Oireachtas Rince na h-Eorope - Bremen, Germany 2009

There are 4 levels to compete in: Beginner, Primary, Intermediate, and Open/Championship. You start out as a beginner and primary dancing 4 light shoe dances and 2 heavy shoe dances plus a traditional set and trophy dance. In order to place out of the first 6 dances you must have at least 6 dancers in the competition (then the first place winner will "place out" of that dance) - If there are 11 or more dancers then the first 3 places will place out. These dances are done to the same music but each dance is unique to the school. The traditional set dance is "won" the same way, but all dancers dance a choice of 6 dances that have the same steps. The trophy dance is any step from the first 6 dances but you must place FIRST regardless of the number of dancers to place out of this dance. During these first two levels of competition you wear a class costume (for Sarah it is the NEON green class dress).

Intermediate Grade competitions are a bit different in that you have to place first in the competition, and there aren't as many dances to compete in. Also, you can stay at the Intermediate level for several years before moving up. (you can only win once per calendar year though) Many teachers require their dancers to win the competition 2 or 3 times before moving them up to the Open-Championship level. A lot of the dancers that compete in the Open/Championship level also compete at the Intermediate level as well. For these competitions you may wear a solo dress. These dresses range depending on the years style. They are colorful, sparkley, extravagant, and EXPENSIVE!

Sarah went to this feis to dance ALL the Intermediate dances for the first time, but she still had 3 Primary dances that she hadn't placed out of yet. She only had those 3 dances to catch the judges eye and earn a place. She SWEPT the Primaries with a hat trick of THREE first places, including first place in the trophy competition. She also took home two medals for fourth place and one for fifth place at the Intermediate level which is really great for her first time, and considering that many of the 10 - 13 girls (all aged 13 - 15 years old) she competed against were also there to compete in the qualifiers for the World Championships!!! We are so proud of Sarah and her accomplishments at this feis, she dances remarkably well! All her friends placed well and surprised themselves with big wins, too, so it was a HUGE success!

Sarah is now OFFICIALLY an Intermediate dancer having no beginner or primary dances to place out of anymore. She will stay in the Intermediate Grade for at least 2 years trying to earn those first places before she moves up again. It will be a lot of hard work and dedication, but Sarah is passionate about this sport!

Sarah and Hannah on Saturday. They only had team dances this day, so they were relaxed and happy. Their solo competitions didn't take place until Sunday.

Sarah with her trophies from the Primary competition

Sarah taking FOURTH place in her Intermediate Hornpipe. SHe went there with a goal of placing in at least ONE intermediate dance (and by placing I mean she would have been happy with 7th or 8th place), but she surprised herself and is so pleased!

woefully behind on the blog

I am dreadfully, woefully, terribly, inconsistently behind on my blog posts. I am going to try and catch up over the next few days; so keep scrolling down to check for posts dated before this one... but in the mean time here is a picture of MY best friend. My running partner, my constant companion, my loyal, licking, favorite friend. He wakes me up every morning at 5:00 AM, more reliable than an alarm that dog is, to go running. Although it's staying pretty dark at 5:00 AM these days, so I had to get my best friend a little help to be seen on those dark forest paths (and give the deer, cows, foxes, bats, and snakes some warning that the Phantom Menace was sneaking up on them!!

Father's Day

Great Father's Day! Home-made card (Sarah designed and made all by herself), Church, Steaks on the grill, freshly made zuchinni bread...... good times!.

SUMMER VACATION!

The kids and I finished up with school on June 5th. I ordered next years curriculum on June 15th, so until that arrives via the USPS we are enjoying summer vacation. We have done a couple of fun things, but nothing that I remembered to take my camera to! The boys have had lots of time with their best buddies, Noah and EJ Briggs, and enjoyed a couple of summer cub scout activities. On June 19th that went on a Pack Hike. It was Micah's FIRST official activity as a TIGER scout. He is so excited to be a cub scout. We just ordered his uniform and he can't wait for it to come! One of Sarah's favorite ways to celebrate "no school" is with sleepovers and movies. She has been to (and hosted) a few sleepovers and several movies since finishing up 8th grade. When she and her friend, Hannah, have a sleepover their favorite snack is NACHOS. Hannah could LIVE on Nachos. In honor of the summer holidays we made special Nachos for this sleep over (instead of the "Old El Paso" processed stuff in the glass jar).
Rob took the next 2 weeks off of work - we have no plans to go anywhere, but just hang out. We do plan to do a few local fun things like picnics, hikes, bike rides, and of course ice cream at the bike inn. I'll be sure to take some pictures and post them. Rob will go back to work after 4th of July and (providing the USPS ships things in a timely manner) the kids and I will start school on July 6th. Micah will be in first grade, Noah in 5th, and Sarah will be beginning her FRESHMAN year of HIGH SCHOOL!! Can you believe it?As soon as we arrived Noah (above, right) found his friend, Wesley, in the back of a van playing Nintendo. Without so much as a word Noah hopped in, whipped out another Nintendo and started playing. Micah (below, center) and a few of the brand new Tiger scouts waiting to go on the hike. Sarah and Hannah after yet another sleepover. Freshly painted nails, bags under their sleep deprived eyes, but smiles on their faces as they are about to dig into our version of nachos.

Wedding Anniversary Weekend.

To celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary (on May 21st) we headed to the Rhine river for a little get-away. We left the kids at home and they did great with the responsibility. They even cleaned! We took a Rhine river cruise from where we were staying in Rüdesheim up to the village of St. Goar. We spent all day in St. Goar exploring the magnificent ruins of Rheinfels castle. We ate dinner on the very touristy Drosselgasse after taking the ship back to Rüdesheim. We came home with wine and brandy famous from the Rhine river region. We took a TON of pictures, and uploaded a bunch to Krissie's facebook page, but here is just a sampling.

War Wounds

Sarah has been dancing for 3 years now. She LOVES dance and has moved up to the Intermediate level (that's really good). We recently had to invest in new shoes for her, because of the level she is dancing at and because her old ones were worn out. Breaking in new shoes is tough as these pictures will show. We just speant 3 hours in the clinic about the big toe (you can pick it out in the picture I am sure). It isn't broken, just badly injured. Good thing she loves dance so much!

Fantastic Friday

My boys participate in a home-school gymnastics class on the base. On Friday May 15th they put on their end of the school-year performance. The theme was "under the sea". The boys don't LOVE gymnastics, they're not headed for the Olympics, but they do love jumping, running, swinging on the bars, tumbling around... so it's good exercise and fun for them.Every Friday we go swimming at the Azur pool. We usually meet a few other home school families there and it is always a fun afternoon. I brought my camera this Friday (May 15th) since we came right from the gymnastics performance. I thought I'd grab a few shots of a typical Friday afternoon at the pool. We ALWAYS have snacks, and the gentleman who runs the snack shop LOVES to see us coming! The kids always get pommes (fries), and I always get Latte Machiatto (yummy coffee). The kids are waiting on their yummy snacks. These are my friend Michelle's kids, her 7 and my 3. The Azur pool has 2 heated indoor pools (a lap pool and a kiddie pool), and outdoor heated pool and a LARGE outdoor (NOT heated) pool. They opened the outdoor pool a couple weekends ago... and here are our crazy kids actually swimming out there! it is POURING rain and 56 degrees. I took this through the glass, I wasn't stepping foot out there.

Weekend Away

This past weekend Sarah and Mom traveled to Salzburg, Austria to compete in an Irish Dance competition (called a "feis"). We traveled down by train with a few others from her dance school that were going to compete. We stayed in the hotel where the feis was being held which made for a very relaxing and uncomplicated weekend. Sarah did well in the competition and she has a TON of pictures on her facebook page from our entire experience. After the dancing we took time to see a little bit of the beautiful city of Salzburg. The boys stayed home and had a great weekend doing lots of BOY things!

A Day at the Park

Wednesday afternoon we decided to head out to a park in K-town with some friends. The park has streams that lead into a pond, play equipment, ice cream, and sunshine! The boys LOVE to build dams and play in the streams. The play equipment is pretty cool, too. They also have these swings that are shaped like a hollowed out onion dome. The pictures below are of the kids inside the swing. As we were were leaving the park all sandy, muddy, wet, ice cream faced, worn out, and tired I had the kids pose for this picture. They were so patient and all smiled even though they were all ready to go HOME!

Sarah's 14th Birthday

Sarah's 14th birthday was a fun, friend filled weekend. Noah went to spend the weekend at the Phillips in Spanghalem and we took Jadi for the weekend for the party.
The party started on Friday with her sleepover. The girls (Sarah, Jadi, Corienna, Sarah D., Hannah, and Grace) played a game sort of like "Iron Chef". They broke into 2 teams and got a bag of mystery ingredients. They then had one hour to plan an entire meal from the ingredients in the bag, They had to try and use everything in the bag and would have points deducted for things they left out, or substitutions they made. Mom and Dad then judged them their creations. After the competition we handed out prizes and then sang happy birthday (using the pies that they made in the contest instead of cake) Then for dinner they sampled their own, and each others, creations. After dinner we opened presents. Then the girls went to hang out downstairs. They watched movies, played around on the Internet, listened to music, and giggled.... BOY did they GIGGLE!
The next morning they invented their own smoothies. The girls began to get picked up and go home, but the remaining 2 girls, Jadi and Corienna, went to see a movie at the same theater we took Micah and 2 of his friends to. Micah and his friends went to see Monsters vs. Aliens and the girls went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic. We dropped Corienna off and came home to put Jadi and Sarah to bed.
After church on Sunday (Sarah's REAL birthday) we met the Phillips at a local restaurant for lunch. Then they came back to our house for Sarah's family birthday party. Sarah got to open her presents from her grandparents and mom and dad. Then we had cake and ice cream. The Phillips then took Jadi home and we all settled in, exhausted, and watched a movie. What a GREAT weekend!! It was so much fun and Sarah had an amazing time!

The girls all wearing the aprons that Sarah made for them before they started their iron chef game. Grace, Hannah, Jadi, Corienna, Sarah, and Sarah. Holding the prizes they received after the competition. They're standing in front of all their culinary creations. YUMMYThe last picture I took in the evening. After this the girls were on their own!Saturday morning smoothie bar.

SUNDAY APRIL 19th