Dance Recital 2014: Videos

I spent this week in Iowa, and had pre-written a whole bunch of posts to put up while I was traveling, and then was either busy with work each evening or just exhausted, and never posted any of them! So, let's keep going with the previous entry, and put up the videos I took at Natalie's dress rehearsal.

The girls did really well at both their rehearsal and recital - we were all so proud! Particularly since they've only had two classes the entire month of January due to all of the snow, and one of those was a makeup day last Monday; thank goodness they were able to schedule it, since there wasn't regular class on Tuesday due to yet more snow! Because of that, the jazz dance needed a few run-throughs at rehearsal on Saturday, and it helped a lot - the girls did really well with both dances on Sunday.

Please forgive the first 10 seconds of blur in this first video; I was trying to take both photos and video with my DSLR, and had to figure out how to get the focus right with the settings I was using. I'm still getting the hang of using it for video, but it takes such nice videos that it's worth figuring out better!

And how beautifully sweet is their ballet routine?

We are so happy with how far Natalie has come in her year at Loudoun School of Ballet! She's really looking forward to this semester's class, which started today: jazz/tap. Natalie is really excited to get back to tap, and said she prefers jazz to ballet so I think it will go well for her. Can't wait to see her do that too!

We are even happier with Loudoun School of Ballet now, as they worked with a few of us parents who all have younger sons, and created a "Move and Shake" class for boys age 2-4! So, at least 4 of the "little brothers" of the girls we know are going to be in this class, along with Henry. He's getting very excited about it, and today we picked up the required black jazz shoes for him (along with new caramel jazz shoes for Natalie, as hers were too small)

Dance recital 2014: Ballet/Jazz

Today Natalie had her second dance recital since starting at Loudoun School of Ballet. Last June Natalie participated in the Ballet 1 class with her friend Carson; this fall semester she took the Ballet/Jazz combo class, again with Carson but this time with their friend Emerson also joining them. The best part of the combo class is that the girls got to do two performances, one dance for ballet and one for jazz. Just like last year, photos and video aren't permitted at the actual recital, so all of my photos and video were taken yesterday at the dress rehearsal. I took a LOT of photos, so will try to find my favorites so as not to post too many...but since no family could attend, I know the grandparents will want to see as many as I'm willing to post :)

They started with their jazz number, as that was the first one in the show. How cute are those outfits and hats?! In case you can't spot her, Natalie is in the back row, far right (kind of in the shadows). She comes up to the front in the second photo.

Natalie and her friend Carson end the jazz routine at one end of the row; here they are taking bows together.

 And leading everyone, skipping off the stage.

 Then, ballet! The girls removed their hats and sparkly gloves, and added their tutus. I went down towards the front to get some closer-up shots.

 Natalie ends the ballet performance on stage right (left to us watching); she's three back in the row.

I do have videos (not to worry, grandparents!); I will try to post them tomorrow as they are still uploading now.

The class then posed on stage so that the hired photographer could get some posed photos. We were all allowed to then take some too, but still from the side, sadly.

 Afterwards I took Natalie, Carson, and Emerson out into a beautifully lit hallway at the school to take some photos.

 

Love these girls! 

Princess Academy

I can't remember exactly when I heard about the Princess Academy being held at a local high school, but within a week of the event I had heard about it from at least three different sources, so I knew this was going to be a big thing. Basically, local high school drama club has their members dress up as princesses and princes; each princess does a different event and the attendees (read: many, many young girls) cycle through each princess doing different crafts, games, songs, etc. Sounds great, right? Totally worth $10 for me to take Natalie, and supports a good cause.

What really happened: after standing in line with hundreds of other girls in the cold, we finally got inside the school just to stand in another line while we were all shuttled into the auditorium. There was then a mad rush for dozens of girls (with their parents) to each try to get matched up with the princess name written on our slips of paper we'd been handed when we paid. We then listened to a couple of songs, and were brought back to the auditorium to sit there for the better part of 90 minutes while the kids tried to figure out what was going on. No crafts, no shows, no dances...what gives?

This was what we sat and watched for a while. It was a mess.

Turns out that they anticipated about 100 kids. How they thought that would happen in Loudoun County is beyond me, where so many little girls are princess-obsessed (including mind). With that number, it would've easily worked as planned, but there had to be at least 500 kids there, and these poor high school students really did do their best. I talked to a few of the girls at the end, and they had no idea that an announcement went out to the entire LCPS email blast list. Of course so many girls came! There was just no way to cycle these girls through the way it was planned, not at that number, and certainly not without any adults around! So, instead of the anticipated "academy", it turned into a big photo op for the girls, with princesses going up on stage and either reading stories or trying to sing some songs (with the princes rather unsuccessfully attempting to accompany them on a piano that was wheeled in).


Natalie certainly wasn't complaining about having her photo taken with the girls dressed as princesses.

Natalie: "Mommy, these aren't the real princesses, cause we're not at Disney. They're like princess helpers."

 

 

Despite all of us parents being fairly unhappy with how the whole thing went, I do know that the girls did their best, and Natalie had fun so I guess that's really all that matters! They are putting on multiple future Princess Academies, but have learned their lesson and are having online sign ups for specific dates/times. We'll see if we go back; for me, once might be enough!

Many, MANY snow days

For those of you in Loudoun County (or nearby areas), you know that we're experiencing a rather unusual amount of snow days this winter, due to the snow. Since early December, they've missed at least 8 days, and it might be even more (there may be one or two I'm forgetting about). Looking at just 2014, they went back for one day (Jan 2) and then had the next 3 school days off. On the first of those, Jan 3, a friend of mine invited some of us to drop our kids off at her house for a sledding party. At least one other mom did stay to help her with the girls, and they were nice enough to send me these pics!

That snow storm was relatively mild (you can see how much grass is showing), but school was still cancelled those days because of the wind and ice. This week we've gotten a LOT more snow, and the kids are out for the rest of the week. We didn't take them out to sled yesterday, despite being home all day with them, as it was quite cold, windy, and Evan and I needed to work. However, today we were able to get them to Essie's and she and her husband were nice enough to take the kids out sledding!

 

A Janniversary weekend!

I"d been doing so well on blog posts for 2014, averaging one every 2 days, which is a lot better than I'd been doing in 2013! Then, of course, I traveled for work last week, and now it's been 5 days since a post. Ah, well - it's going to happen when I'm not around. This week's trip was even better than some, though, as I not only got to go to NYC for three days, but I also got to take Evan with me! My trip coincided with our "Janniversary" (this year we celebrated 15 years of being together!), so Evan took a couple of days off of work and we headed up to NYC together.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday working (everywhere from 168th street at Columbia Medical Center, to a 60 minute drive from NYC to Hofstra University on Long Island), while Evan wandered around the city sightseeing. I had some really great appointments while I was there, but I was of course jealous of his time to go anywhere! Not only that, but I spent Friday mostly in one room at Columbia University hosting a product meeting while the weather was absolutely beautiful. When we had time together to walk around on Saturday morning, before leaving, the weather was of course gross (heavy clouds and periodic snow/drizzle). I did get a few photos as we walked along the High Line, an old railroad track turned walkable park/garden/public space.

We celebrated our Janniversary, which was on Friday. We went to a delicious dinner at Thalia in midtown, which was just a few blocks from our hotel. I was fortunate to find a really great hotel at 47th and Broadway, in the heart of Times Square that was very inexpensive! Yay for traveling there in January - I'm sure that same hotel last month was double the price. So, we went to dinner and then headed to Chelsea for an improv show at the Upright Citizens Brigade. We'd been there a couple of times years ago when we lived in NYC, and now Evan has a friend from UVa who's in a show there, and she got us comped tickets with roped-off seats! Very nice of her, and we bought her a drink afterwards to say thank you. It was hysterically funny ("The Stepfathers" is the name of the group/show) - I highly recommend!

In addition to walking the highline on Saturday, we also did a little shopping. Evan needed a new winter coat, so we picked one up for him at Macy's Herald Square. He'd also been thinking about buying me a new necklace as a Janniversary present, but I told him I really didn't want any new jewelry right now - for less money, I could get a nice purse which I would appreciate and use more! We found a Coach bag at Macy's as well, and it's so lovely! They are totally worth the money, especially when on 25% off, and an additional 15% off for using my Macy's card :) I'm almost afraid to take it places and risk it getting dirty!!

On top of that, Evan surprised with something very romantic - a new computer! It may not seem romantic, but it was so sweet of him to go check out the ones on sale at Best Buy, take me there, and let me pick out the one that would work best for me. I was in desperate need of a new laptop - my old one was about 6 years old and was SO unhappy with me for making it edit photos. I got a blue screen of death almost every time I turned it off. This new one runs Windows 8, which I've been trying to figure out on and off since last night, and I think I've got it mostly down. It's just so much faster! Can't wait to get Lightroom 5 installed tonight (which is also an updated version, so more new things to learn) and get to editing some photos!

What about the kids, you ask? Carrie so wonderfully volunteered to come here and stay with them while we were gone. She did so great, and the kids had a blast with her, which we were never in doubt about. I"m so glad they got to spend that time together, and I know they all look forward to doing it again soon. She sent us some cute photos of the kids (and Calla, who was her shadow the entire time!) to make us not miss them too much!

Finally, over the past week we've bought some new Ikea furniture for the house. We badly needed something to organize our basement - we had no shelf to put the cable box, Wii, Nintendo, and DVD player, so they were all in a rat's nest on the floor. Also, our shelves holding CDs and DVDs were overflowing, so we needed more space for them. Three new shelves from Ikea, and bam: 4 hours later, we had a newly organized basement! So much better. And I'm using the old DVD shelves to organize two places:  the spare closet where I keep my wrapping paper, tape, ribbons, bags, bows, etc; and the wardrobe cabinet where I keep all of my photography supplies. A Sunday well spent!

What I do for a living: Part 2

Last week I posted about what I do for a living, at least on specific types of installations. As I mentioned towards the end, I had to return today to finish up the install as we needed some cables and I had to reconfigure the IP cameras that the client had ordered. Let me just say, I rocked that install today!

There were 8 cages that needed a cable going from each top unit into the computers in the room next door. I had temporarily wired them last week, so I had to undo those cables and hook up the 8 new ones, then run them through the wall conduit to the computers (each computer records 4 cages). As each cable is going through to a second room, I carefully labeled each cable on both sides of the wall, to make it easy to identify for the researcher.

(Each of the labels pictured here were wrapped around the corresponding cable, as you can see in photos below).

Once I had the 8 cables going through and hooked up to the appropriate computer, I confirmed that the software was picking up each camera image. Done! And you can see that each bundle of 4 cables is nicely tied up to each computer.

Then, in the Phenotyper room, it was time to tie up and organize the cables. The 4 closest to the conduit wall were easy: I tied up the cables against the wall with the conduit (on the left in the photo below).

However, the 4 Phenotypers across the room (on the right of the photo above) were more problematic: somehow the cables need to get across the room. My client had anticipated running them around the wall, but with a drop ceiling I had the idea to run them up above the ceiling. Before I got too far into the project, I asked the client and he agreed that it would work, so I spent some time stringing those cables! Left is at the start, when I just had them going through the first tile. Right is at the end, after I bound them all up.

 

The cables then come down on the other side of the room, and out to each Phenotyper. After much climbing up and down a ladder (that was JUST too short to be comfortable), getting dust rained down on me from the ceiling tiles, and a lot of pushing and tugging, it was done!

 ...or, almost done. yes, the cameras built into each cages work, and can be recorded from, but there's a second part to his job: the IP cameras! As I mentioned previously, the college's IT department didn't want to run the cameras on a network that we provided, which is what we typically do. So, I needed to reconfigure the cameras to work through their data ports, which I had never done before. With the help of someone in IT to get me through the first part, I was able to reconfigure all cameras to work through the data ports in the room, and more importantly all cameras can be accessed remotely, so students can log in and view the animals in the cages from their dorms. Success! Client is happy, I learned how to do a few new things, and this is a new type of setup for my company.

 Oh, one last thing: remember that other room? Where I mentioned I had to put up the pole and second camera? I did that too, as well as upgraded his tracking software. So, 3 rooms full outfitted with our hardware and software. A good day, despite not getting to eat lunch!

Side note: I also had a prospective sales visit while there, and made a sale. So definitely a good day!

Key West: Amy & Alex Get Married!

After my previous post, we now come to Amy & Alex's wedding day! We started the day walking from Amy's mom's house to the salon where the bride, bridesmaids, and mother of the bride had our hair done; Amy and her mom also had their makeup done. They did a fabulous job!

Yes, that's a parrot - it was hanging outside of its cage outside of the hair salon. Too pretty to not take a photo of!

Then, back to Amy's mom's house to get dressed and do makeup before helping Amy to get ready. But first, champagne toast!

After helping Amy to get dressed and ready (if you want to see some of the other photos I took of the beautiful bride as we got ready, click on the highlighted link), we ladies piled into two cars and headed over to the wedding site. Amy and Alex did their first look photos a few hours before the wedding; while they were having their special moments together (with the photographer), we took this one of the wedding party. Aren't we a lovely bunch?!

As I wrote on my photography blog, I then drove Amy and Alex around Key West with their photographer to take photos at 4 different locations. It was a lot of fun to get to spend that time with them, and such a unique thing to do! I then drove them back to the wedding site, and chilled in the car with them for a bit - they were awesome and let me take this photo. I love it, and it's become the most viewed picture on my facebook page!

Then we headed over to the most gorgeous wedding site ever (really, look at the photography blog. Who wouldn't want to get married there?!). The ceremony was lovely, and we could not have asked for more perfect weather. I snagged this photo of the newly married couple with my phone.

And then my new friend Evonne (one of Amy's friends from New Paltz, and a fellow bridesmaid) grabbed a few sunset-lit photos of each other.

Our friends were nice enough to bring the bridesmaids a drink and some appetizers while we waited to take a couple more photos, and then it was a short walk over to the reception site. Everything was set up at the fort (the wedding was at Fort Jackson park), with the deck of the building holding the dance floor, bar, bacon buffet, DJ, and a photo booth (which was so much fun!). Our tables were down on the sand, and each table name was the name of two of their pets (they have a lot of them). Too cute!

I loved the lanterns hanging above everything!

After dinner there was a fire pit with make-your-own smores, lots of dancing, drinking, and photo booth fun. We had a blast, and Amy really did an amazing job planning almost all of it herself. I'm so glad I was able to go, and happy to take part in their special day! Plus, I now have a new vacation location to go back to - two days wasn't enough! It was beautiful there.

Key West: Arrival

Just before the end of 2013, I flew to Key West to be in the wedding of my very dear friend Amy. I was honored to be asked to be a bridesmaid! The wedding was a blast, and I managed to take more photos than I realized, the majority of which were on my phone. So, I thought I'd let the photos tell the story. Since I have so many, I'm breaking the trip up into two posts. First up: arrival and rehearsal night fun!

I had to get ready for the rehearsal dinner in the Atlanta airport during my layover. Here's the resulting hair and makeup, which promptly fell apart upon arrival due to humidity. But at least there's a record, even if no one got to see it in person!

My first drink upon meeting up with friends in Key West.

There are chickens everywhere - they're protected, and adorable. Especially the babies.

We all met up in Mallory Square for the Sunset Festival.

There were friends who were happy to be together

...and expressing our sadness at Evan not being there.

There were performers (who seemed to favor fire in their acts)

 

and even a bit of sunset through the clouds.

At the rehearsal dinner (at Amy's mom's house), there was delicious Cuban food, and even more delicious drinks. Lots and lots of drinks.

Which resulted in the bride and groom in the pool.

Ok, not really. There's a long story behind why they ended up in the pool (it involved a toilet getting clogged, and the groom getting ickyness all over him), but it's funny to imply that it was due to alcohol. Either way, they're adorable :)