[su_heading size=”18″]A Family Trip to Denver[/su_heading]

Arriving back at the hotel, after our magnificent dining experience at Mizuna, I took the boys to the fitness room where they worked off their bountiful energy, while I trained. Now that I have been diagnosed with two bulging discs in my lower back, I am going into attack mode, my final goal? Take hip hop classes and join my boys on the dance floor, much to their dismay.

How fair is that? Their love of music and dancing stems from having parents who filled dull lulls in the day with dips and swirls on our living room floor and now, if I dance up to them at a party, they give me back (meaning that they turn their back to me – for those learning the hip talk).

Axel has been taking hip hop classes at Heather Starr’s Dance Progressions and he loves it. When I heard that Denver was having a Hip Hop Festival and that the Producer of the festival was Ken Jiminez, a guest teacher in one of Axel’s classes, I decided I needed to factor the festival into the itinerary. Emailing Ken, I hoped to engage the boys in the all day intense classes, while I interviewed the rising stars, but messages got crossed and I was unable to organize the immersion that I had hoped for.

Instead we enjoyed a day at Water World. Having never been there before, I was glad that the boys were at the age where they could leave me and actually come back to me and not disappear forever.  Tucker and I were happy to be the only ones screaming down the more moderate rides.

LODO:

That night we took The Brown Palace town car to The Blake Street Tavern to watch the Hip Hop Showcase. Once again, I worried. Was it irresponsible for me to take the boys to a Tavern in LoDo without knowing whether the scene was appropriate or not? Also, there was a Rockies Game going on next door. Would I be subjecting them to masses of intoxicated baseball fans?

The boys ran downstairs to check out the scene. Thumper emerged with the report, “There’s grandmothers and little kids down there Mommy, we’re good to go.”

Pulling up barstools, the boys soaked up the scene. The energy was vibrant with friends and families surrounding the stage in excited anticipation. Teams of dancers of mixed cultures were supporting each other as they practiced their dance moves on the lit up stage. Their t-shirts sending powerful messages like, “None of us are as strong as all of us.”

We sat mesmerized as the dancers performed their routines. The dancing was passionate and well rehearsed. The choreography exciting and innovative and the quality exceeded my expectations.

When they finished Axel watched quietly as the dancers surrounded the dance floor, each showing off his/her freestyle dance moves:

I saw Brevitt and Preston encouraging him, with money, to jump out there and so I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “If you can pond skim at the age of seven, you can do anything,” and with that, he took the stage.

While he was dancing his proud Grandma was approached by a teacher from a dance school in Littleton, where she just happens to live. He told her to bring Axel in the next time he was in town. “Done deal,” she promised.

Driving back to the hotel we rolled down our windows, something we rarely do at night in the cool mountain air. It was an enchanting evening with the windows of the glass city buildings reflecting the full moon and I felt like staying up all night with the boys, but we were leaving the next day and we needed our energy for the next leg of our trip.

When we got home the boys humorously danced around the room, copying one routine where the dancers had dramatically stomped on stage to the song “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele. “I’m thinking you need lessons,” I said laughing as they tossed in a few Michael Jackson grabs and jerked their way across the floor.

I torture myself for not incorporating music and language classes into their busy lives, but perhaps it all begins with dancing for my particular kids, and this will be pursued!