Dance recital!

So last week was Olivia & Mary's annual dance recital. I don't even know where to begin, I have so many mixed thoughts about it...

We will start at the beginning. After Olivia auditioned for Annie we did a little homework and found a very hard core dance school to put her in. Since Olivia was starting dance at 8 years old (and not 3) she was a little bit behind. We put Mary and Olivia in together as Mary was also keen to dance.

There is no-nonsense at this dance school, in fact Mary was kicked out of several classes in less than 10 weeks and after this concert, she was officially pulled out from the entire school (they can tell at age 6 if you have enough potential- lol). During the dress rehearsal (all day Saturday) kids were getting kicked out of numbers just a few hours before the performance for not paying attention. The head teacher says if you don't want to dance professionally don't be here!

Because my girls aren't good enough yet, we have not been invited to participate in any competitions with the school. This evening was their first performance and I was a wreck!! The hair and makeup night for the school was hosted in June while I was in the USA for my little brother's wedding. Stan went on behalf of me and when I asked him what he learned he said "not much." 

The week before was spent reading over the 10 pages of things I needed to have and do for each number. Like getting a spray tan... I had never even had a spray tan! It was all starting to feel a bit much! I got almost everything done by the end of the week but I was still confused about the hair and makeup. Like, how to do these ringlet things?!? I woke up the morning of the recital really worried and Stan informed me that he knew how to do them from the makeup night and then we spent the next two hours winding these little pieces of shoe laces into my girls hair. When we got to the dressing rooms we saw the mothers pulling out these beautiful curls from these foam things-

Here is what I was pulling out...O- the horror!

From a distance I don't think it is that bad...but all the other moms went into "help this beauty challenged mom mode" and I immediately had 4-5 moms with curling irons and make up surrounding my kids chairs.

This was good because we finished about 5 minutes before curtain call and we were in the dressing room for 3 hours! I was looking around and I was the only one who didn't have a massive kaboodle suit case with wigs, fake eyelashes, bobby pins, safety pins, hairspray, curling irons (I actually did BUY one that week as I previously didn't own one), make-up...everyone was like where is your foundation...I was like- 'seriously do people still use that stuff?'- I use lotion and powder :-)- OK I WAS A HOPELESS CASE!

Here is Mary for her baby ballet number- not quite the curls of the other girls but an improvement! 

Olivia in a Tangled ballet number 

In between each number the parents could watch the show on a monitor in the dressing room and then the kids would come down and change just in time for the next number. It was chaos!

For this Olivia had to get a microphone, which meant I had to take her back behind the curtain once her costume was on. This was where all the big girls would change as they were in so many numbers they didn't have time to run to a dressing room. There were about three people around each girl helping them change: taping microphone cords on them, clipping hair accessories on them, all while being half naked- it was my first "real" encounter with show-business.

Mary's doggie in the window tap dance. I had to PAINT her shoes white!

There was a jazz number both girls were in but I didn't get a picture as the costume change was too quick! :-(

And the finally curtain call everyone was in their SLD uniforms. 

So my thoughts are...Olivia is a fanatic on stage (earlier that week she had a school dance concert and she was the star of the show- seriously random people for days afterwards were approaching her including someone who runs television programs for kids). She loves it BUT is this what I want for my daughter now that I have seen it in full force??

The Whitsundays- Hamilton Island

Last weekend Stan and I were able to celebrate our 10 year anniversary! We flew three hours north to a little conglomeration of islands called the "whitsundays". They are situated in the great barrier reef and are cool because you typically rent a boat and you go from one island to another every day. You sleep on the boat  and do activities or get supplies from different islands. Some islands are completely undeveloped while others have grocery stores where you can stop off at to get food.  I flew into Hamilton island (which is the main island).

 As soon as I got off the plane Stan and I walked a little ways and got onto a boat to visit white haven beach- ranked #5 in the world as a "best beach" and #1 in the world for whitest sand. The sand is like walking on flour and it is apparently 98% silica (so there are hardly any impurities /(like shells) in the sand) it is mostly glass...but soft!?! 

 These pictures are out of order but basically we spent three days on the islands Sat-Mon and had a fabulous time!

 Swimming up to the beach at white haven- the boat wouldn't go any further!

 First time EVER in a two piece- did it more as a goal after having three babies (one c-section); and just in time for my 10 year anniversary! This is the ONLY picture I am posting...because I am usually very modest- So glad we had the beach mostly to ourselves!

 hiking up to the look out point!

 you can see the refection in Stan's sunnies!

 baby whale breaching!

Dinner at the cafe-

 I loved the rainbow plant!

 Everyone would drive around these golf carts to get from the hotel to the water- the whitsundays is ranked in the top 10 for most eco-friendly vacations!

 Views from the hotel

Watching the sunset from our hotel window

 One of the islands was a golf course...and nothing else- check out the views!

 And the sunset again!

10 years and so much more to come! LOVE YOU Stan!

My knee problems!

So I have been meaning to blog about this for a long time as it happened ages ago, and has been a big part of my life as of recently. I have KNEE PROBLEMS!

History: As a child I would have my knee cap (patella) dislocate quite frequently. It would always pop back in but it was always something that would bring me to the ground, put me in a panic and then I would be ok. Honestly, 2 seconds later I was up and walking again and it wouldn't happen again for months.

I remember my mom taking me in once and the GP telling her that I could be referred to someone who could do a knee surgery on my muscle to help it so it wouldn't dislocate anymore. We didn't go that route. Instead we discontinued the sporting activities I was involved in to give it a break.

That seemed to work- I went almost 10 years without any problems- Which is a good sign because most knee problems happen with kids as they grow and when you are an adult the percentage of people that continue to have knee problems rapidly decreases.

So, now I am 30 and I have had my knee dislocate in February and then again in June (which for me is pretty much back to back). The June incident was bad. For the first time in my life my patella did not pop back in! In fact it stayed dislocated for about an hour. I was home alone when this happened and I originally went from pain, to shock, panic and then breathing exercises like I was in labor (as my knee would go into these really hard contractions every 10 minutes--the whole area around the patella would just go into a knot).

It looked like this, my knee was to the side...I am kicking myself (no pun intended) for not taking a picture since I had my phone on me!

Anyway, I called Stan (who was at work- it was 9pm), who then called May (a friend down the street) who came to help me. She tried to take me to the hospital but I really couldn't move. I had already tried to stand up to hop and that was the most amazing acute pain I have ever experienced as my leg was kind of just hanging there.

The only option was to call an ambulance...which I thought was so stupid; but then agreed too once I had lost all feeling from my knee down. I was afraid something was pinched, which then made me afraid I would get a blood clot (which for me is very bad as I am protein S deficient. Protein S is something everyone has- when your blood clots up, protein S diffuses the clot...I don't have enough of these guys).

So we called an ambulance- I am absolutely positive we were at the bottom of the waiting list- most people call an ambulance for emergencies. I was Ok- just in pain and unable to move. My hypothesis was confirmed after we waited for an hour and no one came.

While I was alone I had been looking up Utube videos on how to relocate my patella...there are some good ones:

Video 1: the long painful way--seriously, why did I wait an hour sitting here like this high school kid?

Video 2: The moral of the story- athletes know best!

The moral of the story is to just smack the knee cap back into place so you can get on with walking and get out of the pain- the longer the knee cap is dislocated the longer you'll be in pain!

Anyway, I got my knee back in place without the ambulance (which we cancelled), and now I see this physical therapist about every 2 weeks. First we fixed the knee, now we are examining why I walk like a duck and how this is possibly contributing to my knee problems :-) I am starting to feel better and at the same time a little hopeless at the prospect of having to learn how to re-walk after 30 years of walking. On the upside who can say no to some guy massaging your knee for an hour with no other option but to listen to you talk non-stop?

Day 7- coming home!

Our last day in Broome was more of a half day. We started by having breakfast on cable beach and walking in the sand! Our bags were packed and the airport was 5 minutes away. 

 Here is a picture of the inside of the airport- It was easily the smallest airport I have every been in!

And boarding our plane!- Goodbye Broome!

Day 6- Echo Beach!

Echo beach is a secluded beach about 1 hour south of Broome. While flying up to Darwin it was revealed in the in-flight television selection that Miranda Kerr (a very popular Australian model) was doing her photo shoot for David Jones (a high end retailer out here in Oz) out in Broome. After seeing the beach pictures we google searched the location of the photo shoot which was revealed to be Echo beach. 

Finding Echo beach was more or less a mystery. Although we had an address, our GPS and our phones would not give us a route to get there.  We had to go to an information hub in Broome and ask about the beach. Here we were given a basic map with a line drawn for an unmarked road.  We set out and luckily did find one sign for the unmarked road. The road was gated, but we were able to let ourselves in.

We quickly learned that Echo beach is a very very posh, simple, eco-friendly resort! We had to sign ourselves in once we got to the front office, luckily day visitors were welcome; and to our surprise they had these hammock tents for the taking....and would you believe it...we were the ONLY ones on the beach for most of the day. 

 In addition, to these wonderful tents, there were kayaks to rent, waling tours to book, massages to book, free sand toys, and an amazing restaurant and pool just at the top of the hill. We were in paradise!

 After lunch we went up and dipped into the pool- I love how the wall falls off so that the view merges into the ocean!

 Our restaurant; we had both lunch and dinner here- in the evening they lit up all these fires and we had a giant buffet!

 About mid-day we got another friend on the beach for an hour-

 what a beautiful seashell hu?

Mary took the liberty of finding jelly fish for us- they do sting but not bad

 How I spent most of my day

 In the evening we walked to the far left of the beach- once the tide was out so we could see all the rock where David Jones/ Merinda Kerr did the photo shoot. The sunset was stunning against the sandstone-

 One of the main reasons we wanted to visit western Australia was to see a sunset. Since Sydney/Melbourne are on the east, you can only see a sunrise over the ocean. Broome is famous for it's sunsets!

 Thomas getting ready to throw sand on me....

The end to a perfect day- we were so lucky to find this hidden resort and to have it all to ourselves!