Big Weekend

 
As promised, finally, here's my report for the weekend. It was a full one. On Saturday, we were pretty much committed to my daughter's dance recital. This is her second year, so we were better prepared for what to expect. The wife served as a "recital mom" and, based on last year's experience, did a great job of making sure the girls were taken care of during the long wait for their turn on stage.
We started off with a full dress rehearsal in the morning. We got Denali fitted in her costume and the wife did her makeup. The rehearsal went well and I was able to video it (no camcorders allowed for the real show - after all, they have to make a few bucks from the "professional" video shoot, but I digress....) and I'll probably try to post that to YouTube when I get a chance to work on it. Afterard, I let the wife have the pro photographer take pics of Denali all made up (the group pictures of the girls came in the evening). After that, we went home, got changed and went to lunch. My parents were in town to visit and we had a good meal at Gringo's.
The short afternoon was pretty much spent catching some rest. Jen had just come back from Chicago Friday, so she was still recovering from that as well.
The evening came quick enough. We had to be there by 6p for a 7p showtime. There were a good 30 acts for the evening with different dance groups from the different schools around town. Denali's group was in the second half after the intermission. They tapped to "Disney's Mambo #5" which is a kiddyfied version of the Lou Bega hit song. The girls got to go on about 9pm, so it was a long night. They were cute and it was a good show. We finally all went home after her number as there was still at least a good hour's worth of acts left to go after she finished. We wish they would start the show in the late afternoon rather than 7p so that it wouldn't be such a late night. However, we expect this will be her last year since she'll no longer be at Silverline.
As for Sunday, well that was the annual Bazaar at St. Helen Catholic Church, where we are parishioners. As has become tradition, I work on the parking crew. Since we built the new church building a few years ago, parking has been a challenge. On Bazaar day, this is multiplied tenfold. Even though the church runs shuttle buses from the nearby middle school, for some reason most people prefer to park and walk themselves. In many cases, their walking much further than if they had just taken the shuttle - did I mentioned the buses are even air conditioned? Anyway, the parking crew works to efficiently get cars in and out of the lot, especially in the morning when there is a mix of church goer traffic and Bazaar worker traffic. We have to reserve the back parking lot for the handicapped, so that's also a full time watch point. All in all, there are probably close to 20 of us working the lot over the course of the day. I went to work after the 7am mass. I took a few hours in the afternoon to have lunch and spend time at the Bazaar with the parents, wife, and kids. Denali and I went down the big slide together several times. After that, it was off to another birthday party for Denali, so I went back to work parking and finished up about 5pm. Since I've been doing this for a few years, I know just what it takes to avoid getting overheated and burned. I haven't heard the results yet, but it looks like we had a pretty good crowd again this year.