Easter Activities

Easter is such a fun time of year. Since Kylee came for Anstasia's ballet recital we were able to celebrate Easter with her. Here are the three cousins together.

Working hard to locate the eggs that were hid by the Easter Bunny.

When the hunt was over we maderesurection buns. This is probably the next funnest part of Easter besides coloring eggs. Of course the funnest being the egg hunt.

PoPo and Ah-Goon were able to celebrate with us this year that was a lot of fun!

Happy Easter to everyone. Jesus has Risen!

The Egg Hunt

At exactly 11:00 on the dot the egg hunt at Holladay Lion's Recreational Center began. It lasted approximately 2 minutes if that. We met up with Katya on the lawn before the hunt. The girls had to compete in the older year category which makes it more difficult since the kids are more competitive.

Nicholas had his game face on before the hunt.

Here he is on the actually hunt. There is some seriously exercise going on there. But look at his proud face at the end.

Final Curtain Call

Anastasia performed her last performance of the Swan Princess on 4-10-09. She was once again flawless. It is so wondeful to see her on stage performing. During intermission Tony took Nicholas to the concession stand and over heard some CBT graduates state, "Don't you miss it all." I know that when that day arrives that she graduates from CBT not only will she miss it but so will we.

Brighton Skiing

The kids went to Brighton with PoPo and Ah-Goon on 4-10-09.

I heard from the grandparents that Nicholas was a speed-demon. He just wanted to go straight and fast. According to Ah-Goon he is similar to Tony at this age. Which is great since Tony is an awesome skier.

Anastasia was very worried at first but got the hang of it. I think part of the anxiety was that since she had to perform that night as Odile and was worried she would get hurt and not be able to perform her part. She loved skiing and cannot wait to go back.

The Swan Princess - A.K.A. - Swan Lake

This is Children's Ballet Theatre's 40th Anniversary. The ballet they performed was The Swan Princess which is the rendition of Swan Lake. Our baby girl had the opportunity to audition for Little Odile and got the part. For many that are not familiar with Swan Lake it is a ballet from Tchaikovsky. It was his first ballet in 1876. Odile is beautiful, but very spoiled, her father is a magician and often transforms her into a black swan. One day while playing Odile meets a handsome young prince named Siegfried and instantly likes him. Her father begins to devise a plan that will ensure the throne of the kingdom to be hers. However, the Queen wishes that her son fall in love with Princess Odette. The scene above is the 8th birthday party of Princess Odette, all the royal children of the kingdom attend the garden party. Odile becomes very jealous and throws a tantrum when she notices that the prince is enjoying Odette's company. The Queen in order to keep her guest happy asks her son to ask Odile to dance. Here is Odile (Anastasia) dancing with Prince Siegfried.

This scene is one evening Siegfried sets off down a winding path through the pine forest to hunt a flock of wild swans he has seen landing on the lake nearby. As the swans come ashore, Siefreid aims his bow. It is midnight now, and the moon is almost full. In the magical silvery light, the first swan comes toward him. He cannot believe his eyes. It is Odette who tells Siefreid the only way the spell can be broken is for him to pledge his pure undying love to her forever. Here is Anastasia as a cygnet in the front row. On pointe is the older Odette and in the background in the black tutu is the older Odile. Our heart is so happy. She did an absolute wonderful job on stage and this number was so long. Normally she is on stage for maybe 5 minutes but this time she was on for a good 15 minutes. And the best part was that she was: "Center Stage"! This number was the popular piece that everyone recognizes from Swan Lake: Act 2. No. 14 - Scène: Moderato. We are so proud of her. She has worked so hard this year to obtain these special parts. We get to see her one more time on stage on Friday. She will play again Little Odile.

Happy Easter 2009

Here is our traditional Easter Bunny picture for 2009. Both of them are getting soooo big. They still wanted to get their picture taken with the Easter Bunny. It goes to show that if you instill traditions in your family that they will be maintained and cherished. Hopefully some of these traditions will be passed on to future generations.

Karate

On 4-3-09 the kids and Tony went to graduation. They took the red belt test on 3-28-09. They worked so hard trying to study and remember all the technique, sparring, and two Katas. Here they are before their belt changing ceremony.

This is what they earned. Tony and Anastasia are brown belt and Nicholas advanced 2nd degree red belt. He was a bit sad but the test was extremely difficult and he is only 7 years old. He did pass the sparring and Kata's' section of the test. He just needs to get the moves better. In the meantime Tony and Anastasia are going to test for the brown belt test which if they pass will become black belts. Pretty impressive I say.

Chinese New Year

We went to the Mandarin for Chinese New Year on February 4, 2009. We took Rebbecca since she wanted to experience Chinese New Year for the first time. The Mandarin is an O.K. restaurant but has nothing on Jasmine by our house. Too bad that Jasmine cannot have the Lion Dance at their restaurant.

Of course the kids loved the lion dance especially putting a lei-see inside the lion for good luck. And they sure did not forget to wear read also for good luck and joy.
We also had to get in the action in order for our good luck to spread for year of the ox.

Disneyland

We went to Disneyland from January 8-14. Of course we did not get to stay there the whole time since we as always HAVE to visit family. We did enjoy seeing them but wished we could have been there longer to be able to do both better (family and Disneyland, that is). But as they say: "Any day on vacation beats any day at work."