Holiday in Holland

There was actually a purpose for my traveling half-way across the country, a higher purpose than just forcing me to exercise untapped stores of patience and caffeine abuse.

Although those are fairly high purposes.

We manned the van to go see 2 of 8 as she performed in Holland, Michigan, after completing a two week ballet intensive in the discipline of Cecchetti, an Italian form of ballet.

Her performance was held in the historic Knickerboker Theatre, which is just about as an adorable piece of charm as you could ever find. 2 of 8 performed beautifully.

The twins did not.

After a cumulative 22 hour drive, I found myself leaving halfway through 2 of 8's performance as 8 of 8 proceeded to throw what we Southerners call a 'wall-eyed fit'.

That means 'a really big one' to you who are uninitiated in Southerneze.

My sister-in-law with the PhD in biomolecular chemistry (not to be confused with the sis-in-law who is a successful CPA or the other sis-in-law who is a math educator....yes, it's intimidating, thank you...) went with me to wrangle babies.  I had stopped by her home in the smack dab middle of the country for a few days on my way to Holland and she offered to come with me for this leg of the trip. She and I were two ships in the night during the performance, passing on the stairs to the balcony of the theatre, trying to sneak peeks of 2 of 8.

Thankfully, there were two performances.

Here's Dr. Sis-in-Law.

She's awfully brave.

Or maybe she's codependently facilitating my crazy travel schemes....

My niece also tagged along for the adventures...another brave soul.

I suppose we could have just purchased the DVD of the event and watched from our local living room. I suppose that I just could have flown in to see 2 of 8, to be a family representative. But in the end, 2 of 8 had her own personal cheering section, members of family both nuclear and extended, a congregation of unabashedly biased spectators, spellbound by the beauty and athleticism her discipline and training and passion have yielded.

And that kind of experience is worth a whole lot of driving miles.

Even if you have to stand in the stairwell of the balcony to watch.

...while wrestling a furious toddler....