Callie's Dance Recital - Frozen

In May it was time for Callie's annual dance recital. This is typically the only time we get to see her dance. There are a few open houses where we see parts of the dance but never the whole thing and never with them wearing costumes. This year was very special because Callie had tried out for one of only 9 special character spots. She was assigned the role of 'Young Olaf' which of course is her favourite character in the movie. She had a duet with young Elsa and young Anna and did amazing including a bit of play crying which was very convincing.

Her first dance was tap where she was an Ice Man. She had a bit of trouble this year with tap. Mainly because there is such a wide range of ages in this class. She was one of the youngest and some of the older girls were 3 years older. This left the instructor trying to balance the skills of the various students. We were happy that it was the first dance and she got through it nicely. The next big ask of her was the fact that she had to get into her Olaf costume in 60 seconds. We got a bit nervous when there was what seemed to be an extra long break but out she came.

Her next dance was Lyrical which is my favourite dance style. It's much less structured then the other dance forms and I always seem to like the songs that the instructors choose. Callie was dressed as an Icicle and they danced to 'Diamonds' by Rihanna. (Though it was sung by some else and slowed down.) The lighting was quite beautiful with more blues and reds to give them a purple hue and really accentuate their costumes.

The third (or fourth if you count Olaf) dance was was Jazz. It's hard to get Callie to say which dance style is her favourite but if you based it on the smile on her face it would be Jazz. For this one she was a 'Sassy Snowman' and they danced to 'Do Your Thing' by 'Basement Jaxx'. There was a whole lot of shoulder and hip movement and this was my other favourite costume. The red, black and satiny white was a good combination.

Dance four was Hip Hop. You'll notice that in a 3 hour concert Callie was up there a lot. The quickest change was 60 seconds for Olaf and she had at least a full song for the remaining changes. She started with extra layers of clothing including multiple leotards which worked out well since her first costume was pretty bulky anyways. I think the hardest part for the people back stage must be the hair styles. Hip hop is probably a fun dance style and looks like it teaches some good techniques but I find they sometimes try to do too much. Still fun with some complicated moves.

The final dance was ballet. By now we've been through 6 costumes and 10 months of dance lessons with 6 practices a week. Two of those practices are for ballet and it shows. Callie is getting quite good. She was offered the chance to do her Grade two exam though she decided not to. I think we'll be able to convince her next year. These costumes where very ballet like but they made the dance look quite professional. Callie had another great recital year and we look forward to seeing her on stage again next year.

Half Corked

In May we headed up to Oliver so Kerry could meet up with Melissa and they could run the 'Half Corked' marathon. This is a 17km run with stops at 10 different wineries or winery stations. Planning for the event had actually started months in advance. Melissa and Kerry had heard about it and attempted to get in however it turns out there is such high demand for the 1000 spots that they get as many as 4000 entries. The only fair way for them to choose is a lottery which and with less than a 1 in four chance, they struck out on and planned for the next year. As it runs out Barb and Reg are very good friends with the owners of one of the wineries that participates and the owners were able to get two tickets for them to run.

Kerry and Barb being who they are, weren't content to just take the free tickets. I was volunteered to make something as a thank you. I still had some old wine barrel pieces from previous woodworking projects and set about making something worthy of the $200 tickets. (Each) I was running out of time so I decided to make several items. I didn't want to focus on just one big item because I might not finish so I narrowed it down to four smaller projects. A fruit bowl, a cutting board, a pen and a wine stopper. All made from wine barrels.

The race itself was not exactly what Melissa and Kerry were expecting. Despite it only being May, the weather was in the 30's and Silver Sage provided an absolute feast at their stop. Coupled with the wine and food provided at other stops and the hills that accompany most wineries, the two were quite exhausted by the end. Thankfully the race provides buses for the participants which made it so they could at least get to the finish line in victory.

Victory was somewhat short lived. Shortly after finishing Kerry was overheated and had a massive headache. We made it home but it was apparent she needed professional help. Off to the hospital we went where they cooled her down and topped her up with a few pints of saline. Apparently last year there were over a dozen people sent to hospital but this year Kerry had the privilege of being the only one. I think there would have been more but more people likely took advantage of the buses because of the heat and if we had seen the paramedics at the event instead of going home we could have avoided going to the hospital. In any event, Kerry was okay and won't forget yet another unforgettable running event with Melissa. 

New Orleans - The Zoo

Yesterday was hotel switching day. Since I came down early I was on the hook for my hotel until my work event started. I wouldn't recommend the other hotel but the new one is much nicer. It's a bit off the beaten path relative to the French Quarter but it's where our meetings are so it's very convenient. I don't know the whole history but it's a very old building with original wooden floors and a brick facade. Not a huge pool but everything is well maintained and a welcome relief from the heat.

I wasn't expecting to be able to check in right away since it had been booked solid over the weekend but I guess during the week it empties out quickly as I was able check in just after lunch. This gave me an opportunity to drop off my bags and head to the local zoo. Not sure why but when I go to big cities I like to go to the zoo. As per usual I took transit which was pretty easy, starting with a couple block walk to a bus that went straight there. By the end of the line I was the only one on the bus. I guess going to the zoo in the heat of the afternoon isn't a local pastime.

This zoo has a very long history, starting in the early 1900's. I knew it was older so I was expecting it to be a bit run down, but they've obviously done a lot of work recently. All the exhibits looked fairly new and there were whole sections of the zoo off limits for renovations. It even had a water park in the middle of it. Not huge but it had a nice play area for the kids, a pool and a small lazy river. It was 30+ and muggy so a dip in the pool would have felt very good but I already feel a bit creepy walking around the zoo without kids so I stayed out of the pool.

Some of the highlights included the chubby jaguars who like many of the animals were apparently very well fed. None of them moved very much so I don't think most of the animals were super fit. There was also the white alligators. They've apparently been out tours all over the world since they were born in the early 90's. I also enjoyed the very old Live Oaks. Live Oaks don't lose their leaves and are typically covered in Spanish moss. A quintessential southern looking tree. I'd recommend the zoo if anyone is visiting New Orleans and has an afternoon to spare.

New Orleans - Pralines and Beignets

I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to go to New Orleans for work this week. We're meeting with other North American utilities regarding their use of drafting and design software for electric substations. (Alright, enough of the boring work talk that no one understands anyways.) The event starts Tuesday but I came down on Saturday so I could check out the sites. I'm rather enjoying the opportunity to check out a foreign city on my own. Not that I don't enjoy doing the same with my family, but you can see a lot more when there is just you.

I arrived late on Saturday night so I was ready to go first thing on Sunday. I tried to get a hotel room near the French Quarter but everything was either booked or terribly expensive. I managed to get something okay in Matairie which is the first suburb of New Orleans. I knew transit would be cheap but I hadn't checked out the schedule for Sunday's. Turns out it's not great. I had to wait about 40 minutes for a bus from near my hotel which would get me to New Orleans. So far my observation of Transit here is that it shows up whenever it feels like it. Not on schedule at all.

I had planned on doing some research last night on where to go but the internet connection in the hotel was terrible yesterday and I gave up. This meant I was wandering blind. I knew I wanted to check out at least one cemetery and it turned out that there were some very nice ones at the transfer point for switching between Matairie and New Orleans. The mausoleums ranged from the mid 1800's right up until today and were in various conditions. I suspect that once a family moves on or can't afford to, they stop maintaining a particular location.

After the cemetery I hopped on one of the electric trolleys down Canal Street. I've previously been against ground level light rail in Surrey in favor of Sky Train, however this system was effective and simple. The stops weren't elaborate and weren't slowed by traffic and without being elevated there were a lot more stops. It might just be a good option. The trolley I was on was quite old with wooden seats. I really think we should use more wood for circumstances like this. It's fairly light-weight, easy to maintain and gets better with age. No more plastic.

I got off at Bourbon Street and wandered around the French Quarter. The atmosphere was quite good. If you heard music it was often live, even during the early afternoon. There are lot's of places to eat and I checked out the French Market which is really a huge flea market with lot's of different souvenirs. My only issue for the day was the first half of Bourbon Street. The smell of alcohol and the impacts of too much to drink by people from the night before was quite over powering. Maybe it's nicer after a good fresh rain.

I stopped for a quick street show with some very athletic performers doing a gymnastics type routine on solid concrete. It finished with a leap over 9 people landing on nothing more than a tick towel. They were quite good with the crowd, asking specifically for $10 or $20 dollars before they would do their last trick. They probably took in a grand for the four of them. They claim to have been doing it for 25 years. Quite impressive. The rest of my walk included Pralines at the French Market and Beignet's at Cafe Du Monde. Lot's of good food here.

I finished off the day with a trip to the World War II museum. It claims to be the #1 Museum in New Orleans, the #4 Museum in the US and #11 in the world and to be honest it really was quite well done. A bit of an American Centric view of the war but that's to be expected. The exhibits were well built, informative and included some very well preserved artifacts. I only had a few hours but it would take you at least a full day to see and read everything. I was pleased to see they also had a Victory Garden, though of course most people were passing it by.

Party for the Planet

On Saturday we had a special day planned. It was the Party for the Planet celebration at Surrey City Hall. This is Surrey's Earth Day event and is the largest such event in BC. I believe this was the first time it was being held at the new City hall which is quite an impressive building. The old building wasn't terrible, however it was in the middle of nowhere. The land might have been cheap but it was a terrible location. The new City Hall is at Surrey Central and there have been a lot of improvements in what was previously one of the less desirable areas of town.

I should mention that the day wasn't just special because it was the Earth Day celebration. It was special because Callie got to meet the Mayor. One of her recent class projects was for a city wide poster contest. Each poster had to represent a super hero for the planet. Callie's was Green Girl and Bottle Boy. Callie always makes a good effort to make it look as if she hates her little brother but secretly we know she likes having him as a side kick. The poster was not only the best in her class but it turns out it was the best of all grade four posters submitted in the City.

There was one winner for each grade level. The prizes were awarded at the opening ceremonies and personally presented by the Mayor. Things started out with their poster returned to them in a frame and were followed by a presentation on stage of a super hero cape themed to their poster. Callie's was a green cape with the initials GG on it. (As I right this I suddenly realize those initials are already taken by Great Grandma. Must be a connection there.) Callie was all smiles as the cape was tied on with everyone watching. I'm always surprised at how well she performs in front of large audiences. Not shy at all.

After the opening ceremonies, the Mayor and the kids were joined by Curious George as they planted a ceremonial Monkey Tree. After some pictures they headed back to the VIP area to get one last gift. Callie's was a few books and some seeds to plant her own flowers. The VIP area was great with free drinks, appetizers and desserts. We all had a cake pop which was delicious. (I may have had two.) We're very proud of Callie for putting such great though into her poster. It was a memorable day.

Disney World - Character Day

This was our last full day at Disney World and we spent it at the Magck Kingdom. All trip we've been having breakfast in our room and it was either an instant breakfast or granola bar which was always enough to sustain us until lunch time. This morning though we were scheduled to go to "The Chrystal Palace" for a character breakfast. It wasn't until 9:00a so we went on a few rides that were simple but typically had horrendous line ups in the afternoon. This included the Arial Ride and the Pooh Bear ride. (A must ride for Callie.) We also stopped at Arial's Grotto for a quick picture.

"The Chrystal Palace" is a buffet style breakfast where characters come to your table. It wasn't nearly as expensive as Goofy's Kitchen in Disneyland but that may be because it was a simpler breakfast with fewer characters. There was no Breakfast Sunday and it was just the four Pooh characters, Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore. The highlight for Callie was Pooh Bear and he cradled her Pooh Bear the same way he has every time we've seen him. I think she's seen him about a half dozen times now.

The Eeyore and Piglet visits were uneventful, though I did find Piglet a bit creepy. He seemed too pink. The Tigger visit however was a bit more exciting. For some of the costumes, the characters look out of their mouths and probably have pretty good vision. These characters however seem to look out their eyes somehow. You can tell because when they sign things, they have to hold it up in the air above their nose. As Tigger was leaving, Carter dropped one of his little stuffed animals and went to grab it. Tigger almost stepped right on top of him which resulted in a very animated apology.

We also had a Fast Pass for Elsa and Anna from Frozen. It's a good thing too because almost as soon as they opened in the morning there was almost a two hour wait. Elsa is apparently one of the oldest princesses so her real life character looked about 30 and with her make up and smile was quite frightening. Anna on the other hand was much more approachable. She was obviously played by someone in her 20's but she looked and acted very young. You could tell the kids liked her better. Carter even got in this picture where he avoid Elsa completely.

Since we had a big breakfast we skipped lunch though I did stop for a candied apple. They are very elaborate and not exactly easy to eat so I had to find a secluded corner near Main Street as I dropped bits of chocolate everywhere. My other job was to get in line for Pluto. We had tried earlier in the day but he "had to go for a biscuit" before we got in line. It was incredibly hot so the kids had gone for a lemonade and came back to switch off with me. Pluto was very excited to see Carter's mini Pluto and even tried to steal him. Carter enjoyed the visit very much.

After the Pluto visit we hopped on the Monorail to head to Epcot. We hadn't been on the Monorail and didn't have to take it but I wanted to try it out and by going to Epcot we made it part of the way back to our hotel and could take the bus the rest of the way. By this time it was getting later in the afternoon and the heat was starting to get to the kids. As you can see by Callie's photo she was getting tired. At one point we had to switch trains and there was no convincing her that it had to be done. At one point we explained that when they designed the train it was just to make it more difficult for her.

We decided we would stay late at the park on our last day so this meant we had to take a break at the hotel in the afternoon. The pool area for our new hotel is quite nice. It's set up as an old Spanish fort with canons and the tours are stairs up to water slides. Carter has one slide that I think he's gone on 30 times.  Since it was St. Patrick's Day there were a number of events for the kids including kids Bingo. Callie was very close to getting a blackout but missed out by a square or two.

We went back to the park around 6:30p with plans to check out the fireworks. We had dinner in Tomorrow land and went on a whirl wind tour of rides. Surprisingly most tings had very short line ups and we managed to get on Stitch, Jungle Cruise, a pirate treasure hunt, the Barnstormer, Aladdin and Buzz Light Year. Buzz Light year was our first breakdown with it stopping about three times when we were in line and another couple times when we were on it. In the end I think they shut down the ride because the last half went pretty fast and we couldn't use the lasers.

We also went on "It's A Small World" which was way too long and I was a bit disappointed that I didn't see Canada, though there was a moose at one point that may have represented us. We saw part of the fireworks from the Jungle Cruise and the rest from land and finished up with the Electric Parade. Disney World was a very fun family vacation though I'm not sure we would travel so far again just to do the Disney theme parks. We head home on Wednesday through Chicago.

Disney World - I Don't Like Tax

The kids don't have jobs but they do have many family members that gave them money for recent birthday's and Christmas. They had saved it up for our trip and were slowly spending it on whatever they wanted. (It is their money after all.) Where Carter has been mostly an impulse buyer, Callie has been much more deliberate with her purchases. As her funds were dwindling she was discussing her final purchases and their costs and the fact that things are always a little bit more than what the price says. Callie's exact words were "I don't like tax." Be sure to say it with a grumpy kids voice as you read it.

Today was our second day at the Animal Kingdom. Our first day had been a bit rushed as Callie wasn't feeling well and we were looking forward to getting to some of the areas that we had missed on the first day. We had a few scheduled events but as we walked in we noticed the line up for the pictures with Minnie and Mickey was almost empty since it didn't open for another 10 minutes. We decided to stop for a quick picture. I like that they take the professional pictures but also use your own camera for a couple. It means we get character shots but don't have to shell out for them.

One item that we hadn't done the previous day was stop and check out the animals. One of the trails was called the "Maharajah Jungle Trek" and consisted of tigers, bats and komodo dragons. As soon as you got started there was a booth with reusable maps which I handed to Carter. He likes to be the leader and promptly informed us of the most efficient route to the tigers. (There is really only one route.) But he lead us down it excellently.

Our first scheduled trip was on the Kilimanjaro Safari. We had gone the first day and really enjoyed it. Our guide this time was actually from Africa and was able to talk the whole time. Not in an annoying way but in an informative way peppered with a few dry jokes. Just outside the start of the ride was a habitat for some 'lesser apes'. They looked and acted like monkeys but since they had no tails it apparently made them apes. They reminded me of the monkeys in a barrel game. They chased each other around the bamboo scaffolding playing tag. Once one was caught the other would take over.

After the safari we went on the "Pagani Forest Exploration Trail." Our guide had informed us that some baby gorillas had just been born. We were able to see the mother but the babies were hiding which is too bad. I'm sure baby gorillas are pretty cute. We were able to see the daddy gorilla. For some reason he was wearing his food bowl as a hat. I'm not sure why but he refused to look at us the whole time. I'm sure he was saying "Go ahead. Make fun of my hat. See what happens."

Just before lunch we all went on the Kali River rapids which is like a roller coaster on a raft. Callie wasn't too sure about it but we convinced her to go on. You get very wet so Kerry and the kids went on first while I held the bag. Kerry managed to grab a rain coat from someone coming off the ride for Callie. She ended up loving the ride and the fact that she stayed relatively dry while Kerry and Carter got soaked was part of that. Our last ride was Expedition Everest. We let Kerry go first and based on how much she loved it we knew it wasn't a ride the rest of us would enjoy.

We said goodbye to Animal Kingdom and went straight to Blizzard Beach. It had been closed up until the 15th. It's a winter themed water park and based on some YouTube videos we'd watched looked like a lot of fun. One of the things that Carter was looking forward to was being able to walk on ice bergs. Floating pieces of foam tethered to the bottom covered by a big net. He was just a little short so it wasn't easy for him. I think he fell off about a half dozen times but managed to finish it, laughing the whole way.

The rest of Blizzard Beach was a lot of fun. I liked the lazy river in Typhoon Lagoon better since it was deeper and wider but some of the water slides in Blizzard Beach were very well done. There were some little tube ones that Carter loved but also some toboggan themed ones that even had a lift for your toboggan so you didn't have to carry it up. We weren't sure what it would be like and Kerry and Carter went first. It was a lot faster than we expected and pretty deep in the end. Carter hasn't had many swimming lessons but he learned to dog paddle quickly when he came off the end of that ride.

We finished the day off with some mini-golf which was located just outside the water park. Our park tickets included one free other event for each day we purchased. This included either the water parks or mini-golf. I think we did all four options. Today's was Christmas themed with an 18 hole winter course and an 18 hole summer course. We managed to have a much tamer round this time with no one getting too mad when they missed a shot. Apparently our family is very competitive when it comes to mini-golf. Tomorrow is the last day of a great trip.