Mary Beth and Aunt Marilyn come to visit

They were in town for an agility dog show.  All three of MaryBeth's dogs perform.  Frankie, the lab, is the most championed in agility training, which is running over teeter totters, weaving through cones, and going through a variety of other obstacles.  The black dog is Ricochet (Rico), is 13 years old and is a Keeshound.  The final dog is another Keesh and is named Rev.  He is still a puppy (2) and is a pure bred.  Mary has had him in traditional dog shows similar to "Best in Show" and Westminster Kennel Club, but she feels he is just not happy doing that.  He prefers the agility best.  Aunt Marilyn has never seen the movie "Best in Show", but she tells me that the dog owners are fun to watch as they are a bit loopy about their dogs.

This is Eliza typing now;

I'm here telling you about the pup tent. Mary Beth And Aunt Marilyn bought a pup tent for the dogs. Mostly Rev.  Why did she buy it? Whenever they go out of town for a show, she brings it along so when they go to a hotel, she sets it up and lets Rev sleep inside. Why? In the middle of the night, when Aunt Marilyn or Mary Beth turn or yawn, Rev wakes up, and all of a sudden he goes like WHAT? IT'S TIME TO GET UP? OKAY! WALKING HERE I COME! LET'S GO! and stuff. when I first heard it, it was HILARIOUS. I hope you enjoyed that story! 

Another First--Swim Meets!

Eliza does really well!

First Season of Lacrosse

I promised Eliza I would blog about her lacrosse season.  I, sadly, was only able to see her play games on one Sunday this season.  But she played awesomely.  She loves the game, too, so I'll be sure to be blogging about it in the future.  She is number 6, wearing the black capri pants.

Eliza the Author and Spa owner

Eliza for years has been creating books.  She is very enthusiastic initially and then she tends to lose interest.  In other words, she'll make a first page, and then find something better to do. This latest book had me laughing because I've never thought of lotion as a fashion item.

A good day to tube

We didn't have much consistent snow this year but when we got it, we tended to get a bunch of it.  These pictures have been in my camera for a while, sorry.  We finally had a decent (not freezing) weekend day.  We headed out to a sledding hill for only an hour or so but they had a blast.  Tubes were by far the fastest things that we saw on the hill that day except for the lunch trays.  I'm not joking.  Adults were hopping on serving trays that you would normally see at cafeterias and they were flying!  They had a hard time hanging on, but it sure looked like fun!

A weekend of Beauties and Beasts

See him?  Hiding behind the second fork down

Loving this tux!

Monsieur D'Arque
Josh was in the musical Beauty and the Beast Jr. this weekend.  His official role was Monsieur D'Arque, the head of the insane asylum, but they needed more "stronger voices" out there. So he was asked to be in the ensemble as well.  So he played a villager, a fork, and a waltzing gentleman.  He loved every minute of it, especially the tux.  I must say, the talent level of these kids was VERY impressive.  Because this is an official Disney production though, the school was required to use official Disney costumes for Belle and the Beast.  To purchase the Beast's costume was $1100.  Our school was able to borrow or rent ours.  By the way, Josh's good friend, Matt, beat him out of the role of Gaston.  That's him in the red.  He has a very deep voice and played the role very well and was well cast.

Stomp

We saw the show Stomp last night at Butler University.  Tickets were $20 each in the nosebleed section which was fine, as you really didn't need to see the expressions of the performers to get the idea behind the show.  The show is built around percussion and dance.  They use anything to make noise, brooms (they broke at least six broom sticks), match boxes, drinking cups/straws from fast food joints, water cooler bottles, kitchen sinks with water, etc.   At one point the performers are suspended on a tether and they swing back and forth to bang on various lids, cans, etc.   Another neat moment was when they used differing lengths of foam tubing and created a rhythmic almost sneaky tune. http://www.stomponline.com/interact.php 

My favorite scene was when the stage was completely quiet and dark, and all eight performers came out and created a tune with cigarette lighters.  So cool and quiet.  Ben's favorite part was when the performers came out of character and improv'd a bit.  They did not speak at all during the show, yet a toddler yelled out at one point, and the drummer mimicked the kid without hesitation-almost scaring us.