The dance season kicked off this year with Hollywood Connection. We will be attending their nationals in San Diego this summer, but this weekend was the regional convention right here in Santa Clara. Serafina performed three routines on Friday night: her senior large jazz, her senior small jazz and the Senior hip hop crew. All the routines were fantastic to watch, but the large jazz placed third and the hip hop got first. Exciting! Here are a bunch of the dancers after awards on Friday night.
Saturday morning we had to be up early for Serafina to attend convention classes and because the convention center is directly across the street from Levi's stadium where the 49ers were playing in a championship game, that meant she was stuck there all day. Between taking Lyft and catching a ride with some friends attending the game, I was able to leave my car there but escape for a bit of normal life before returning for competition that night. Next year, I'm booking a hotel room. Even though it's just 15 minutes away from our house. If the 49ers have a crap season, I'll cancel. Otherwise, I'll save us both the misery of being trapped at the convention center.
Despite taking classes all morning, supporting the junior team she's a T.A. for and being stuck at a convention center all day, Serafina still managed to be a good teammate all evening. Here she is helping apply some lashes, something she is very good at and I am not.
She danced beautifully for the second night in a row and her senior contemporary routine won third and the large hip hop team won first. Here she is with Karin waiting for the awards to be announced.
More happy dancers celebrating at the end of the awards.
Sunday was the final day of classes. I dropped her off and returned later in the afternoon for the closing show where they hand out scholarships and other awards. Serafina has not yet be individually recognized at a dance convention. It has been a hard pill to swallow since she is really a fantastic dancer and works so hard. Going into this season, I was optimistic that she would finally get the kudos she deserves especially since she was added to a Masters class at the studio that works specifically on auditioning, which is how awards are granted. But we were both very realistic about Hollywood Connection. Not only was it the first convention of the season, this was her first year moving up a category for dancers 14 years old and up. She would take classes with the oldest group and be up against them for any kind of award. And since she's just a little over 14, she would be one of the youngest in the room against literally hundreds of kids aged all the way up to 18. I dragged Leo with me to the convention center so he could finish his homework, and then he sat with me as the award ceremony took place. We were towards the back of the dark, crowded ballroom. I warned him that Serafina probably wouldn't win because she's the youngest in her category and she might be grumpy because of it so be nice to her on the drive home. Well imagine my utter and joyous surprise when they finally got around to announcing the Icon runners-up and I hear this...
Sure, terribly pronunciation, but it is still my Serafina being called on stage! The other moms I was near congratulated me and said "this is a big one!". I leapt up and got a picture of all the Icons and Icon runners up on stage.
So what does this mean? Well, as a runner-up, she can compete to be an Icon at Nationals. She'll participate in a special routine for all the Icon winners and she'll be allowed to compete a solo at Nationals. A solo!!! This is all her heart has desired for a long time. Her studio only grants a dozen or so solos to dancers and a majority of them are for high school seniors. But this award means she'll get to have a solo this season.
After the awards ceremony wrapped up, I rushed to the front to hug my girl and take the pictures I've been waiting to take for years.
Kavni and Serafina
With Ananda
Hugging Miss Tami, one of her teachers and who she is T.A.s for
With Linda
Some of her besties.
Hugging Miss Gabby
Serafina has asked Miss Gabby to choreograph her solo. She fully gets Serafina as a dancer and I can't wait to see what they create together.
Bonus picture with her brother since he just happened to be there bored in the awards until it all turned so very exciting.
Honestly, whatever happens the rest of this dance season, we will be riding high on this awesome win. I'm so proud of her, and I can't wait to see her go through the process of learning and performing the solo.
On January 8th, Leo was scheduled to take his behind-the-wheel drivers test. He had his permit for the required six months, practiced driving with both Tom and me, and took his professional lessons. In fact, his final professional lesson was scheduled for the morning of the 8th so he would be extra prepared for his test that afternoon. Plus, a friend gave me the testing route ahead of time, so we went to the DMV and tried it out on the weekend a couple of times. So clearly he was super prepared, but we had heard of plenty of kids failing and having to retake it.
I think we were both really nervous, but he passed on his first try!
And a couple weeks later his physical license showed up in the mail.
This is an exciting (and slightly scary for mom) milestone!
There are many reasons for a person to volunteer. For a high school students in our district, it is a graduation requirement. It also looks good on a college application. But in the grand scheme of things, it's also really important to give back and to look outside yourself once in a while.
When Leo turned 16, he was eligible to volunteer at a lot more organization and I asked him to chose one that he cared about. Of course it would fulfill the school requirement and be noted on his college applications, but also it was opportunity to be part of something important. He decided he wanted to volunteer at Magical Bridges playgrounds. Last school year, his P.E. class included kids from the moderate/severe Special Education class on his campus. He spent time with students who were non-verbal and some with significant cognitive differences. He made a point to treat these kids with kindness. Magical Bridges has a Kindness Ambassador program, which is a perfect fit for Leo. Though a lot of the volunteer opportunities happen during the summer, Leo got to participate in their Canine Companion program on Sunday.
Two very sweet, trained dogs - Gilligan and Garrett - were brought to the park to greet the kids. Leo accompanied the dogs around the part and helped little kids meet them.
Leo enjoyed his time volunteering and will participate more with the Kindness Ambassador program. It is so fitting that he is involved with Magical Bridges since we have visited their parks a few times and both kids appeared in a PBS News Hour segment about the park. That clip is still on the Magical Bridges home pate.
This summer flew by in the blink of an eye. No one was really ready to go back to school, but they threw on some new clothes and set out to conquer the day.
Continuing the tradition of forced first day of school pictures in the front yard.
He took the online course, I quizzed him like crazy, we waited in a long line...and he passed!!!
He's officially permitted to drive with a licensed driver for the next six months and then he'll take his behind the wheel test to get his actual drivers license.
This is quite the milestone! I'm excited for him to take this big step, but I'm also a little nervous. I'm sure he'll do great.
Another recital in the books! It was an exhausting, inspirational, fun time. Each year, I get to know the kids and teachers more and more so the recital becomes more meaningful. It's such a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the dance season, especially on a year when we aren't headed to the national competition just a few weeks later. The recital was the actual finale to this dance season, complete with an emotional sendoff for this year's graduating seniors.
Serafina performed all of her competition routines, with the ballroom routine performing in two shows. Because she was a teaching assistant this year for a pre-jazz class, she was also in the opening number. Her large hip hop routine closed every show. It is one of the most high energy, fun routines and is delightful to watch.
In addition to her competition routines, she performed with her four technique classes as well. Here's a few shots from hip hop. My phone acted up and I couldn't record it.
Here's her technique class contemporary routine. I took this video during dress rehearsal so there is a lot of talking in the background.
Here's a video of the opening number featuring the teachers, TAs and seniors. This is also from rehearsal so they are all in various costume pieces. For the actual show, they looked more uniform with matching shirts and bottoms. I helped back stage for the two morning shows. I got this cute picture in the wings before the girls went on for Show Jazz.
Serafina's school friend Bella came to the first show. It was really sweet of her to support Serafina.
Tom, Leo and I got to watch the afternoon show on Saturday.
Sunday morning I worked backstage again. I got a few pictures of Serafina's ballet dance from the wings. She wasn't that please with me about it.
Her bestie Sunny, along with Sunny's aunt, and Serafina's former teacher Mrs. Ghelfi, came to watch with her daughter Sadie. Sadie loved the recital and had lots of questions about it. She had her mom sign her up for a class as soon as they got home.
They hung out with us during the break between shows. We walked around to the front of the theater and I got this shot.
Ah these two.
The final show was Sunday night. Tom, Leo, Nana and I were in the audience. The little jazz dancers that Serafina was a TA for performed during that show and I told her I needed a picture of her with "her little friends" (that's what I called them all season when she went to assist in their class). Serafina was dressed for her Senior Hip Hop Crew dance that went on immediately after their routine.
After the show we were able to give her lots of flowers and praise.
That night we celebrated my birthday and Father's Day with one delicious cake.
I don't really mind spending my birthday at recital. Next year, Serafina will be old enough to sign up to participate in the "Dancing Dads" routine. Tom isn't so sure about it all, but it is a crowd favorite and Serafina assured him he'll be towards the back.
Since Leo's school is in its inaugural year, they are still figuring out programs and events. The principal and staff are all very enthusiastic since they are paving their own way. When the principal announced there was an opportunity to earn a "badge" (a type of award), I encouraged Leo to participate. One way to earn a badge was to demonstrate how he had learned a new skill. He wasn't sure what he could do for the project, but I thought it was pretty obvious he could show how he learned saxophone this year.
He was up for it and made two videos demonstrating his saxophone skills that he submitted as part of his application.
All the kids that participated had stations set up at the Celebration of Learning. It was similar to a science fair where people could wander around and look at all the different projects.
Here's Tom at Leo's station.
Then all the kids were awarded; some went for several "badges". We were pretty startled at how poorly the Vice Principal pronounced "Mirrione" and you can hear Tom muttering on the video. Ha!
In addition to the certificate, each kid got this nifty polo shirt with the school logo. I wonder if he'll ever wear it again.
Wow, wow, wow. The high school band performed their spring concert and I was blown away by Leo. He switched to the baritone sax, which is a big instrument. He doesn't drag it back and forth to school much, so it just stays in the band room. I haven't heard him play in a while and he did awesome. He also took his electric guitar to play a solo and completely tore it up. So awesome.
Tom was unfortunately on a work trip to Las Vegas, but I took lots of video for him. Leo decided to wear a tie and I found one of Tom's Jerry Garcia designed ties. Then I had to watch a YouTube video to learn how to to tie it. Of course, we had to take some photos.
I can be a little nutty about getting a good seat, but hey, I want an unobstructed view of my kid! Especially when I need to document the whole thing for his dad who was super bummed to miss it. He did have his Nana and his sister in the audience though.
There were only 15 kids on stage, which is a pretty small group for a school band. But since it's a new school, everything is still pretty small.
I'm just going to include some favorites here. This is the Abba song Dancing Queen. They performed this without a backing track.
Leo felt pretty inspired by this Bruno Mars song.
"Who ya gonna call?"
But my favorite part was Leo's solo. There was a pretty fantastic piano soloist who played a complicated, surreal piece of music, but Leo followed it with this amazing rocking solo of both Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Bold choices, but he pulled it off!
They closed the show with Don't Stop Believin', which was a little rough but still very enjoyable because these kids have worked so hard this school year. I couldn't stop smiling the whole show.
I took Leo to his first Orangetheory Fitness class on New Year's Eve. It was a hard class, but he did awesome. It was my 1,200th class. I'm not kidding. I've been consistently going since December 2015 with a unfortunately long break because of Covid. Here we are with Coach Nate. He's my favorite coach there and Leo liked him too. They chatted about video games after the class.
Continuing the tradition of Serafina and Sunny ringing in the New Year together, Sunny came over for NYE. Here they are being goofy in my kitchen.
Here they are looking gorgeous in my entryway.
I made a delicious vanilla cake from my new baking book I got for Christmas. I tried to give it a cute sprinkle star, but it ended up pretty off-center. Oh well.
Toasting the New Year!
Serafina giving me some classic teenager side-eye for having the audacity to toast her.
