The Show Before the Show

My reasons for vacationing in Garden Valley, Idaho this summer were threefold:

1. See Michelle perform as "Mrs. Meers" in Thoroughly Modern Millie and as "Calamity Jane" in Calamity Jane

2. Get to spend time with my niece and nephew, Scarlett and Ryder

3. Enroll my kids in the Starlight summer camp, because they could do a week of theater before football starts

I easily accomplished these three items and so many more!  Around the campfire on our last night, I asked the kids about their favorite parts of the trip. After listening to their answers, I considered what my answer would have been and ultimately settled on a tie.

First, I loved watching my children enjoy the same things I enjoy.  Whether it was seeing their happy faces return to camp after a long three hour rehearsal, watching Adam "jump" off a 25-foot bridge (he says he fell...) or Alex during his first ever whitewater rafting run, it was so much fun to have them with me, so willing to do things that I find exhilarating.

Second, I got to sing with Michelle.  At Starlight shows, there is almost always a "preshow" - just a number or two the audience can enjoy before the real show starts.  Generally, it is planned.  But sometimes (like Monday night when Michelle came with us to sit in the audience for Seven Brides) Eddie calls Michelle out of the audience, explains there has been an anonymous audience request for her to sing "When I Look At You" from Scarlet Pimpernel, and starts her music.

Other times, he approaches me in the middle of a river run and says, "So what could you and Michelle sing for preshow tonight?" So we hustle back to camp, download music, get cleaned up, make dinner for the kids, practice for 20 minutes, hustle to the theatre to throw on mics and hand the tech table our soundtrack, and enjoy getting to sing together.  (We decided that this school year, we will work on a portfolio of awesome female duets so we will already have something worked up should the opportunity present itself again.)

Sidenote; look how I am noticeably taller than Michelle.