The Next Star Stuff!!!

Freezing in line at 6AM!

Ellie with the YTV and Next Star logos in the background.

Ellie beaming as the cameras roll!

Me and Ellie looking pretty awake for being up for hours and hours already!

Ellie with her NUMBER!!!

Today we were at the zoo. It's so cute now that Ayana "gets" animals, what they are, and knows some of the names. She gets pretty excited by some of them! Ellie had a field trip with her Kidsclub so Ayana and I just wandered around the zoo for 5 hours. It was awesome, and a beautiful day to boot! She also fell asleep for over an hour in her stoller and I managed to find a lovely bench under a tree in a very quiet spot by the water. I sat with my feet up on a stroller wheel and read my book, "Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting". Great book! I sat there and read and listened to the birds. It was HEAVEN. We met up with Ellie later and we drove home feeling very satisfied and a "good kind of tired."

I think I forgot to mention here that Ellie tried out for The Next Star. Or did I? At any rate, the whole thing was a great adventure from the drive up to the hotel to the hours of waiting the next day. We were up at 5 AM and down in line in the freezing snow at 6AM!!! The host of the show showed up and they started doing some taping. We had to do a few takes of the kids screaming "I AM THE NEXT STAR" and stuff like that. This was all so exciting for Ellie!! There was this young gal in front of us that as soon as I saw her I thought, "Woah. This kid has "it"". Her name is Mariah and even before she opened her mouth to speak or sing I could see that quality. It's hard to explain. She was also SUPER sweet and turned around to talk to Ellie and asked her all sorts of questions. She is 14 and plays guitar. She was drawing all sorts of attention from the press, THAT'S how much she exuded this quality. She was very understated in a t-shirt and jeans and a bob cut and no makeup but lip balm. After she was interviewed by the press for about the 3rd time one of the news crews asked her to sing. She stood up ( now keep in mind we are in a room of about 600 people and it was deafening with people talking) and she strummed her guitar and sang. The entire place went quiet and you could almost hear 400 kids dreams crushing. She was INCREDIBLE. My money is on her to win, if not win, she will make it to the final 2. Miriah is her name and she is from Castlgar and her audition was in Edmonton. I'm just sayin. ANYway, Ellie was a trooper the entire time. When it was her time to go she was excited but nervous. I want to reiterate here that this was HER IDEA. HER decision. We were just her support staff, basically. She went off to audition with a group of kids. I couldn't go. Each kid sang a bit for a production person.

She didn't make it.

To say she was devestated is a gross understatement. She was HYSTERICALLY crying when she came up to us in the lobby and all the way up the elevator. She threw herself onto the bed in our room and proceeded to let out a litany of how "this was my dream" and "my life is over" and my personal favourite "I AM NEVER GOING TO DO ANYTHING AGAIN. I AM GOING TO LAY ON THE COUCH AND DO NOTHING FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!" To which Regan said, "Hey! That's what I want to do! But your mom won't let me." First hint of a smile on a tear soaked face. And the sweetest thing (you're going to love this) was the entire time Ellie is flailing (I'm not kidding) on the bed, Ayana is gently stroking her face and head. Finally Ellie grabbed her and they hugged for a really long time. After we talked her down from the ledge we decided to celebrate her being brave enough to even give this a try and within about 30 minutes she was laughing and feeling much better. When we got home that night we watched Karaoke Star Jr. and she said that "at least I tried" and I was so glad she felt that way.

She went to school the next day a little worried kids would tease her. I hoped some wouldn't either. You never know with 9 year olds. They DIDN'T. They were all WONDERFUL. And as luck would have it there happened to be a motivational company that day doing a presentation at the school. It was all about going for your dreams and NOT giving up!! Just what she needed to hear at the EXACT moment she needed to hear it. When she got home from school later that day she proudly announced that she was still going to audition for her school talent show and that she was even going to wear the same outfit that the day before she was going to burn for all eternity. I was pleasantly dumbfounded. Elated, actually.

She sang for the panel of teacher judges and they were very impressed. I happened to be volunteering later that same day and three of them stopped me in the hall to geniuinely tell me how blown away they were by her singing! It was so awesome. One teacher even said to her and me that she "sounded a lot better than I thought she would." Okay, that was a bit of a back hander, but whatever. She was feeling GOOD again. She is singing this GEORGOUS song by an artist called Hayley Westenra. She has a very haunting Enya type sound to her voice, and Ellie sings her songs beautifully. I mean freakily like her. Like the first time I heard her I thought she was listening to the CD in her room, and it was just Ellie singing. Wow.

So for now talent shows at her school are perfect for her! And I hope she decides against her lifelong boycott of "The Next Star" cuz I would love to see her on TV at the audition in the audience!! It was a very fun day and an experience she will never forget, the good and bad. And even the bad is not necessarily all "bad" as I think she learned some good life lessons from the experience. Would we let her audition again? I have already personally decided not until she is around 13 as I think that is the age range they are looking for anyway.

For now we are just enjoying doing at home summertime things. She is still outside playing and it's 820!!

Have a great rest of your weekend!