Brett Sings the National Anthem at a Rockies Game!

Last night, Brett had the opportunity of a lifetime to sing the National Anthem at a Major League baseball game with his elementary school choir. And Alex and I got to be there with him. The video above shows the kids walking out and then performing. The quality is so-so in order to get it posted, and I'm sorry about the shakiness. But Brett is in the front row and is the 4th kid to the left of the girl with the black pants. The kids all got some good airtime on the Jumbo-tron.

We almost didn't make it...Traffic was the worst I have ever seen getting into downtown. Our half-hour drive stretched to an hour and 15 minutes. By the time I figured out where Gate A was, I had driven past it, and you can't just hang a U-turn outside a major stadium with one-way streets all around. I realized I couldn't just drop an 11-year-old off in front of the stadium, even if I could figure out how to get close, with tens of thousands of people trying to get in and assume he would make it to his proper destination, especially when we were over 30 minutes behind schedule. We paid whatever it cost to park close, which still wasn't that close, and started running. 7 minutes later, we were at Gate A where an employee, on seeing Brett's choir shirt, said, "You're gonna have to run if you want to make it." We have been running! Off we went, another short block or so, to the employee entrance. The security guard there saw Brett's shirt and let us right in. The shirt was magic--it opened all kinds of areas to our access. We dashed through the underbelly of the stadium and found Brett's choir just about to run through the Anthem for the last time. Whew! That was too close. Next time, I'm definitely taking light rail.

After getting Brett settled, Alex and I walked to the public area of the stadium and went way down front where the good seats are. There were a bunch of other parents there, too, waiting to film the kids singing. Our real seats were in the bleachers, way off behind the singers.

The kids performed beautifully! I saw some people wipe away tears. As we walked through the crowds with Brett, after the singing, a man came up to him and asked, "Did you just sing the National Anthem down there?" Brett nodded his head. The man yelled, "That was awesome!" and gave Brett a high five. We found our seats, ate our hot dogs, peanuts, Cracker Jacks, and cotton candy. We only got rained on a little and the Rockies won, 7-3. What a great night!