I'm A Believer...

The past 22 hours have been quite a trial. I'll try not to get into all the theatrics, but holy cow!

I made sure I had both camera batteries and the camcorder battery charged for the show. I decided at the last minute to leave the camcorder in the car because my small digital also records videos. We arrived at the school early because we had no place else to go. I asked one of the boys in charge where the best seats in the house are. He told me row H. I lugged all of our belongings to the center of row H and placed all of it between 9 seats. Andrew carried a bottle of water to make sure his throat didn't get dry before he took the stage. he had the bottle almost empty by 6:20. the show started at 7pm and he was # 11 I think. My mom, dad, Kristin, Pat, Jen, Jen's sis Whitney, Pat's parents and the boys were all there. Also, a big surprise...Becky Peterson showed up. Wow, that was a super nice surprise treat. {Becky does all of our hair} The show was great. Two acts before Andrew, I started getting the worst butterflies in my stomach. I was sooo nervous for Andrew. I hoped he wasn't too nervous. I'm sure he was. He practiced in the van and sang very quietly. {one of the reasons I was nervous for him.} He has been having fidget issues during rehearsal. Problems like snapping the snaps on his cargo pockets open and closed, putting his hands in his pockets and even doing a scale {in cheer terms}...grabbing his ankle and pulling his leg up behind him. Yeah, all while performing. Yikes.

So then it happened. Andrew's name was announced and he surfaced. The crowd was awwwing. Super sweet. He started to sing. He had both hands clasped around the mic. He was a bit quiet at first but he picked it up. Once he got to the middle, where there is only music playing, right before he rocks it, he started clapping. Pat advised him to do so to keep his hands busy. The crowd picked it up right away and started clapping along. Oh my goodness, he truly rocked it. He received many, many WOOTS and whatnot. I just sat there with a huge perma-smile on my face. I couldn't help it. I was crying and smiling, so indescribably proud of him!!! I was recording him a bit above my face because Kyle was sitting in my lap and I didn't want his head to hit my hand and because I wanted to watch him. After Andrew finished, he got huge cheers. The crowd loved him! I'm not just saying that because he's my baby doll. They really loved him! I moved Kyle off my lap and changed modes on my camera to watch the video. That's when it happened.

There was nothing there! I had hit the record button but never checked it because I wanted to pay attention to Andrew. Although I hit the record button, it never triggered. {or whatever} the tears were coming again, but this wasn't happiness. I couldn't believe what I had done. Why didn't I bring in my camcorder? Why didn't I check the record button? I wanted to walk out. I was so sick to my stomach!!!!!

After the show, it was great to talk to so many people who talked about Andrew and how great he did. I've met a lot of people while coaching and it was so nice for them to come up to me. My cheerleaders were so excited. Two got Andrew on video and one said that the group of my girls who sat together all stood up and yelled for him and one said she even got goosebumps and that she was so proud of him that she actually started tearing up. Oh my. What a great bunch!

Okay, so the next 20 hours have been a mad dash to salvage something. Jen got 30 seconds of video. I'm not sure if she stopped it on purpose to watch or if the video on her camera only takes 30 seconds at a time. Either way, she didn't get much either. Striking out. Big time. My mom had her new camcorder. SAVED. This has presented many problems. To try to make this part short, picture this. I have a unit, my mom has a unit and Pat and Jen have a unit. Each has its own software for viewing videos. Each software has been loaded on separate computers. Each can view video, but so far NONE can save video to a computer! So basically we can view the video over and over again from the cassette but we cannot do anything with it. I haven't heard from Pat in a few hours so I assume it is still the same for him. More tears. I want to share this with everyone and I want to have it for myself forever. I called the Camera Shop. They told me they can try to take care of it. It starts at 25.00 for up to 2 hours {I have 3 minutes} and, and a set up fee that STARTS at 25.00 and will depend on the steps involved in getting this done. Hello. Goodbye. It is worth $$ to me, but to not know until the end...I'm not there yet.

I called my mom to tell her that latest news and she says to me, "If we can play it on the TV, can you record a video from it?" or something like that. It doesn't really matter. It's genius. I love my mom. It may not be first class, but it makes sense. I head back to my mom's for the 4th time since last night.

Okay, so here we go. A couple of things first. My mom used her camcorder for the first time taping this. There is a lot of craziness...the curtain, the lights, the speakers...{just close your eyes for the first part so you don't get dizzy ;)} and then there is Andrew. Turn your volume waaay up so you can really hear him. {remember, I did this the white trash way} It is fun. really fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzq6UmTvZ1Y

With the week I've had...now I'm a Believer!!

Fantastic job, Andrew. I am more proud of you than you'll ever know!! Love you, baby!