Musical Performance

K performed her song from Annie Get Your Gun the other night. It went really well, and K had a lot of fun! I haven't gotten the full performance video up yet, but I did manage to upload this little bit of K's part from the dress rehearsal. (Using Blogger and not YouTube! Amazing!)

Oil Spill

I usually try to be more secretive about where I live, but it just pains me so much to see this that I have to share. Our beautiful bay has been so damaged by a senseless oil spill, and now will cause so much wildlife death throughout the region. SO sad :-(

AquaDots recall

My friend from work just sent me a link to this article. This is the first time a recall has ever affected us, and it's freaking me out! I got K Aquadots for her birthday and she LOVES them - she uses them all the time! Is she safe because she is old enough to know not to eat them? But a 10-year-old in the article managed to get sick!

You know, I really needed something to worry about :-(

Art part 2

I tried adding these pictures to yesterday's post after I had saved it as a draft.... apparently Blogger didn't like that! SO here they are again. These are the two pictures K did at the class we are quitting.

 

 

Art Classes

K is taking a couple of art classes this year. One is a wonderful watercolor class with a great emphasis on creativity. The paintings below were done the first week, then cut up and turned into a mobile.

K did this painting just last week, and I think it is amazing! The picture doesn't do it justice. All the lovely colors just don't show up here.

Then K has another art class that is focused on emulating the masters. I'm less keen on this one. K has had fun, and is producing some lovely art, but I'm not crazy about the copying and focus on "correctness." This is our last month there - other issues with this location are wearing me down, and the class is not great enough to make me keeping going there.

In any case, here is a portrait K did the first week.

And here is my favorite - charcoal hands touching, a la Michaelangelo.

Day 6 and I already Blew It.

Apparently I cannot write a blog post every day! *sigh*

Maybe I will write two today to make up for it.

Visit to the History Museum

We have a fantastic history museum in our city. Many old homes and business buildings have been moved to a single site over the years, and now it is an open park with lovely landscaping and an eclectic collection of architecture. Most of the buildings have been restored, or are in the process of being restored. Then they are open to the public on a rotating basis when they have docents to occupy them during open hours.

K LOVES history, so this is one of her favorite places to visit. Ever since she read Running Out of Time she has dreamed of living or working in a museum like this. So she has been begging us to take her on a weekend when some of the buildings are open.

This weekend, we got to go inside the schoolhouse and practice writing our names on slates, while the docent told us about student life in a one-room schoolhouse of the 1880's. We also got to see the print shop, and the docent there told us all about the various printing presses of the last 2 centuries. He also printed a proof copy of K's name, which she has carefully pinned to her bulletin board. He was really informative and interesting - I didn't know much about printing presses before, and certainly hadn't seen them in action! We rode the trolley, and K got to ring the bell and set the brakes. The elderly gentleman who run the trolleys clearly love to tinker with them and talk about them! They took us into the trolley barn after the ride and pointed out some neat features of the old trolleys - like a child scoop! Seriously! If a child fell before the trolley, it triggered a scoop to fall down and pick up the child and keep him safe until the trolley stopped! There were also some old-fashioned cars in the trolley barn. I was impressed by the first electric car from the early 1900's. Not only did it run on rechargeable batteries, but it also had a steering wheel in the backseat for TRUE backseat driving. It was ahead of its time....

It was a fun, FREE outing for the afternoon. Now K wants to become a docent there :-) I think she should be an model child in the schoolhouse.

I can't believe I forgot...

...to blog about Halloween!

Here is K as Annie Oakley. Cute, huh?


Here is K with her friend S as Harry Potter. She has a broom, snitch and wand - made it difficult to hold the candy, too! lol

Here are the girls in the Halloween parade that is held yearly in S's neighborhood. We did this last year, too, and K was really hoping to hold the banner again, so she was right there first thing!

It was a fun evening, with lots of candy :-)

NaBloPoMo

I see lots of you participating in NaNoWriMo, but I know I can't manage that. November is a busy month - there is no way in heck I'd manage to write a novel. But I think I can write a post every day. So I joined NaBloPoMo:

I have to write a new post every day. Can I do it? I don't know! I already missed November 1, but I posted something at my NaBloPoMo page and backdated it. Sneaky me.

Competition Results

Yesterday was K's big competition. She skated very well, and was confident and proud when she came off the ice. Then the results were posted, and she discovered that she was in last place. At first, she seemed to take it well, but when we went to the locker room to change and we were alone, she melted down. She was devastated. She sobbed for a long time.

We had talked about this possibility before we even signed up. We thought we were prepared. But nothing could prepare me for the look on my baby's face when she let her emotions go. I really doubted my sanity for letting her do this. How could I let her get so hurt?

A day has passed now, we've talked to some moms and skaters who have been where we are, and we are all calmer. We remember now that our only goal with this competition was to get there and skate. K definitely met that goal. She was beautiful and calm, and she skated as well as she could, which was pretty fantastic. I've posted the video here. Isn't she beautiful?

Thanks to an acquaintance on an elist, I've also remembered why I've let her pursue ice skating at all. It's one of the only things she does that is truly challenging. She's not a natural - she has to work hard at this, which she happily does. Age is not a factor - her achievement is almost entirely dependent on just how hard she works. That is so valuable for a kid like K, for whom so many things come easy.

To remind K of how far she has come in the past two years, I made a video of clips of her skating from the very first week until now. We are so proud of her. I hope that she can remember to be proud of herself, too.

This afternoon, K was mostly ready to move on. She wants to skate this program again in a couple weeks at a smaller, less intense competition. She also wants to skate more often to improve more quickly. She is looking forward to taking a skating test and joining a Theatre on Ice team early next year. She has much to look forward to.

So it was a rough 24 hours, but K survived. Was it worth it? I don't know yet.