Hula Competition

Today I competed in my very first hula dance competition. Grace, Frankie, and I took First Place in the Comedy Group division at the Pacific West Dance Festival. The Festival runs for about 2 weeks, and includes ballet, tap, hip hop, Polynesian, Chinese, and Indian dance - among many others. Ok, it sounds impressive, but I have to be completely honest - we were the ONLY entry in our division! We did, however, still have to meet a minimum score to win. Originally, I had asked Frankie to do a comedy duo with me, and then we added Pat - but Pat had a very unfortunate fall about 6 weeks ago and broke her ankle! Grace kindly stepped in for 2 dances (I also performed in a group number) and here we are!


The trophy that Frankie is holding was actually donated by Josie, our teacher!


Later in the afternoon, our girls won First Place in the junior group poi division. (We didn't tell them, but they were also the only entry in their division!). They were very excited to win and performed very well! Josie doesn't always want or let the younger kids enter - she doesn't want them to be crushed if they lose, and also doesn't want them to expect to win all the time if they do in fact win. I think they had fun and for both myself and Holly, it was a great experience all around.

UA Gala

Tonight we went to the first Urban Academy Gala, in celebration of the school's 10th Anniversary. It was fun dressing up and spending the evening with our great friends from school. There was food, drinks, silent auctions, live auctions, and dancing!

The kids stayed overnight (Holly's second sleepover!) at Mimi and Jeff's house, so we were free to stay as late as we wanted. We, our little group of Kindergarten parents, lived up to our reputation by having BOTH a pre- AND a post-party party!

The ladies (Miranda, Ash, Jo-Ann, Trish, Ruby, and Mimi) felt like were going to our prom again!




Even the gentlemen (Faisal, Steve, Paul, Jason, Steve, and Jeff) got cleaned up for the occasion!

Kitchen Cabinets!

Our upper kitchen cabinets were put up - Paul and Rick did a great job!

Easter with O-E

Today my mom organized an Easter egg hunt for Holly and Owen (nickname "Owe-ee"). Holly loves Owen like he's a little brother, and plays really nicely with him. They had fun looking for all the eggs - if it's anything like last year, we'll be finding eggs for weeks!

Kitchen Floor

We decide to use the Tundra laminate flooring from IKEA that we see each time we visit the store. Originally, we thought about using it in the family room as well, but got a really good deal on the flooring we did use. We like the look of it - it appears to old flooring with distressed marks on it. Paul said it was fairly easy to install.

Spring Play

Tonight was Holly's school's Spring Play night. The Kindergarten class performed something inspired by Charlie Chaplin. They were great - and I even got a small part in the play - I got to perform with Holly! I even had to speak in French - talk about pressure! It was a blast, though, and I hope I get to do it again. Check out the video clip below . . .

Curves and more

Here is the painted drywall leading from the kitchen, down the stairs, into the family room. We painted the curves in progressively darker shades of the base wall colour. I think it looks pretty cool.


















Instead of using crown moulding, Paul added drywall again to the outer edges of the ceiling in the spare bedroom upstairs. This was Holly's second bedroom in the house and the exposed chimney is along the wall that used to be part of the old (very steep) stairway.

Painted Stairs - part 2

Part 2 of the stair painting . . .   the plan is to paint the tops a brown colour, similar to the laminate.

Painted Stairs

We decided to paint our stairs instead of finishing them with carpeting or laminate flooring. I got the idea from an episode of "Sarah's House" on HGTV (which I could watch 24 hours a day!). They aren't finished yet, but have just been primed.

Doing something

Mehr came over for a play date today - the girls made this sign for Holly's bedroom door because they were "doing something"!