself, as it obviously is a distraction to the dancers.  But they let you take all the photos you want during the recital, which is nice, because we usually get some nice photos.  See yesterday's for an example, or the ones we took during the rehearsals of "Into Grimm's Woods."

We'll actually have a video of the recital soon enough, one we purchased today.  Roughly four weeks from now, they'll have that ready so that we can watch the performance again.  But for now, it was perfect getting to sit in our usual seats in the balcony, watching our lovely ballerina perform once more.  This time, twice!

She did really well!  They all did, of course.  They're getting older, and one thing the parents always do is keep an eye on the eldest students to see where our own little girls are heading in regards to talent and ability.  These girls have quite a ways to go in that respect, as the older girls are very well trained, and of course gifted as well.  But Madison wants to stick with this, and that's of course a delight to Mommy.  And Daddy too.  

Next year, Madison is now leaning more against doing "The Nutcracker," which should free up more time for her elsewhere.  She enjoys it, but there's a feeling she's doing too much at the moment, and with fifth grade approaching, you never know what kind of commitments are coming ahead in regards to homework and other areas.  Plus, there may be a church performance at Christmas that she can be involved in.  

Regardless, she still has her three or four hours of dance practice each week, on Mondays for an hour and fifteen minutes, and then on Thursdays for two and a half hours.  Thursday nights next year - those are the long ones.  And that's a lot of dancing per week, for now.  Especially when you factor in piano class and practices, and then all the other assignments related to fifth grade.  We don't want to wear her out!

But for today, none of that conversation took place.  Parents smiled at one another, congratulating each other for the long tour of duty, with a farewells of "See you next year!"  The children hugged each other.  Madison was bittersweet, which is a different sort of flavor to her usual feelings in May.  Typically, she's more saddened by the passing of another year.  But the idea of rest, vacations, and the fun of summer is calling to her, and she's really looking forward to that enough to counteract the sadness of saying goodbye.

Speaking of "goodbye," we bid a fond farewell to Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Circus tonight.  The final circus of their 146-year run was tonight.  Consider that:  146 years ago, this circus started.  It has been much-chronicled here the shows that Madison has seen, and the ones that Mommy and Daddy even saw back in Madison Square Garden.  We've done the amazing circus theme at KidPak, and watched all those circus movies, including "The Greatest Show on Earth, " which of course takes place within the world of Ringling Brothers.  So anyway, it's a long and storied history we have with this circus.  And it's a long and storied history many, many others have with this circus.  So we simply had to watch tonight's live broadcast of the circus.  It was on the computer, and not on any network.  We watched it together, the whole family (and the grandparents!), while sitting on the couch in the living room with popcorn and snacks.  Daddy didn't have any cotton candy or programs - should have thought of that!

As for the show itself, it was fun as always.  It was a much different theme to the one we saw in person a few months ago.  This one had an outer space theme, which was a lot of fun.  And the acts were creative, while others were more traditional, using all the things you'd expect from this circus.  We watched until the very end, which was honestly a sad thing to watch.  Think of it.  146 years this circus ran.  It made it through the Great Depression.  But it couldn't survive the last few years.  We're grateful that we could let Madison experience the traditional circus before it was gone.  And perhaps it will show up again in one way or another, somewhere down the road.  That's the way they say it in the circus, because they don't like saying "goodbye."  They say, "See you down the road."

We certainly hope so.