Prime Minister on Dave

Prime Minister John Key presented the Top Ten List on David Letterman the other night - thought you'd enjoy seeing it.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

As promised here are the pictures of the girls performing in Joseph. This year the group was evaluated by an examiner so we'll look forward to hearing her results, but Dugald and I thought it was a fabulous show! The directors rotated some of the parts since it was such a large group so Meggie was Joseph some of the time and part of the chorus at other times. Katie played one of the brothers. Both girls had solos and Meggie had several. The girls have been the recipients of countless compliments from our friends which has served to seal their desire to continue with Musical Stars in future terms.

Meggie singing "Any Dream Will Do" to open the show:

Katie singing in "Go Go Joseph" as part of the chorus (she's to the right in white). Meggie was in this song too but I didn't get a great picture of either of them as they were moving quite quickly.
Meggie in the chorus again, in the back on the left, during "Poor, poor Pharaoh."
Katie with the brothers - second from the left.
Katie's solo part during "Who's the Thief?".
Meggie played a stern Joseph very well - this is the bit where she found the hidden golden cup in Benjamin's bag and the brothers are begging her to have mercy. I think she liked playing this part a lot!
Singing "Joseph all the Time."

The North Star

It was a very busy Saturday!!! This was performance weekend for Musical Stars and the big girls had one show on Friday and two on Saturday and Josie had two shows on Saturday as well. I worked backstage with Jo's group for the first performance so I managed a few cute pictures of them when things weren't busy and chaotic.

Josie was in a show called "The North Star". It is the story of a journey to self-discovery, or something along those lines. She had two solos as well as some dialogue - she was great, she spoke clearly, sang on key and remembered where she was to be and when, she's a great little performer!

The shows were performed one right after the other so while Josie was on stage the big girls were preparing for their performance. I'll post pictures of them tomorrow.

Josie's group is called the Piwakawakas. Each group is named after a New Zealand bird, Katie is a Kea and Meggie is a Kereru. My job backstage was to make sure all our little Piwakawakas were in the correct costume at the right time and that they made it on stage for each of their songs. I watched the second performance so I got some cute pictures of Josie on stage too.

Coopers Leaving Party

Our friends the Coopers are moving to Australia for a few years and this weekend was their going-away, or leaving as they say here, party. They rented out the Karori pool and invited all their friends for a barbeque -- much fun was had by all.

I Gotta Feeling

Just because it's such a good song . . . how fun would it have been to be here?

Homeschool Swimming Classes

We're going to have a lot of swimming photos over the next couple of days because I finally remembered to take my camera on Thursday to the girls' homeschool swimming classes and this weekend has consisted of three swimming parties for Josie and two for the rest of us. So, get ready to see some goggles!

Next term we're going to try something new with swimming - I'm planning to have the big girls swim with the team in Karori and perhaps private lessons for Ellie - so I wanted to get some pictures of them with their current group and the sweet friends they've made along the way.

Here's El all ready to begin - she's progressed quite a bit this term, and even more in Florida in July!

Ellie's lesson is first so she gets to play for a long time while waiting for her sisters - Becky and Ruth are two of he best buddies!
Jo is ready to go - didn't get a great shot of her in action but here she's all smiles:
This is the look I got from Ellie when I wouldn't do what she wanted right away, I see this a lot actually:
Katie kicking some laps:
Meg posing:
Morgan and Kennedy take diving with Meggie and Katie. They are 11 and 13-years-old and are so sweet to the girls. The pool we go to is quite cold and the diving pool is absolutely freezing so Morgan and Kennedy are often seen trying to warm up Meggie and Katie.
The day is full of lessons and lots of play time with friends.







We're going to miss having our day with other homeschoolers and may return after a term or two if we can get our spots back, but for the next little while we're going to stick closer to home. I'm doing my best to streamline our schedule and allow more time for having friends over, taking trips and just being together as a family. It's always hard trying to decide which activities to drop or change because the girls and I all would love to do everything!!