Look at How Far I have Come!!

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Last evening was the Purim "service" at Temple. Now I put service in quotes because the annual Purim celebration is just about anything but a service. To give you a rough idea of why I say that, let me just say that the Rabbi was dressed as Elvis, and the ceremony consisted of many Elvis tunes that had little different wording to them

To those of you who are not Jewish, I will explain. This is a celebration of that comes from the Biblical book of "Esther" To make a long story short...(not at all the tradition) Esther became Queen of Persia, but had never revealed to King Ahashverus that she was Jewish. An edict was issued to kill all the Jews by a man named Hamen. Esther revealed she was Jewish and the Jews were allowed to defend themselves which they did and Hamen was hung and his ten sons were killed during battle.

One might like to say that the Jews and the Persians lived happily ever after, but that is certainly not the case. Let's just say they lived happily together for many years after that.

In any event, the celebration includes wearing of masks and costumes and the service is always a lot of fun. Noise makers are sounded by everyone in the congregation anytime the name "Hamen" is read during the service.

So, to get back to the point of the this blog entry......Three years ago we started Shy at dance classes. She watched Olivia on television and wanted to take ballet classes. We started her in a dance program that included both ballet and tap. Naturally, they had a recital at the end of the year where all the kids get up on the stage and perform for the audience.....well, not quite all of the kids. In Shyanne's class there were two kids that just stood there the whole time and looked out into the auditorium. Yes, one of them was Shyanne.

HOWEVER, Shyanne did take a bow at the end of the dance she did not perform.

The following year, she was a little more active, but not quite totally performing the dance and still kind of just looking out at the audience.

Last night, as the ceremony was taking place, every time there was an Elvis song played, there were a lot of older kids dancing across the bima (stage). It didn't take long for Shy to find her way up there and start dancing as well. Every time she went across the stage performing her little dance, she had a HUGE smile on her face.

The smile seemed to say "Look at how far I have come!!!"

She was so happy and so delighted to be up there and dancing. It was a real joy to see.

She has come such a long way in a few short years. I can't wait to see this year's dance class recital. She has added Jazz Dance to her classes as well this year. It should be a great time.

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