Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Back to Work

This afternoon and tonight we're back at the theater with 2 more rehearsals. It's going to be a long night and difficult for Walker to get up tomorrow morning. But that's it for late Wednesdays now. Almost done. Exhilerating and exhausting at the same time. Rehearsals for both shows 6 and 7 tonight then for number 8 tomorrow and then it's a weekend of real, live audiences and then... DONE! Going to get my costume rack packed up and ready to go soon.

Walker and I are looking forward to our 2nd annual overnight trip to Worcester when this weekend is over. We go to visit my dad. Probably next Wednesday afternoon. This year Walker will have to skip a couple of days of school to do it, but travel is educational!

I finally got some film developed. Below are a couple of pictures. I have more to scan in, but why do it all at once.

Here are my friend, Coreen and her cutie, Amanda singing at the best karaoke place in town... my house. We can get anyone to the mic.
Walker and Scott coloring the hard boiled eggs we were going to use the next day for Walker's birthday party. They were for the egg on the spoon race. Walker really got into it. I know, these are old pictures, Walker's birthday was 3 months ago.
Obviously, the date on these pictures is wrong. This was NOT taken in 1998. I think I just hadn't redone the date after replacing the battery in the camera. Anyway, here is a typical picture of Walker watching TV. He LOVES his blue ball (actually has 2 of them). He's always balancing on them in some fashion. It's a very good all over muscle work-out. No wonder he's so strong. I should do his work-out!

Monday, May 26, 2008

1st Weekend of Shows

We're done with the first 4 shows. It was fun. Walker was wonderful in his role as Toto in Wizard of Od. He's done now. I've still got 4 more shows. All my little kid classes are done too, so now I only have to deal with me and my costumes. Almost over. We're looking forward to summer classes - and other summer fun too!

We're going to the Memorial Day parade in town. Later we're meeting up with Sue and the kids to go to the cemetary with Mom. We always plant fresh annuals on her family plot.

Happy Memorial Day!


Here is my 3 & 4 year old class, my youngest class at Steppin Out. They are all ready to go on stage for their tap dance. From left: Brooke, Mackenzie, Grace (whose mom gave me this picture) Leah P., Ava, Leah T., Kylie. They are really cute and did a great job with both tap and ballet.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Tomorrow's the big show...

We're halfway done with our dress rehearsals. 4 down, 4 to go next week. Tomorrow starts our weekend of 4 shows. It's very exciting. Walker is dancing with the adult jazz company. He's been so good all week. It's long and tiring. The glamorous part is for about 2 minutes when you are on stage. The rest is hurry up and wait. Walker has been a real trooper with all the late nights and waiting and changing and sitting still and listening and following directions. Tomorrow is his glory day. He's got friends coming to see him in the first show-the one with 3 of his dances.

I took some pictures on my cell phone this afternoon of some of my little girls. I hope to get them here later in the weekend.

Walker was supposed to have a t-ball game at 9 tomorrow morning then go do the 2 shows, but he wisely said he thought he had enough to do. Hey, it's only t-ball, not like he's letting down his team or anything. Dancing on stage is way more exciting to both of us anyway.

We're still waiting for some good, long rain, but ever since Scott put in all those trees it's rained for about 4 minutes every day. Not enough.

Happy Memorial Weekend!~



Looking forward to July... Here is our campsite for our 1st trip of the season to Danforth Bay with Sue and Donnie and the kids. Looks nice. Wooded. It's across from the beach and a small stream runs between ours and Sue's sites. Can't wait!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Busy Season

The first weekend of shows is over now. Only two more fun, busy weeks to go. Walker is doing great! He's got some good stamina for hanging out backstage and staying up late. It's much easier this year now that he's older. He's able to hang out with the other teacher's kids back stage and wander around the theater with them instead of just having to be in my sight all the time. Makes it easier on both of us. Luckily, Danny is there and that makes it all super fun for Walker.

Unfortunately, with all this recital stuff going on Walker has had to miss a lot of T-Ball practices. We've so far been able to make the games. That makes us look lame, but they know where we are, so it's OK. It's hard to "do it all."

I can finally talk about Auntie Jeanne and Uncle Buddy's 50th anniversary. It was really fun. I almost mentioned it a couple of times, but I know Jeanne reads here, so I didn't want to ruin the surprise. What a great celebration! I loved Bill's movie!

Walker is ready for summer vacation. We made a paper chain of how many school days were left. Each day we rip one off. He's down to just 20 more school days.

Scott is really busy with outdoor work. We've got a lot of wood to stack in the basement (once we get it in). He's also done a lot of planting around the yard. He dug a trench and put in edging and mulch all around the house. It looks really nice and was a lot of work. But it'll be worth it in how much easier it is to mow around now. It'll be a lot less week whapping.

Hopefully, the weather will start to get even warmer and we can get the pool water temp up. Walker's been in twice now, but it's only about 60! Brr!!

Walker's class hatched chicks a few weeks ago. This picture was sent home by his teacher, Mrs. Paul. I love the look on his face and how fascinated he and Gage are.
The kindergarten class also hatched a duck. They had one BIG egg and couldn't wait to see what was in it. Here is the duckling. All the babies ended up on someone's farm.
This great picture is from the Christmas show. It was taken and given to me by a wonderful photographer, Allie Burke. She is the official Steppin' Out photographer. I finally got it scanned in. Walker and I have an appointment with her for dance pictures. I wasn't going to do it, but then I noticed we have matching blue and turquoise costumes so what the heck. There goes our economic stimulous check! If they come out good I'll put them here.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Back to the Beach

The weather has been so nice we were back at the beach last week. Walker and I love going to the beach. We especially like walking on the jette. Can't wait for summer when we can do the fun stuff more often.




Here is Walker at the Hampton Beach State Park. You can barely see him amongst the boulders.



We had a picnic on a flat rock here at Hampton.


Walker and a friend in their hip-hop costumes. This is for his Tuesday class. They are dancing to "Move it Like This" by the Baha Men. It's really cute. There are about 14 girls and 4 boys in this class.

We're gearing up for recitals. This is the last week of regular classes at both my studios. This weekend we've got the Andover rehearsal on Saturday and the 3 recitals on Sunday. Next week is we've got Steppin' Out rehearsals every day and 4 shows the next weekend. We repeat that the week after and we're looking at 3 weeks of shows. Hope I don't get a cold sore now!

Walker has two more loose teeth. The tooth fairy should be coming in the next month or so. He's going to be rich. Between that and all the house cleaning he's doing he's making lots of money. I've decided to put half of what he makes right into his bank account. Otherwise he just spends it on snack food at the studio (the new cafe is making the big bucks).

We've got money down and confirmation of dates for two camping trips. Both are in July. The first is at Danforth Bay with Sue and the family. The other at Whit's End with Coreen and her family. We're looking forward to lots of fun!

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Goodbye Grandma

Glory Nason
November 29, 1917 - May 6, 2008

Scott's grandmother died this morning at about 1:30AM. She was in Exeter Hospital. There was no real diagnosis. She was just getting very old, weak, frail. She's been fragile for quite a while but got much worse in the past two weeks while she was in the hospital. She will be missed. We loved her.