Thursday, May 29, 2008

The LAST Recital-Not Without It's Own Excitement


Last night was the LAST recital! We are finally done with the dance season. Other than the two week Summer Intensive coming up week after next, no more dance until September. The recital was absolutely WONDERFUL. I am continually amazed at the professionalism of these performances.

But before I get to the recital...before I GOT to the recital...there was a little excitement thrown in. Last week, you may remember, there was the kidney stone incident. This week was a little less painful. On the way to the recital I had a flat tire. FLAT. Driving along on highway 18, I heard a very loud noise, as if I had run over a large limb in the road. But I didn't see anything. At that point, I believe God took hold of my vehicle. We were not running late, but we weren't as early as I would have liked to be. About 1/2 mile from the turn to go to HCC where the recital was to take place, there is a little road with a Sonic on it. I was chatting with my mom who was with us, and not paying close attention, and turned on the little road with the Sonic instead of the entrance to the college. I have gone to HCC a total of 6 times, 4 in the last week, so I have no idea why I made that wrong turn. No idea except that God turned me there. We laughed, and I pulled into Sonic, made a joke about the detour, and turned back out onto the little side road. At that point I felt and heard the grinding noise. My mom said, "What was that??" I knew. I knew my tire was flat. No question. We pulled into the grass on the side of the road (the little road, NOT the busy highway) and got out to look. Yep. Flat! Uh oh...

Kearsdad was about 3 minutes behind me. He had just called to see where we were and tell me he was right behind us. I called him and told him where we were. He was there in less than 2 minutes. I moved the girls, mom and all the costumes and dance paraphernalia to his truck and took them on to the auditorium with instructions to save us 2 seats. Then I went back to meet Kearsdad.

Meanwhile, Kearsdad had walked to the auto parts store that was right next to the Sonic! Did I already mention God had taken control? He put me by an auto parts store! Kearsdad was in the process of filling my tire with Fix-a-Flat. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it wasn't working. We went back to the store and bought stuff to plug the hole. It worked. Kearsdad sent me back to the auditorium. He took my car and finished filling the tire with air. He pulled into the parking lot right behind me. We had time to go to the restroom, and we were in our seats 5 minutes before start time! Talk about miracles!!!

So we were able to relax and enjoy the show. Like I said, it was absolutely beautiful! Most of the pics below are actually from dress rehearsal...


(Banana is on the front row, about center of the picture.)


(This one is very blurry, but I still thought it was good...look at that jump!)



Here are Banana and Kat after the performance. Look at how sweet they are. One of the greatest blessing of being their mom is watching how much they love and support each other. They are each other's biggest fans.

By the way, the tire plug held! Kearsdad drove it home last night. Today I am driving the orange truck. My red one is getting it's rear passenger side tire patched.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Recitals, Kidney Stones and the Pool

Nice combination, huh? That's been my last few days. The recital went very well. The pool was nice and relaxing (but hot). The kidney stone? Not so much. We'll just say that I'm pretty sure it's over and hope there is no repeat anytime soon.

Recital #2 was Thursday night. It went well. Kearsdad got to exercise his backstage expertise. He even made it into the program! Yep. Right there on the page with "Production Credits". Cool, huh? Banana was only in the ballet part of the recital, and since there are no sets for the jazz half, we left after the ballet. Next week, Kearsdad won't be so lucky. We get to stay for the whole thing!

Here are a few pictures of Banana as a "Servant at the Royal Ball" (the Ballet was The Frog Prince).


"Stop taking my picture!"





Friday started out ok, with me finally getting my hair highlighted and trimmed. But by mid-day, I was pretty much miserable. After a long afternoon and night, my Saturday has been pretty low key.

We finished out today with the FIRST VISIT TO THE POOL OF THE SUMMER. Yes.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

One Down...Two to Go



One recital, that is...Today was the 3 and 4 year old recital. The theme was "Under the Sea", a shortened version of the "big" recital a couple of years ago. It began with an underwater scene with jellyfish and seahorses, Ariel and Sebastian the Crab. Ariel danced in the middle, and it ended with Red Fish and Blue Fish. Banana was a Red Fish. In between there were classes of little 3 and 4 year olds showing off their tapping or ballet skills. This is the part Kearsdad fondly refers to as "line dancing". The little girls come out, sometimes skipping, sometimes running, and they stand in a line and do their little "dance". It was very sweet...seems like it wasn't that long ago that Banana was doing her little "line dance" with a cute little umbrella (the song was something like "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" I think). Today she was one of the big girls....hard to believe. But she was a beautiful Red Fish.

Friday, May 9, 2008

This Week

Beginning last Friday night, this week certainly had a sad note. But there were some fun things that happened this past week as well, and I thought I'd brighten up my blog with those things...

We made it to our first MBraves Game of the year. Yes, I said first of the year...unreal that it was May before we saw a game. And it was only part of a game at that. It was WINDY and cool. I was freezing. But we enjoyed ourselves while we were there...it was Kearsdad's company picnic so we had some good company and good (FREE) food. I kept fussing at the girls to eat with one hand and hold onto their plates with the other so that they didn't blow away.




I thought this one was especially cute...



We also went to visit some "big" horses. Our friends have been asking us to come see these horses, especially their newly adopted babies, so we took off for the afternoon to play at their barn. Shh....don't tell Hickory. He'd be jealous!





Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Goodbye Sweet Friend

I'm not going to go into all the details because I'm tired of thinking about it...but I wanted to post a farewell to our 15 year old small, fuzzy, yappy family member. Abby was with us for a long time, and we will miss her very much...

Thursday, May 1, 2008

All For Only $149.95


I could get all this for the low price of $149.95. Kearsdad says no. I don't understand why...I mean these are classics. Hours of entertainment. Years of memories!