Cannon Dances a Lot and Then Some

Just before Christmas Cannon and George finished their Nutcracker performances.  They went very well and both boys really enjoyed the September through December commitment of multiple rehearsals each week, in addition to regular classes.  

Enjoyable though it was, it was a pretty intense schedule to maintain.  So we all breathed a sigh of relief to get back to the normal schedule at the start of the new year of only classes . 

Alas, a normal schedule was not to be for a couple more months.  At the beginning of January, Cannon got an invite to be a part of Ballet West's professional production of Swan Lake.  There aren't many kids' roles--they are mostly in the Act 1 at the Prince's birthday scene.  Cannon was game so we said, "What's two more months of crazy?"  

Here is a picture of some of the kids in their big moment in the show.  I think they look so beautiful!

One of the things that made this possible for Cannon was getting hooked up with a really great carpool of two girls who were coming up from Utah County.  Carpooling is one of the most beautiful things in my life. 

To make the dance schedule even closer to impossible, was another invitation to participate in a filming of The Nutcracker to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Mr. Christensen's famous and longest-running production on the country.  BYU Broadcasting teamed up with Ballet West to make a film that will be shown on TV this December.  Pretty exciting thing for Cannon to get to be a part of.  The rehearsals and filming schedule were happening in the same window as rehearsals and shows for Swan Lake.  Insane, but somehow it worked and he made it to everything-- on time, no less!
Here is a link to the project, if you want to read more.
Cannon is not Fritz in this Nutcracker.  Who know if he would have been- and I suppose it doesn't much matter--but the Clara (flown in from the Washington D.C. cast this past year)was pretty short and Fritz has to be shorter, so Cannon is a party boy.  George wasn't invited to be in this production, but the final day before filming one of the twin soldier boys in the party scene got sick and they called up George to learn a part he'd never done before.  George happily answered the call and I'm sure he slayed it!  I will be so excited to watch them on TV this December.

We've all gotten to feel pretty comfortable downtown the last few months.

Here is the miracle of it.  Last Saturday night -- the closing night of the show--Bethany went and picked Cannon up from his carpool meet up spot just a few minutes from our house.  They pulled up to the house just as Abe and I drove off with a very sick Greta to Primary Children's Hospital.  The show was over and for the first time in five months, we had a week in which we didn't need to worry about getting Cannon downtown for any rehearsals or shows.  Might not seem like a big deal to some, but to us it was one of many tender mercies last week.