On December 11th Brianne had the amazing opportunity to perform the National Anthem at the NBA Utah Jazz game! We were unable to attend the actual audition day for this but I sent in her performance at the Bee's game as an email audition video and we heard back from them a few weeks later inviting her to perform! She was seriously STUNNED that they asked her, but VERY excited! So in the weeks coming up to it we found her a nice dress and shoes so she would look good and feel good!
The day of the performance I let her stay home from school. I wanted to take her to my friend, who is our hairdresser, during the day to get her hair done up cute! And she also had a final rehearsal with her voice teacher at 3pm for her Christmas concert. So I just figured it made more sense for her to stay home! Anyway, we went and grabbed lunch before going to her hair appointment. That took a while and by the time we got home Will came home from school shortly after. That gave her enough time to get dressed before we had to go to her voice teachers rehearsal.
She ran through her Christmas song once and we jumped into the car to head to Vivnt Arena! She had to be there for a sound check at 4pm and get our tickets for the game. It also gave Chan time to meet us there from work which was just down the road. She was getting so nervous but her sound check went perfectly and I think that helped ease her a bit. After the sound check we walked over to the Gateway Mall and had some dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. The game didn't start until 7 so we had plenty of time :)
When we got back from there it was just a lot of waiting! She had to report down at the court at 6:45 and the time was ticking very slowly! She was getting more and more nervous! Will thankfully made her laugh a bit by submitting his "tweet" that got put up on the big screen! We all got a kick out of it! He was pretty proud of her!
Finally 6:45 came and she started down the stairs to the court all by herself! I can only imagine what was going through her head! I was just as nervous as SHE was! She was met by the Jazz employee and escorted out to her spot on the court. When she got the "nod" she started singing!
I was almost holding my breath listening to her, but I was also taking it all in! It was unbelievable! She did such an incredible job for a 14 year old girl! She looked beautiful, was poised, and sounded perfect!
I actually held it together and didn't cry until the end of the song when the crowd started to hoot and holler and then I lost it! I was so proud of her I just burst into tears! I cry when anyone sings the National Anthem so to hear HER sing it and do it so well, I just couldn't hold my emotions in!
And afterward I cried some more because as soon as she finished Will ran down the stairs to meet her and threw his arms around her! More tears..... How could you NOT be proud of THAT! This was truly one of those nights that just gets etched into your heart forever!
After her performance we went out and bought some Swig drinks in the concession area and we ran into Bear! So I HAD to get a picture! You can almost see the relief that it was over in her face! We went back in and enjoyed the game until the 4th quarter and then we took off. We were playing the Oklahoma City Thunder and it was a very good game, pretty close actually, but we had another big day tomorrow so we wanted to get back home. We ended up losing by only a few points.
After talking to Brianne she said the craziest part of the night was that right before she began to sing that Kevin Durrant was looking right at her and made eye contact! She said that was intense and she couldn't wait to tell Carter all about it because he is his favorite player! haha! Overall this was truly such a special night and we couldn't be prouder of Brianne! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment