Jan 30 2010
Disastrous December
After catching a little snowfall over Thanksgiving, December 2009 started out in a very pleasant way. That first weekend we took a short trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit family and to enjoy a long weekend away from home.
We visited Sharon’s father in Santa Rosa. At 93 years of age, he is feeling his age and requires a full time caretaker, but we were pleasantly surprised to see him getting around fairly well and quite conversant. We limited our visits to late morning and kept them short, but our time with him was quite enjoyable and allowed us to confirm the good care that he is getting.
The real highlight of our trip was the chance to see my grand daughter, Mia, dance in the “Nutcracker Ballet” at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium at the Marin County Civic Center. The Marin County office building and the auditorium were both designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and are excellent examples of his architectural genius.
On Saturday, December 5th, Mia filled one of the supporting roles, that of a Spanish dancer; both her beauty and talent showed during throughout her brief performance. We watched the show with her parents, Kim and Pete, her sister Kendall, and several of her family’s friends.
On Sunday, we returned to the auditorium and were joined by Mia’s grandmother, Julie, her cousin Shane, along with aunts Kristen and Kelly. We all watched Mia perform the lead role of Clara – which kept her on stage during about half of the entire performance. Again, I was amazed at her skill as a ballerina and her youthful, yet mature beauty.
I found it nearly impossible to keep from tearing up throughout both performances. To say that Mia exceeded our expectations in every way would be totally honest, and yet we should have known that with her dedication to her art along with the total and uncompromising support of her immediate family – that her performance would be exceptional.
OK. That was the fun part of December.
