The Talent Show That Wasn't

Beech Tree puts on an annual talent show. Last year, Keely participated - singing Bubbly by Colbie Caillat with her best friend, Julia. This year, we knew Keely would want to participate but the question was with whom? She wavered all year it seemed, changing songs and groups of friends. In the end, it came together in one night just before the tryouts (using that term loosely, because everyone gets in). She decided to sing Trouble by Taylor Swift with her friends Riley and Catherine. The surprise entry was from Quinn, who decided to play his saxophone (alto sax, as he corrected me when I described his talent on the signup sheet). We were quite surprised, pleasantly of course that he wanted to do this. He tends to be a bit more reserved when it comes to getting up in front of crowds, unlike his sister. He also seems to think things like this are a bit embarrassing – I’ll never forget the year he wouldn’t dress up for the Halloween event at school, he was seriously the only child not in costume but he just wasn’t into it and he held his ground. Similarly, he won’t do pajamas to school or silly things like that. So hearing that he wanted to participate was a nice change. He chose the theme from The Pink Panther and practiced diligently for weeks (until all his time got sucked up by his yearlong and science projects). He also surprised me a bit further – he was an emcee for the event with two of his classmates (one his best friend, Jack and the other another good friend, Tali). So you can see why we were quite excited for the actual event. I saw some of the rehearsal the day before and it was pretty good. Nana even took the train down from NJ to be here to watch the show.

Alas, it was not to be. The East Coast weather struck again. I swear, I really wish we were still in Utah where weather didn’t affect anything – not even feet of snow would cancel school. There was a tornado warning that afternoon and the school got spooked by talk of another derecho (the storm that hit last summer, knocking out power and downed trees) so they canceled it nearly 3 hours before the event. Of course, the weather ended up a non-issue by the scheduled show time so it was really canceled for nothing. They did get to perform for the school during the day, and from what we hear there is a videotape of that performance which we are to get on CD. Nothing yet though, but I’m still looking forward to watching the entire show. I’ve seen Keely’s performance, and they did really good – and from what I hear, Quinn’s rendition of The Pink Panther was his best yet. I can’t wait to watch my budding performers!