Salamander City

Friday, May 20, 2011

5th Grade Continuation

5th Grade Continuation at school. Owen moves on to Middle School next year.

Owen's teacher reading her Dr Suess-like poem about/for her classroom:

Love this picture.

The 5th Grade Band playing pre-Continuation music: a Queen Medley....

And then: a Patriotic Medley...

Long time time pep band favorite - Let's Go Band!

And finally - the 5th Grade Band's first attempt of many of Pomp and Circumstance:

Walking In

Owen getting his "Diploma":

Owen and Elise with Grandma Bertie:

Owen and Ben:

Owen and Ms Settle, his homeroom teacher:

Owen with Mrs McDowell, math and reading teacher:

Owen and Mr Waibel, music teacher for 5 years:

Back at home!

Like father, like son:

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Ballet Recital 2011 - Cinderella

This year's recital theme was Cinderella. Ms Holly and South Suburban did such a great job this year - choreography, costumes, and wow, just putting on this show. A combination of music from the Prokofiev ballet and the Disney movie made this recital magical....

Elise's class was the Royal Court. Soloists from the International Ballet school performed as the Fairy Godmother, and Cinderella. Students from Elise's class were the Evil Stepmother and the Evil Stepsisters, the Spring Fairies, the Winter Fairies, and the Royal Pages. Elise was one of the Winter Fairies. Every class from South Suburban's Academy of Dance performed - from the itty-bitties (~3 year olds) all the way up to Elise's class of 7-13 year olds.

The Winter Fairies (actually renamed Autumn Fairies per Elise's request, since she didn't think the costumes were very winter-like :-)

We needed some artsy shots, with such a beautiful dress!

Here is a video of the Winter Fairies at dress rehearsal - after they had put on their Waltz dresses. This video is much better than the one with their fairy dresses ;-p Elise is the fairy on the right.

Here is the Royal Court, waiting......

And waiting.....

And here is the dance - Waltz-Coda (Allegro expressivo)
Elise is in the second set of dancers to appear, first on the left. Thereafter she dances in the right side, mostly.

After the recital with flowers from teacher Ms Amy

Posing in our yard afterwards

Remembering she is still just a kid who likes to play on the swing set

Boots and all :-)

Celebratory dinner at Wild Ginger Thai Restuarant

Friday, April 29, 2011

Spring has Sprung

I am so ready to work in the garden! After all the rain we had, I need to wait a few more days before I go digging around ;-p

My seedlings are almost ready to go out! Unfortunately, I really need to wait a few more weeks to put them out - so they will spend their days hanging out in the garden in their pots, and nights inside our warm home.

Here is my windowsill garden, for now:

Elise's seed experiment (all the obscure seeds from my seed box :-)

My view next to my desk :-)

Talent Show 2011

Our school's Talent Show was today - and Owen was amazing! He gave up a pottery class and one band practice for this....

The show was open to any 4th or 5th grader.
Way to go Owen!!! Look how far you have come since christmas :-)

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pirates Show

5th Grade Show this year was Pirates. For your viewing and listening pleasure, I have included here the Pirate Show in it's entirity, bad video and all.
Just for your information, Owen's only speaking part is in the first video - but he sings in the rest :-)

Here's the group - Owen is in maroon, with a tie-dyed beard (looks pretty dark here). His character was Tie-Dye Beard the Pirate.