Party Animal!

Whenever another birthday arrives, everyone comments on how fast the year has flown by, and especially so when it's a Very Important First Birthday. Little Isaac is celebrating being a Citizen of the World for a whole year.
And to mark this auspicious occasion, there was a special family party this weekend in YoungerSon's back yard, and his clever Auntie J created a very special dinosaur cake.

Chocolate buttons for spots, chocolate chips for toenails and Hershey kisses for those scary spikes all along his back. But how could he look scary with that friendly smile on his face?
Isaac needed a little bit of help from his mummy when it came to blowing the candle out.

He was offered a handful of dinosaur tail before the cake was cut, but when his fingers sunk into the soft icing, he screamed blue murder and desperately tried to wipe the icing off..... he's never touched anything that squishy and green before.
But once he discovered that it tasted pretty good, he soon cheered up!

And then it was time for the prezzies. Lots of them too. He told me that the best part was ripping the paper up.

Isaac had a terrific time at his party with all his cousins and second cousins and uncles and aunties and Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and great grandparents and friends and babies and kids. He wishes he could have a party like that every day!
In Isaac's words.... "WOW!"

Open House

The agent organised an Open House yesterday. 14 families came through to see the house, which was pretty good as it was 29C here and a holiday Monday (can you believe we still celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday here in Canada?). Some of them were neighbours just having a look, and I'm hoping some were genuinely interested in buying.

Meanwhile, the garden centres are teeming with enthusiastic gardeners checking out the new crop of flowers and veggies and bushes and trees. Funny to think that only a couple of weeks ago, I woke up to snow, and now it's hot Hot HOT!

For Sale

I've been working towards this for quite a while, and I have finally made my decision.
My house is FOR SALE.

Details here, if you are interested. Any takers?

One Thing Leads to Another....

Back last October I tore up the stained old indoor/outdoor carpet in the sunroom, and it looked like this:

But as there's no heat in the sunroom in the winter, it stayed looking like that. Can't glue carpet down in the freezing cold. Finally, the weather is warm enough to get the carpet people in.

And here is the finished product. I'm very pleased with it. (Just in case you are wondering, the bottle is there to hold the glass door open.) But unfortunately the electric staple gun was a bit too powerful for my electrical wiring and it blew a breaker in the basement panel. I went to the panel to reset the switch but......

........ it turned out not to be the breaker, but something had come adrift in the wall as half of the circuit was working and half was dead as a doornail. So, next step.... call an electrician. And worry until he arrives. And this is the result.

He's located the problem... a home wiring job gone horribly wrong in the switch for the laundry room lights and he's been here most of the day fixing it. He even found a couple of loose wires in the panel that I wasn't aware of. Hooray! But I know it's going to cost me mega$$$$.

Later: The lights are working again and the financial damage wasn't too bad, but now I have a big hole in the wall to repair and paint! As I said before, one thing leads to another....

Love & Friendship, Chinese Style

I am a frequent volunteer at our local small Centre for Arts and Entertainment. This weekend I was handing out programs and seeing guests to their seats for "Love and Friendship", the 2010 Chinese Dance Recital.

The Canadian Chinese Folk Dance Group has been in existence in neighbouring Markham since 1989 and promotes Chinese heritage and culture to the many children of Chinese ethnicity who have been adopted by non-Chinese Canadian families. I got involved with this event as my Tai Chi instructor is one of the dance teachers.

Little Dai Peacocks dance. Some of the little girls are as young as 3 and 4.

Above... the Dai Water Festival dance.
And below.... Ice Fairies. So sweet.


I lost track of the names of the dances, but I think this might be the Prosperity Dance.

During the next dance, one of the tiniest dancers accidently caught sight of Mummy in the audience and her little face crumpled into tears. "Mummyyyy!" she wailed and dashed into the audience to sit on her mother's knee. The other little dancers carried on with their routine as though nothing unusual had occurred. What troupers!

Below... the Mongolian Prairie Horse Riders dance consisted mostly of vigourous galloping around the stage.

And lastly a Celebration of Love and Friendship and a Tribute to Mothers. It was Mother's Day. And there were a lot of very proud mothers, fathers and grandparents in the audience.


As a finale, each little dancer each was given a pink rose from this gorgeous display and ran into the audience to present the rose to her mother.

What a great way to spend Mother's Day!

Snow in May!

The month of April in this corner of Canada has been glorious.... warm summerlike temperatures and spring flowers and leaves bursting forth a couple of weeks earlier than usual. It's been Tshirts and shorts weather.
But May so far? Hmmm... it's been nothing but torrents of rain, strong winds, sleet, hail, and this morning I woke up to the "S word".... yes, that "S word"..... S.N.O.W!

Not a couple of feet of snow, like they are enduring a couple of hundred k north of here, but S.N.O.W nontheless! And in the merry month of May too! It shouldn't be allowed.

Of couse I went outside in my jammies with my camera and froze my toes.

Perhaps this is what is meant by frozen rhubarb.

--o--o--o--o--o--

And I'd like to wish all you mums out in blogland a Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy your breakfast in bed, the bouquets of flowers, the chocolates, the hugs from your children, the special lunch, the dinner with the family, whatever and however you celebrate. Mothers are very special people. Enjoy your special day!

Show's Over, Folks!

Music Mania is over for another year... the 50th year to be exact.

I'm happy to get back to doing normal everyday chores, like cutting the grass and weeding the flower beds. And every time the phone rings, it isn't someone wanting show tickets, or asking about costumes, or scheduling a rehearsal.
And yet.... I'm sorry it's over. It's a lot of fun and we certainly do become a "Music Mania Family" after planning the show since last summer, and rehearsing song, dance and comedy since January.
We'll be staging a Christmas show in December. Last year our Christmas show was a huge success so I'd better start thinking snowflakes and elves.

And on a completely unrelated note.... it's Star Wars Day today.
May the Fourth be with you!

Solid Gold

I've been a very remiss blogger for the past couple of weeks, but I have a really good excuse.
Our annual Variety show has kept me busy with rehearsals and as I was crazy enough to take on the role of Producer this year, I've had numerous extra duties.
In 2010 the local variety show known as Music Mania has been entertaining the people of this town for 50 years! That's right, we are celebrating our Golden Anniversary with our SOLID GOLD show. Pretty good record for a small town variety show.

We've had letters of congratulations from the Mayor, and our local Provincial and Federal Members of Parliament. And the Mayor has proclaimed this week to be "Music Mania Week".

Of course, with a Golden Anniversary show, lots of gold sparkle is compulsory!

I'm in one dance number.... Step in Time... from Mary Poppins. What a grand bunch of chimney sweeps. And so clean! Aren't chimney sweeps supposed to be all black and sooty?

These lovely "ladies" had the audience howling with their Fan Dance. Beauty Queens, each one.

The cannibal skit..... of course, there just has to be a cannibal skit...

.... and no Canadian variety show could be complete without a brave Mountie and a beautiful Indian Princess.

We performed a free show for seniors and hospital patients on Tuesday night, and shows on Thursday and Friday nights to large enthusiastic and noisy audiences. Two more shows today (Saturday, matinee and evening) and then it's all over for another year.

It's a great week, I love it, but I'm always relieved when it's all over and normal life can resume. And in a couple of weeks it will be time to start planning for the 51st show.