Yesterday, I got the chance to skip out of work for a bit to see Aspen’s 2nd Grade play, Anchors Away. I must admit, I occasionally wonder how my parents suffered through all of my performances as a kid, band, jazz band, choir, etc. I was hyper involved and my parents were equally so, always making time to be at the various shows. Around these parts, May brings a pile of shows. School show, dance show, church show… we’ve got them all.

I provide all of this prologue to say one thing. This show was really impressive. Seriously. I don’t know if it’s just the fact that the kids are getting older and so the quality is improving? Or is it a lucky coincidence? Or perhaps a really gifted teacher who organized a great show? Or maybe Lipscomb’s shows are just better than Edmondson’s? Or maybe I just enjoyed myself more because I remembered my tripod? I really don’t know where to hand out the credit, honestly, but this show really struck me as better than most.

As many of you know, I’m willing to complain about things with schools. (For example, we are currently crafting some of our own religious doctrine that will allow us to opt out of homework next year as conscientious objectors. That’ll work, right? ) But this time, with this show, our school hit the sweet spot. The music was well performed, the kids seemed to enjoy it, each of the 100+ kids has their own opportunity to shine, even the level of the set and the costumes struck me as appropriate (not over the top, but enough to be unified). As I understand it, one of the teachers really crafted the show on her own… even more impressive. So, full credit goes to the staff at Lipscomb who put this together!

Without further adieu, I offer you Anchors Away. It’s a show that lasted about 45 minutes collapsed down into about 8 minutes. It’s also as “Aspen heavy” as it can be (you’ll find her as one of the introductory captains in addition to as a dancer in one of the songs).

Technical Note: I’m using YouTube these days because it’s easy and it does offer HD now. Click on the “high quality” link in the lower right of the video if you want it bigger and better.