What more could happen - Part 2 - The Street Dance!

Warning: I'm a little opinionated and passionate about dances, so if you don't like to dance - you'd better skip to the next post. :)

The day after the Last Day of School, we held our 4th annual (or something like that - I've lost track) Family Street Dance to welcome in summer.

Although advertised as a "Family" Street Dance, apparently there are too many adults that have forgotten what it is like to let loose and dance, because mostly it's children and teenagers that come. Although disappointing (because I just feel really bad for anyone that's not there), I don't let it stop me from having a ball. The adults that do come - thank you to you all! - are my favorite people. Did you hear that - if you didn't come you are off my list of favorite people! HA HA Just kidding. I know, I know - not everyone LOVES to dance like I do, so I try to wrap my mind around that fact and understand it. Sort of. Maybe. Confession - I can't do it!

Anyway, this year, it almost didn't go off, because all day it was cloudy and on the brink of raining. At 8:00 pm, when we were getting ready to set up the sound system, it started to sprinkle outside. Not to be deterred, we waved the magic wand (aka-the whole family working together) and cleaned up the big garage in a hurry in order to turn the Street Dance into a Driveway/Garage/Barn Dance. It worked, and people came!

My absolute favorite part of this dance is watching the under 13 age group.They have so much fun! Their not to that stage where they are so worried about what their peers think, so they actually DANCE, instead of standing around talking. And who's dancing with who on the slow dances is always highly entertaining. Peter had to actually chase a girl down, and she finally relented and danced with him. Ha ha! For some reason, I don't think that will be happening too often in the future, as it will be the girls chasing Peter down.Speaking of Peter, this is the first time he's really wanted to dance. In years past, he would just look at me like I was an alien when I suggested he actually dance. This year was different, he was doing the Macarena, and the other dances too. Yes! I couldn't bear to have one of my children not like to dance. That would be a major parenting failure.

Afterward, Libby named off all the 5th & 6th grade boys that she danced with (yes - 4 years older than her.) I mentioned this in the last post - age is not a big deal to Libby when it comes to who is her friend. And let's not deny the fact that Idaho boys are raised to be gentleman! :)

We got to play some of the Mad Boys' songs during the dance. One girl said to Josh, "I fell asleep listening to your voices last night, and then I woke up again to your voices, because my mp3 player was on repeat." Josh's reaction: "That was a little weird!" (with a grin, of course.) Ha ha

Some of our friends told me that their young sons (under 9) listen to the Mad Boys CD non-stop, even during the night. If Dad gets up in the night and turns off the CD, the boys start to cry and go and turn it back on! Mom & Dad are sick of the songs!

So, back to the dance. I just love Bruce at these dances. He dances and has fun, mostly because he is a fun loving guy and enjoys dancing with the kids. But also, he does it to be nice to me, because I love it so much. I adore this man. I got jealous of Mary after awhile because she got her Dad on the slow dances often! But it's OK - I got some good ones in too, especially "You've Got a Groovy Kind of Love", by Phil Collins, which was a song that came out while he was waiting for me on my mission. A dedication song, you know.

I've been a little hard on the teenagers in this post. Thank you for coming and making it look like the whole middle school and high school came out for the dance. You guys are awesome!!

I do always wish, at this Street Dance, that my parents and brothers and sisters were here. They are SO much fun at a dance. No holding back in the Jean and DeeAnne family when it comes to a dance.

Speaking of my family, 48 hours after the Street Dance, I got a phone call at 10 pm Sunday night from my sister saying that I needed to come immediately. To be continued...

Family Street Dance!

(Suggested music - YMCA - Village People)Four years ago we were talking with our next door neighbors, and we had the idea of doing a family dance. We have a private lane, so we decided to do it right out on the street, in our cul-de-sac, which is right in front of our house.

The first few years we hired a DJ, but then we went together with our neighbors and bought a sound system and we DJ our own dances now. The sound system has actually been quite valuable; we've used it on a lot of occasions.

Bruce rigged a platform for the lights from the rack that he used to put on his Ford Ranger truck. Peter is his right hand man when he sets up and takes down the equipment.

We do the dance every year on the first weekend after the beginning of school, to celebrate the end of summer and going back to school.

This dance is so much fun! Josh and I just wrote down everyone we could think of, and we remembered 163 people, although we didn't know the names of everyone. Those we didn't know, we put down names such as American Eagle guy, friend of American Eagle, no-shirt, Mr. Boxers, blond hair 1, etc. I'm sure there were more than we could think of. "No-shirt" and "Mr. Boxers" only came for one part of a song. I don't think they got the reaction they wanted, so they soon left. We were relieved, 'cause I was gonna have to go tell the one guy to get a shirt on and the other to pull his pants up. Awkward.

Bruce set up a movie in the backyard for the little kids with a projector and a big screen. They watched Alvin and the Chipmunks with blankets spread out on the grass.

We decided that for the next dance, Libby needs to be out dancing instead of watching the movie. When the movie got over and she came out to the street to dance, she was bustin' a move! I should have taken a video of her dancing to "Peanut Butter and Jelly". It was darling. Peter, on the other hand, ran away when we suggested he dance with Libby during a slow song. And I didn't see any dancing on fast songs either. He was just fine with the movie.

We had a special performance this year from Richie and three of our neighbor friends. They did a hip hop routine that was great!

We loved all the teenagers there. Afterward, Josh came and asked me, "Why don't we do this more often? Everyone's having a great time." We wished there were more adults there with their teenagers, but I guess that's par for the course.

The songs that were the most popular were YMCA, Best of Both Worlds, and some of the line dances like Men in Black, Cotton Eye Joe and Thriller.

The slow dances were also very popular, of course. Dads and daughters were the most fun to watch!

Hands down, though, the best time at the dance was had by Mary's age group. They actually DANCED most of the time, had no inhibitions, and weren't worried about the boy-girl thing, so they had a ball!

It was really fun to see families dancing also, like this fantastic family that moved here last Spring. The quote of the night is from Ralf. When we were voting on the last slow song to be played, Open Arms, by Journey, was one of the options. We were commenting on how suprising it is that the teenagers know Journey songs and like them so much. Ralf said, "There are two kinds of people in this world - those who like Journey, and those who are liars."

I danced like there was no tomorrow. Jesse came up, grabbed me and said, "Moooom. Please stop! Please don't dance anymore!" I just laughed. No chance of that. Poor Jesse - I embarass her to death. I didn't embarass Mary. She was right out there dancin' with me and learning some great moves.

This morning at the breakfast table, we made two new rules for the Street Dance next year.
Rule 1: When someone in our family asks another member of the family to dance, you have to dance!
Rule 2: When September, by Earth Wind & Fire, comes on (this is my extended family's favorite song to dance to) then all of our family has to come to the front and dance together. I'm looking forward to that!