ANNIE- Part 2

So Stan took Olivia in for day 2 of her Annie Auditions for Broadway. This time the girls were put into groups of three for the part they were trying out for. Olivia is the smallest, so she is being cast for Molly (remember the musical?) So she was in a group of three Molly's. During day 2 the judges eliminate 66% of the kids left (so they take one kid out of every three-some).

Olivia first had another singing round where she had to sing "never fully dressed without a smile" all the way through and "Tomorrow". There were 6 judges and Olivia told me that when they asked her to sing she said "with or without actions?" they said  "whatever you want to do" she then said "OK- WITH!" and proceeded to sing "never fully dressed"  with her own choreographed dance moves....the ones she does in the  living room for her stuffed animals. She said all the judges were smiling and one was laughing! Hahahahah-- I have been laughing to myself all day about what kind of show these judges got as parents are not allowed to watch!

She made it through that round and the next round they brought in a dog for the girls to pet to see if they were afraid of dogs. Sandy (Annie's dog) is a big part of the play...so screaming girls cannot accompany the dog.   Everyone was ok but one kid, who was desperately trying to not freak out...but it is hard to hide. Olivia made it through that round (thanks to living with Jill's dogs at an early age) and went onto an acting round (her first acting round).

While we were at the Annie Workshop, we were given preparation materials (such as the script!)  Olivia had her lines memorized, and was the only kid who didn't have to try to read the script, act and impersonate a New York accent. As you know, Olivia has an American accent, which the judges are in love with. We are still trying to work on a New York accent with Olivia but American is still closer to NY than an Australian accent!  Olivia made it through this round easy and was then put into a dance round.

The dance round is Olivia's weakness--She has only done one term of tap & ballet, and it was in Mary's kindy class because I didn't want to sign her up for her own class :-)  The other  kids there are Dancing DIVA'S...which was made apparent as they could slide into perfect splits and whip out cartwheel after cartwheel! I just taught Olivia a cartwheel last week and she still bends her knees....

Somehow, Olivia made it through. She was the one picked out of her group of 3...which I am sure was due to the singing and acting. After she was invited back for the final call back (only 8 other girls left and they cast three Molly's and one back up). After we got out, I took her to a professional dancer teacher for a 2 hour lesson on the routine she learned; (just to help her clean it up and figure out all those tap moves and jazz moves we have never seen before). She learned it almost perfect (the moves are right and clean but she just doesn't have the flare and confidence that the other girls have).

The last day of auditions Olivia was not a happy girl. She had to get up early and even though she had everything down she was "tired" her last audition was 3.5 hours. The first round they did a singing round again. Three girls were sent home.

With 6 girls left.... the last round was a dance round (DIE). The dance choreographer taught the girls the last part of the 1920's tap/jazz dance to "your never fully dressed without a smile"  They had 10 minutes to learn the dance, and then they had to preform.  Olivia got "muddled up" and they asked her if she wanted a second chance. She took it and still didn't have the dance down. The other girls did. She got sent home :-(

When we got home she cried! I gave her a bath and realized she had broken out in hives during the last audition round. I feel awful for putting her through that much stress!! I am also relieved that I don't have to run her to 4 hours of Annie rehearsals straight after school for 6 days a week over the next 10 weeks. I am also a tad disappointed because she tried so hard and got SO CLOSE. Every night Olivia would pray that "she would be happy no matter what happened" instead of that she would "get the part". I was really impressed with her perspective!

It's a hard knock life!

ANNIE- Part 1

So I think every 6-10 year old girl likes to dress-up and dance, sing, put on shows etc...I remember, from about 3rd to 5th grade writing plays for my class and trying to convince my teachers to let that be our yearly class play for the parents...the answer was always NO. Instead we had to put on plays like: The little red hen, The lion and the mouse, and by the end of elementary school it was Romeo & Juliet (hard to compete with Shakespeare!) It was a great phase of my childhood, and really capitalized on where I was developmentally with pretend play.

Recently, I have noticed that both Olivia and Mary have entered this phase. I tried to put them into soccer and swimming and tennis to avoid dance and all that jazz but last term I caved and they both did their first term of ballet and tap. Since the schools don't put on plays, Stan found a KIDZ ACT group that puts on plays with just little kids and they get to dress-up and be silly together. They do one play a term (4 terms in the year) and while we were sitting in the hotel Olivia got to audition for her first play...actually first anything...she has never auditioned for anything before.

The play was Beauty and the Beast (the Broadway version). Olivia auditioned for Chip; didn't get the part and was put in the ensemble. For the audition you have to sing a song for the director and read some lines. Olivia choose to sing the song "home" which none of us had ever heard before, (because we have only seen the movie) so we learned  it in a week and she nailed it! The call back was the next week. Unfortunately for Olivia she sliced her leg open on a Friday night, stayed in the ER until 1:00am and then showed up for the call-back the next morning. She was a grump, and I am not surprised she didn't get Chip! :-)

So we thought we did ok until 1 week later, when the director emailed us an invitation to apply for an audition spot for Annie on Broadway. He said Olivia had a really strong voice in her audition at KIDZ ACT and that the Gordon Frost Organization (guys who put on Broadway musicals) had contacted him and other kids performing groups in Melbourne about submitting kids names who could apply to audition.

We were flattered and said 'OK'....but I think at the time we had no idea what kind of commitment auditioning would require. First there is the CV--you have to have (1) dance (2) voice lessons (3) gymnastics (4) and acting experience on your CV.  Since we had JUST moved to Melbourne we had none of these and we ended up spending a whole day finding these places, to enroll, just so we could put in on the CV.  I otherwise think I might have put off after school lessons until Term 2...once I had unpacked and sorted out house repairs....as now I have the run-around after school!

The second part is an audition photo. They wanted a color, full body shot of Olivia....I had no idea where a photographer was and spent another whole day Google searching photographers and driving around the area; getting out of my car and talking to studios. I quickly found out that unless I wanted to spend almost $1,000 on a photographer I was not going to get a picture taken and turned around in a week--no JC Penny type things in Australia...ugh! (which was when the application was due). Stan and I looked at each other and said "how hard can it be?" So we got out our little  SLR, put up a  bed sheet and took pictures of her ourselves.  They were OK....

The third part was having an agent submit your application. Usually a personal agent keeps you in the loop on  productions coming up that fit your part and when you get casted you pay up to 10% of your pay-out to them. Most people can't audition to something BIG without an agent....and we have no agent :-)  Luckily for us, the Director of KIDZ ACT who invited us to apply to audition knew this and offered to let us use his contact information. He also told us we wouldn't have to pay him anything if Olivia did get the part so I saw this as a Win-Win!

SO we applied....

The day after the application was due we paid for Olivia to do an Annie Workshop, where you learn what you need to know for the audition and practice Annie songs. When we came to pick Olivia up she was in HEAVEN as she had been selected to play Molly (the youngest orphan) and also got picked to sing a solo in front of the parents. There were 50 girls at the workshop and Olivia was shortlisted to top 7. Little did we know, there were some people from the Gordon Frost Organization at the workshop, even though they were not running it. I wasn't sure about paying money for this workshop since we didn't even know if we would get to audition, but then I though if we do get to audition we will be prepared and if we don't it was fun right?

So a week went by.... I was pretty sure we wouldn't be allowed to audition as every kid from KIDS ACT who applied did not hear back about their application (they only email you if you get to audition). In Sydney they auditioned 1,000 kids SO I have no idea how many application they got just to apply to audition but probably at least double...or more. Out of the 8 kids that applied to audition from KIDS ACT, Olivia was the only one that got her application approved. Later, the director told me it was because someone from GFO had probably seen her at the Annie workshop.

We were so excited! We had one week to prepare and spent the next week singing Annie songs. Stan and Olivia had seen Annie while it was in Sydney and so they knew a couple things about the play....like how the kids have to do gymnastics and the splits all over the stage.  Olivia couldn't even do a cartwheel let alone the splits, so we knew what we had to practice....

Saturday came and the auditions were CRAZY! Every 15 minutes a group of 11 girls was put through the audition process. Out of Olivia's group of 11, 2 girls were sent home because they were over 147 cm (which was the maximum height requirement), and the first round (a height check).

The second round was singing. The girls had 10 minutes with the musical director. They had to sing snippets of 'Hard Knock Life' whenever the director pointed to them. If you were off key, late or didn't know the words, you were out. Out of the 9 kids in Olivia's group, 7 were sent home after the singing round. Olivia made it through!

Next Olivia was sent to the dancing round. They started it off with cartwheels, high kicks (for the can-can) and the splits...all three ways. I am not sure how--seriously--but Olivia made it through! She was put into the next round where they learned a routine for 'never fully dressed without a smile.' This routine was in a big gymnasium and anyone who made it past the singing and gymnastics was just funneled in here. After you learned the routine you were either told to go home or go get your 8X10 black and white face shot for tomorrows call-back audition. About half of the kids were told to "go home"....Olivia made it through-

That night we practiced the dance routine until 9:00pm. Olivia was ready--there was nothing more she could do. The next morning Stan took her in for day 2... more on part 2....

First Day of School!

Four days after moving into our new house the kids started school! The girls are attending Coatsville Primary School here in East Bentleigh. Here is their web page if you really want to have a look around Australian schools: http://www.coatesps.vic.edu.au Coatsville is 6 blocks from our house...about 10 minutes walking distance (with three kids) and really big compared to our infant school (60 kids total and now there are 700 kids total). The uniform shop was all sold out of summer dresses so my kids had to go to school in their sports uniform for the first two weeks until more dresses came in.

Miss Mary has Maria Ross for Year 1 (First Grade)

Olivia was given Allison Dowset for Year 3-Miss Douset, sing to her class :-)
Olivia-- She always goes prepared to school...Mary will never take a jumper!

Thomas was tricky. He was enrolled in preschool for two days a week up in Sydney. We were on the wait list for one year to get a spot at our favorite preschool. After moving to Melbourne our chances of getting into a preschool were slim to none.  Stan put himself in charge of finding one. He found one 20 minutes away in Brighton. It is about triple the cost of his other preschool, and they had one spot left. I thought, 'so it is either this posh preschool or none at all....' I was ok with none at all because I could hang out with Thomas and walk the kids to school. Stan felt pretty strongly the other way, so we gave it a try. All in all, Thomas was really ready for preschool which I didn't realize until I saw him there. He loves it and so I am now adjusting to a lot of time by myself! 

Here is Thomas at his first day of preschool in his school uniform.

Moving Day & Olivia's stitches!

So after a month in a hotel, we finally got the keys to our little house! Even though we are leasing we still consider this our FIRST house (we are going on 10 years of marriage....all in an apartment, so it counts), and are very excited!  This excitement soon turned into panic after we walked in and realized the old tenants didn't clean. We also learned that there were A LOT of things broken, and after several calls to our real-estate agency--we realized that our property was being overseen by one of those Realtor's that doesn't return phone calls and plays hookie for up to 5 days at a time.

This was in conjunction with the fact that our moving company managed to showed up 8 hours late (we were at the house at 8:00am waiting for them--got the kids up at 6:00am to check out of the hotel and get over there in time). We couldn't leave the house because they were always "30 minutes away" and with no food or furniture we started to have a lot of grumpy kids and nothing to do.

When the movers did come (5:00pm) we had our whole ward waiting around to help (ok only 10 people--but we had been turning people away all day since there was nothing to do). They set up the beds and unpacked the kitchen (well most of the kitchen, suddenly we realized about 1/4th of our things were missing--the movers left some boxes in Sydney--oops! Which they didn't get delivered until the following week) It was ok but most the boxes left were kitchen boxes, so we were missing things like, knives, spatulas, can openers etc...

Anyway,  unpacking was going really well until we all heard a SCREAM and Olivia came hoping into the house. She had climbed up a rusty basket ball pole (there was all sorts of rubbish left in the yard by the old tenants) and slide down on a fat screw that sliced open her thigh. The fat was dripping out and with no clue where a towel or band-aid could be Stan picked her up and someone from church drove us over to the ER (because we didn't have the faintest idea where one was).

We stayed at the ER until 1:00am. They were so full they were turning away ambulances. Olivia's cut was roughly 6 - 7 inches long and 2 inches deep. Compared to the other patients she wasn't a priority so we had to play the waiting game. They gave her some tylenol and some numbing cream so they could give her stitches but the cut was so deep that the cream was not effective. With no other options, they decided to knock her out with some sleeping gas (much to my relief) and when she woke up she had 5 stitches.

This picture looks like a close up of someones knee...but that is her butt...just to put it in perspective!

NOW--I was reading my friends blog in the USA. Her kid hit his head on a church pew and he got 5 stitches. The cut is TINY and I was thinking to myself..."why does Olivia have 5 Frankenstein stitches and this kid has 5 tiny stitches?" I could easily fit 5 American stitches in-between Olivia's Australian stitches.

10-14 days later Olivia was supposed to get her stitches out BUT none of the GP's wanted to touch them because it was sevearly infected and if we pulled them out the cut was sure to split open. They prescribed some antibiotics, and took the stitches out while holding their breath.  If you leave stitches in too long your scar is bigger, if you take them out too soon- the cut opens up. Olivia had her's in the maximum number of days so it had to come out and guess what.....It broke open! They did a patch job with 8 butterfly band-aids and then put a waterproof covering over that and said come back in 10-14 MORE Days.

We just took the bandages off yesterday and with the antibiotics the scar is better BUT she now has a fankenstien scar!  DO YOU SEE THE LINES? So seriously, am I just over reacting because this is the first time we have had stitches on our own (i.e.not for an operation)--or were these really crappy stitches? (click on the pictures to zoom in! Comments welcome!

Hotel life

In between the Australian Open, we were able to show Papa John some of the things that make Melbourne so AMAZING.

Road Trip 1: Phillips Island. This is where you can watch the penguins come out of the water and run to their natural habitat. They make the run during the evening so we got some fish and chips for dinner and waited for the sun to set!

Road Trip 2: Grants Picnic Area--Dandenong Mountain Range. Here we drove about 45 minutes north of the CBD and found ourselves in a national park. It is a rain forest and has lots of exotic birds that like to eat out of your hand. If you pay $3.00 you get a bucket of bird seed.

Grandpa John is straight out of Mary Poppins..."feed the birds!"

Olivia has pretty proud of herself for getting the green parrot to come over.

Since the birds were wild there were quite a few bites.

after feeding the birds we went on a short hike with the kids through the rain forest. There were lots of beautiful trees, ferns and again, birds!

Grandpa John and the grand-kids.

Just to put it in perspective...see little Olivia below?

Road Trip 3: The 12 Apostles!

This was a day trip on windy roads, so this time I just took my dad and left the kids at home.  We walked quite a few beaches and had a few great talks.

Pictures to come...on my dad's computer....

In addition, to the Australian Open & our three road trips; Papa John was also able to experience Australia Day, and a blue grass festival.  He also managed to babysit for Stan & I on two occasions so we could get out. The first date was at a nickle arcade (I think we got back at like 1:00am) and the last date was for a friends wedding (Scott Broadaway & Annelisa). It was really good to see 6 people from high school in Australia for this wedding!

 it's a bad picture, but we tried 6 times!

 Scott and Annelisa Broadaway!

At the end of the month, we got our keys to our house--moved in (separate post on that) and then my dad left a few days later to go back to the USA. Although it was a weird visit (being in a hotel and in a new town) it was good to see my dad and re-connect!  Thanks for coming out to Oz dad!

Papa John & the Australian Open

So although we were able to secure a lease on the house of our dreams, the house would not be available for 1 whole month! During this month my dad came out to visit (the last time he came over was when Thomas was born while we were living in England). He had been backpacking in New Zealand for a month, and had to re-rout his trip to Melbourne from Sydney (since we were no longer living there). It was great to see him, he had the pleasure of bunking with us in our hotel for a couple of weeks; which I know he didn't mind since it was within walking distance to the tennis courts during the Australian Open!

I had the pleasure of going with my dad one day, day match (11:00-5:00) and then Stan & my dad went another day. My dad also went to three additional day matches (some by himself or with other friends); which overall was quite a bit of tennis!

During my day match we happened to have Victoria Azaranka, Kim Clisters, Maria Sharpapova, & Petra Kvitova all play on the court we had seats too!

Victoria!

Here is a close up of Victoria Asaranka (she won the Womens singles--and is known for her really high squeak when she returns the ball).

After the womens match we saw Roger Federer and Del Potro 

Roger Federer --an older pro in the tournament but someone I had been hearing about since I was in high school!

after being at the tennis all day we ran into someone who was getting  rid of their night tickets, Rafael Nadal was hitting next (another high school favorite!) We took them but had to give them away to someone else in the end for a lack of a babysitter. The match went into 2:00am, and was arguably the best match during the whole tournament!

The next night, Stan and I saw an evening match and saw Djokovitch (who won the mens singles a few days later) and Ferrer. Since those tickets were from Bain we also got treated to a really nice dinner before the match, it was fantastic--no better way to kill time before a house move right?

 Thanks Dad & Bain!

Overall--we LOVE tennis!