Dancing Queen

On this busy weekend, filled with sunshine, sickness and stormy weather, Julia had her first Mandarin dancing competition. Since there are only two girls in her class, Julia would be dancing with another group of girls from Richmond Hill. There was the challenge of now dancing with a larger group, and technical difficulties with the music. Luckily, the adjudicators agreed to let the girls dance a second time when the sound system was fixed.

Lots of water makes for a good dance - 

and less of a chance of breaking into a bone rattling cough.

We were thrilled to have Maggie and Christine come to watch Julia dance. We've loved watching Maggie dance over the years - seeing her compete in Irish dancing for the very first time 6 years ago - Julia was just a baby then, barely walking herself. I guess Julia is the age now Maggie was when Maggie first started competing. The tradition continues. Maggie is now doing jazz and lyrical dancing and had her first competition the day before Julia's. We were sorry to have missed that.

Cecilia and Julia, the dancing duo - 

it's been just the two of them dancing 

until the preparation for this competition.

The dance is a combination of ballet and some acrobatic moves - lovely and lyrical. Unfortunately for us,  the adjudicators gave their remarks and results in Mandarin - so I don't know what they said about Julia's group. We joked that Maggie is now fluent in Mandarin as she said she thought she heard the judge say how flexible the girls in Julia's group were - we certainly know that to be true in Julia's case as the next two photos will attest.

Julia was the only girl in the group to do the splits.

I was worried with Julia being so sick that we would have to miss this event, but she was determined to go. She mustered all her strength and pulled it off. There was a teenage girl competing as well - she did a lovely ribbon dance. I must admit I was doing a 7 or 8 year fast forward in my head till Julia would be that age, and wondering if she'll still be interested in dancing.

A special day

First Communion day for Alyse! Can you tell she's excited? 

Our gift to Alyse was the jewelry that she's wearing: necklace, bracelet and 

her first pair of pierced earrings.

It's milestone day for children in their faith and participation in the church community. 

We were excited to share this day with Alyse and her family. 

Julia (with the help of some drugs and the bribe of wearing the earrings I bought her for her First Communion next year) rallied from her illness, 

donned her gay apparel (instead of the jeans she wanted to wear) 

and made it to the church and a bit of the party afterwards.

love this reverse hip hop pose with the girls.

Let's get it over with

I'm waiting for April -- as I've said before -- the cruelest month -- to be over. 

On this rainy Sunday morning, I'm thinking of a lot of reasons I want to put it behind me -- 

• this last week alone has been reason enough with some bad news about family
• there were report cards
• marking
• parent interviews
• marking, 
• the SNOW
• marking
• Julia has been sick the last few days which has meant there's been no marking. 

That's a been a blessing though -- the not marking part, I mean.

And there were some blessings along the way - 

I think of these last few days with Julia being sick - 

• I loved all the cuddle time with her, so hard to come by now that she's 7 and on the go. 
• I loved watching her peacefully sleep once the drugs kicked in and her fever broke. 
• I love how young she looks when she's sick.
  
• Her little froggy voice is so sweet when she calls "Mama"
  

I look forward to May - there is a once-in-a-lifetime trip to kick off the month

and there will be warmer days,

and a long weekend.

And I hope, healthier days for us all.

Julia looks forward to golf lessons which she will start next Saturday when I'm away. She got the club set from Noreen for her birthday - we tried them out Easter Sunday and a few days in the backyard and park since.

Lining up for the putt

Drive for show, putt for dough!

I've got a little video of her making the spectacular putt, will have to upload later.

Easter time

With the move, we didn't do a big Easter dinner, and we didn't bring Mom over to Carmel's. So that left me with an ache in my heart. But I thought of her so much over the weekend and all the parts of Easter that she loved.

The liturgical celebration of Easter was one my mother always took to heart, and she worked to instill a reverence in us as kids. I appreciate that more now as I try to do the same with Julia. We always went the mass on Holy Thursday, some years did an hour of reflection with the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday before attending the service on Good Friday and then there was the Easter Sunday Mass. As children, I know we sometimes begrudged going to church THREE TIMES in one weekend, but we still went, and as I got older and understood more, I looked forward to each of those celebrations.

This weekend was mostly about our family helping Carmel with this new chapter in her life; we were en route Thursday night so missed the mass that night, but did do the service on Good Friday and Easter morning. I was thrilled to see Julia skip off to the children's liturgy, and thought how proud Nana would have been.

Some shots of the family - a bit piecemeal, but we were all together in one way or another, in one place or another.

Looking for the Easter Bunny!

Reading the note from the bunny -- 65 eggs to find.

I'm goin' in --- I've got 65 of these puppies to find!

Bubbles before going to Easter mass

I was most delighted to see the daffodils in full bloom. Welcome Spring!

At home at last

Home sweet home.  This picture captures the coziness of Carmel's new house. Noreen taking a break after a long week of packing - what a dear sister - giving up one of her holiday weeks to help Carmel out.

And then it was Holy Thursday, holy moving day! Carmel said things went well - she was at school for most of the day - no moving day in her contract. Whaaaattt!

But she was around to give the guided tour to Shaun -- checking out the new appliances.

Here's the view from the dining room into the great room -- the table got switched on Sunday to go the other way. I'm loving the light fixture.
But they are in -- lots of unpacking was done -- now some time to live in the new house a bit to get a feel for the space - bedrooms and kitchen, of course, were the priorities. The test will be Tuesday morning when everyone has to get up to go to school and work.

It was wonderful to be in the new house after seeing it come along since November. Here I am checking my email from the kitchen island -- there will be stools under this counter.  In the background, the room with the window is the office and to the right of that the window beside the front door.

Here is Carmel with the final pantry shot....it's a reality now.

It was a different kinda Easter weekend -- trying to fit in some Easter traditions around all the moving excitement. More on that later.

Oh, come on...

April is the cruelest month. 

T.S. Eliot was so right when he wrote that in "The Wasteland".

Pictures say it all.  

Not happy about the white "wasteland" we came home to today after school. And to add insult to injury, it was HEAVY and wet snow, back breaking snow. Arghhhhh!

Happy Easter! yeah right...

Egg-cellent fun!

With Easter a week away -- can't believe that when the weather guys are calling for snow this week -- we started our Easter fun as next weekend we'll be in Sarnia.

At this time of year, I often think of Julia's first Easter -- it was later in April in 2003 -- and we were home in Sarnia, of course. It was warm enough to enjoy a walk to church that Easter morning, Julia all gussied up in a little pink dress and her Easter bonnet. I was so thrilled to be celebrating this first official holiday (after St. Patrick's day) with her. I looked forward to the rest of that year as there would be so many firsts for us to enjoy.

Today Julia had a playdate with a friend from school -- these two decided to take advantage of the good weather. They told me it was a wonderful day to be tanning! Can you believe it?? So they set up camp on the thatchy grass out front, had their snack and played a few games of tic tac toe with a bunny and chick set we got out of the Easter bin.

Then it was time to don the paint shirts and dye some eggs.

    Showing off their handiwork.

Last night it was egg dying and egg car races at Moe's house.  Julia and Alyse are screaming -- I'm talking high pitched screams.  A few weeks ago, I had shown them a baby movie of the first Easter they dyed eggs, 5 years ago. They were little bunnies themselves -- up to their elbows in dye - one of them with blood red hands that would give Lady Macbeth a run for her money.  And they just started screaming for some reason and then laughing -- so here they are recreating the same scene. Ouch my ears! Bigger girls means louder screams.

Good to be home!

Michael and Dominic make room for all the boxes. This is the crawlspace --- great storage area.

The fireplace and the dusty hardwood floors in the great room.

Sara loving her pretty-in-pink bedroom. I think she's going to use the bedding I made for Katie when she was a not the funky teen she is now.
Sara taking a break in the basement -- love the fireplace here too. It seems quite bright down there.

It's great to see the kids so excited about this move -- it's meant many changes for them - switching schools, new routines. Happy faces on the first of many moving days this week. Thanks Katie for sending along the shots. Wish I could be there to help, but will lend a hand next weekend with the unpacking -- a job I always think is worse....

Movers and Shakers

Katie is keeping me up-to-date with the photos -- a truck load of boxes being loaded to day to be stored in their huge new basement -- it's a start.

I can't believe when I see them next, it will be in the new house - not just across the park from the Devine homestead -- only a 5 minute drive -- not even probably -- but not so close that Julia can run across the park to play with Sara or Papa can hope on his bike and scoot over.

Heavy sigh. The end of an era. I'm sure it's a time of great excitement and mixed feelings.

Someone's in the kitchen with ... Katie!

A week from now Carmel will be all moved in - yesterday they were supposed to have their walkabout.

Katie sent me this shot -- my first glimpse of the cupboards and the counters -- hard to tell with all the dust --- and just to the right of Katie - you can see the edge of the famous pantry. I can't wait to see it all in person.