Some pre-Christmas fun

We've packed so much fun in the past few days that if I wait long enough to post about it, it will all get mixed in with the fun I know we'll keep having through and after Christmas, and some even forgotten.

Friday was the last day of school and the classroom party, which was really just a little meal as half of the children were sent home in the morning as they were running a fever, ouch!

The children enjoyed eating together in the classroom and getting some pretty gifts from their lovely Mrs. Hodson.

With Ana-Lucia, a dear friend and lunch buddy:

Silly picture:

Ellated to have a completely free Saturday (no more practice this or that), we packed up for a little one-day trip to Galveston's Moody Gardens. It was a lovely get-away. Ella got to go ice tubing and enjoyed it like she was snow tubing in Utah, haha! The gardens are beautiful and the perfect 70's temperatures and sunny skies made it all great. As always, we (well, I) took a lot of pictures. How can you not??
Ella got a little taste of winter sports, like ice tubing!! :) The Arctic Slide sign looks pretty cool with the bright blue sunny skies and palm trees in the background. Quite a contradiction of sorts.

The tropical dome is always a favorite. Ella even tried to train some maccaws. They were tilting their heads as she was tilting hers, ha!

Lovely see creatures. This time around we enjoyed watching tiny baby seahorses and obviously were so absorbed that we didn't take any pictures of those.

I mostly enjoyed this:

The musical instrument museum was another fun attraction. Ella got to play her piano recital piece on every single piano, keyboard, or organ there was

Then we all decided to get musical:

Then there were the drums that I could not help but... try.  We made some music and I'm sure some covered their ears.

So pretty:

(That little InstaFrame app has brought me a lot of joy lately, allowing my creativity to soar :.))

... from Galveston.

Then on Sunday evening we went to check out Discovery Green in downtown. We took a horse carriage ride, looked at the pretty lights, and found this cool mediterranean specialty store.

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She got to ride in the front and do some serious chatting on... of course, equestrian topics. :)

A pretty magical ride:

Beautiful pots Pheonicia's. They sure reminded me of Romanian pottery.

We picked up some goodies, smoked herring being one of them and jetted right back home to make a delicious salad:

(Complete with olives, onion, and armenian flat bread. YUM!)

And then there was piano

We wrapped up equestrian shows for the year mid November, tied up a pretty bow on the Nutcracker a couple of weekends ago, and had one left... the piano recital this past weekend.

The truth is that we've contemplated giving up piano a few times in the past, especially when practising was not something Ella was crazy about but...luckily she stuck with it (with a little help, to be read as gentle "push" from mom, ha!!) I know the benefits of being musical and learning to play an musical instrument and since she loves music too and has a great musical ear, wouldn't have been too bad to give it up so soon?

Now she wants to practise, yay!!! She is been working so hard on her recital piece and had it memorized a month before the recital. The week before the recital, she started forgetting some of the notes (which from experience I knew would happen when you're so ready before time.) She started practising with the notes in front of her and luckily she was able to fix it. But boy, she was nervous about this recital. In her defense, it was her first.  She kept practising every day, sometimes even in the mornings before going to school. Then the big day arrived: Saturday, 12/15, 2 pm at Calvary Church in Stafford, TX.  We were supposed to be there at 1:15 so that she can practice on the grand piano but being the overly punctual mother that I am, we got there at 1 so she had the piano all to herself for about 10 minutes and I had ample of time to take pictures on stage. :)

Hard at work:

(I just love how cute she looks with her crossed legs hanging above the floor.)

 (She almost forgot about all the nerves when she heard the beautiful sound of the grand piano. She was so excited to play it.)

Waiting her turn to pratice once the rest of the children came, and she was pretty excited to see one of her classmates in that line, yay! They had no idea about each other playing piano, albeit at the same music school!

Hrishi's entrance :) I really love that quote up there:

Here is Ms. Maurine, the director and owner of the school and her staff.  Ella's teacher is Ms. Samantha, second from the right.

She did a great job presenting her staff and all the students. She even had a Q&A for the kids to probably help release some of the pre-performance jitters.

 

Then they had a slide show highlighting each of the students, which I thought was really cool.

 

 

Ready to go, nervous and cold, brrrr!!!

(The A/C must have been set to 50 something.) 

 

And then she played her piece, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." She played it so beautifully and crisp that she almost couldn't believe it herself :)

But I think she realized that when she heard the big applauses and "Bravo's" she got. 

 

Trophy and congratulations:

 

 

 

It was a lovely, lovely day!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Sweetheart

Celebratory Piano keys cake on Sunday:

 

Love those cute little piano fingers:

 

 

 

 

I mentioned in the beginning that Ella was quite nervous. Hrishi had a great idea to take Ella fishing and help her relax by spending time outdoors doing something she loved. It worked! Plus, they caught this big guy. I just love her poses!!! I was dealing with nerves my own way: pushing some weights at the gym (German volume training, baby!)

 

 

 

And the catch: a pretty sizeable cat fish:

 

Ballerina World

Ella has been dreaming about the day she would be on stage again in the Nutracker pretty much since September when she found out that she made the cast.  She's been practising with the rest of the cast since September every Saturday, and finally last week had a dress rehearsal and two performances in the Saturday and Sunday matinee shows.  It was exciting but also very tiring. She did great though, along with the rest of the angels. I was blessed to be able to volunteer in the dressing room and help the beautiful angels with costumes and make-up. Ballet moms' work is no piece of cake. We did hair, make-up, dressing and undressing galore! I loved it though, just to be around these beautiful hard working children who all became friends, played together for hours before having their turn to get on stage, and did a wonderful job out there.

I will let the pictures tell the story of the Nutcracker this year. There's three days of dress rehearsal and performances in here...

Hair:

 

 

 

(Ms.Cheryl and then Ms. Hina did a great job on the ringlets.)

 

Make-up:

 

 

Dressing room:

With her friends, Lexie, Mizuki, and Sophia

 

 

 

 

Ready to go on stage:

 

 

Rehearsing under Mr. Michael's watchful eye:

 

 

 

 

 

 

First performance: ready to go on stage, final check up by Ms. Dianne's:

 

Backstage: music is on, waiting for the special effects/fog to go and... SHOWTIME!! :)

 

 

 

(Although I didn't get to watch Ella from the audience, I was so excited to watch her perform from backstage. That backstage is a little bit of a magical place, you know. You get to see what all goes into a show, really cool!)

Dearest friends, Andrea and Shu after the show:

We are truly so blessed to have them in our lives.

 

Not only they are always there for all our big and small events, but they made us a delicious dinner after the performance (guacomole and turkey burgers, all from scratch.)

 

 

We contributed to the feast with our "Kingdome of the Sweets" cake whipped together in like 5 minutes. Not kidding.

 

Ella was exhausted and very high on sugar! She had been up since seven, went to the ward Christmas breakfast to meet Santa, then to her hair appointment, and after a quick lunch, off to the theater to get ready (two and a half hours before the show.) After dinner, we headed out again for her and I to watch the show.

 

 

 

During intermission:

 

 

[We had to leave a little early as poor baby got a very runny nose and sneezing, most likely an allergic reaction to something. Good thing that I had the benadryl with me. It was no fun to end the day that way but we accept it as part of our life and deal with it. (You know, I really do hate allergies!!!!)]

 

Coming home to a very sweet surprise again from Shu and Andrea made for a great finish of a great day though. They brought her this beautiful Clara nutcracker to accompany the one we had bought at the boutique that evening.

 

One happy little bunch!

 

 

We are so proud and honored to have seen Ella work so hard for this performance and watch her do so well on stage.  We love you baby!!!