Sum Mum Fun

So, my last few posts were super nerderific. As a result, this post is all Mommy.

My children attend an excellent charter school here in Edmonton that utilizes the Suzuki music method and applies it to academics. All the children from K-6 each play an instrument, and attend group music classes during school, as well as choral classes. The academics are pushed on them a little more-so than at a public school, therefore there is a lot more pressure on these kids, but (for my family, at least) it seems to be the right way to go. The majority of kids at this school are intelligent, responsible, globally-aware, and immensely talented.
Every spring, the school hosts a massive concert at Edmonton's most prestigious orchestra venue - The Winspear Centre - where the entire school performs in a 3-hour concert. It's an exhausting few days for the kids and teachers, as they rehearse at the school the 2 mornings prior, then attend a full rehearsal at the venue the morning of (7 busloads there and back), before heading back to school for the afternoon, then participating in the actual concert that evening. And there's always school the next day.
This year, Ella is in kindergarten so it was the first year we had both children participating in the concert. And our first year of being able to just sit and enjoy without a young child to run to the washroom every 10 minutes/entertain/feed/keep quiet. :-D
Here are some of the pictures of that day/evening for us:

Ella wanted Elsa's coronation
hair from Frozen.

Evan was pretty excited.

Ready for the concert!

The concert itself is always a remarkable spectacle. An entire school of talented kids!

Suzuki Charter School 2014 Winspear Concert

We were lucky enough to get seats where we had a decent view of our kids among the masses.

My sweet girl was a royal stinker up in the balcony,
causing trouble with her friends. You can tell by the bird
she's flipping in this pic:)

Evan was super exhausted by the end of the concert, but
I still caught him gazing about, clearly awed by the
spectacle around him.

 It is always so wonderful to hear and see the fruition of months of practice and effort. And the looks on the kids' faces as they experience the entire event is always incredible. Not to mention seeing which kindergartner falls asleep on stage, tee hee. (It is a loooooong day for them.)  This year, my nephew in grade one was up front and looked as though he was fighting off sleep like a champ:)
Aside from the pride I felt, I was moved by the effort the school staff went to in order to pay tribute to the former music director (who passed away last year after battling cancer) through an emotional cello performance by her son, a surprisingly stunning duet by members of the staff, and the establishment of a scholarship in her name.
The evening wrapped up with the usual camaraderie of a live auction (to match the silent auction that went on through the night) that featured big ticket items, including the coveted parking stall closest to the school doors:) I always find it remarkable to see how people with money live, lol. I think that stall went for $1200 this year. Crazy, right?!

All in all it was a fantastic evening, and one I always look forward to, despite the exhausted, and therefore miserable children I have to drive home after and deal with the next day. It's a lovely celebration of the work we do all year with our kids, and always memorable.

Next post? Well, instead of resting the day after the Winspear concert, we left the city for several days to take Evan to Calgary for a guitar event! No rest for the wicked;-)

Calgary Expo Day 3: Good to Go

By the third day of heading to the expo, it felt like I was going to visit old friends.
We began our day there by catching the Capoeira Camara Performance, which was super cool.
Here is a one-minute video I took of these amazing guys and gals:

After that I caught a panel called "Aliens and Beowulf" that drew links between the two. Was quite interesting! Chris and Sherene were at another panel so I wandered around for a bit. We all met up and shopped for some art!
Th day before, Christal had spoken to immensely talented local artist/author Mike Boldt about drawing up a pic of the three of us in our steampunk costumes. The result was fantastic!!

How awesome is this?!?!

I also bought a piece (a SWEET pic of Yoda) from Mr. Boldt, as well as some amazing work by Brian Hoang, Ann Crowe, and Molly Nemecek aka Jakface. I collected business cards from a small army of booths too, and have finally tracked them all down on their various sites and liked/followed, etc.

We also made use of the TapSnap booth again and did a Harry Potter themed picture together. Yeah!

Hogwarts is burning!! Nooooooo!!

We then caught a panel put on by The Harry Potter Alliance members from EPIC about How Fandom is Changing the World. It was interesting to see how people are taking their mutual love for things and using it to make the work a better place:)

Also finally ran into some other friends, including the stunning Vampire Nomad in her incredible CSI cosplay, made custom by Dark Knits Boutique:-)

We also ran into Benny, Batman and Emmet, as well as a great Darth Maul paint job!

We finished the day off at the How to Write (Quality) Fantasy panel given by Calgary author Jodi McIsaac, who was informative and charming. I always love hearing about how other authors organize their thoughts and work. 

This marked the end of the con, and the building was certainly empty. We were definitely ready to go too. It had been an incredible 3 days, but we were truly exhausted. I'm guessing we walked for around 20-24 hours over the 3 days, not to mention the occasional *squee* jump.

I know Edmonton has expanded its con this year to 3-days, and I'm really hoping to go. I think I'll enjoy a smaller con, with less people, but I know that means it won't draw the celebrities a larger con would.

Ah, we'll see, I guess.

Overall feeling on the weekend: Aces!

Calgary Expo Day 2: Whoa

SO!

Saturday was by far the most interesting day, albeit the most exhausting. Chris and I were up early to don our steampunk costumes. We did our hair and makeup and cinched ourselves into our corsets.

Chris was pretty excited
to get her hair all did:)

Excited to actually have
time to do my makeup for
a change, lol.

My corset and hat were made by the immensely talented Nikki at Dark Knits Boutique. (Side Note: Wearing my first costume at my first comic-con, I now know to carry extra business cards of who made my costume-soooo many people asked about it!)

I was pretty excited to get there and hook up with my other BFF Sherene! One of my favorite pics from the weekend is of the three of us all steampunked out<3

Ah, love this:-D

The weather was pretty crappy this day, snowing and blowing all over. As a result, I missed a few panels because it was just too cold for me to stand outside and wait in line. My teeth were chattering several times this day.

The first panel that I wanted to go to was called Being Hobbit and it featured Billy Boyd and Sean Astin. Chris and I were part of a crowd of about 500 that ended up getting cut off, so there were many that missed out.

 

It was a lot of fun, with Billy and Sean sharing memories and stories from their time filming LOTR 15 years ago. (I know, it makes me feel old too.) My favorite moment was when this was said:
Sean: My youngest daughter is 8.
Billy: Wait, wait, oh my God.
Sean: What.
Billy: So your daughter is 8. And my son turns 8 TODAY. (Audience "awwws") And in the books your daughter and my son get married! (Audience freaks out) Can you imagine?! How cool is that?!

The panel ended with Billy filming Sean and all of us singing Happy Birthday to his son, Jack. Super fun stuff:)

I intended to go to the Bruce Campbell panel next (alone, I might mention, as my friends bailed on me for Felicia Day, lol). The lineup was outside however, and I was without a jacket. When I went in to retrieve said jacket, I promptly failed to remember where our locker was. Awesome. The line outside was astronomical now, and I was pretty sure even if I joined the line and froze my ass off, I wouldn't get in anyways. Boo.
This thought process worked it's way through my mind as I stood in between a set of the doors in and out. Then a totally random thing happened: a man came up and literally shoved me over, saying, "Stand aside! Stand aside!" Rather shocked at his bold behavior, I did move over, when an entourage of about 12-15 people shuffled through the doors, all surrounding a befuddled and very artificial-looking Joan Rivers. She saw the trickling snow, gave an exclamation of alarm, and was herded outside. (Side Note: Joan Rivers was not scheduled for any event at the Expo. So really, WTF was she there for? So odd...)

I ended up wandering the booths for a couple hours, mentally noting all the stuff I wanted to get. (Side Note: I did pick myself up a pretty sweet She-Hulk shirt:) There was also such a huge volume of people, that I couldn't even really look at all the costumes people were wearing. I didn't take many pictures this day at all; I think I was in a bit of an overload.

Spaceballs!

I don't know what character this
guest is cosplaying, but I was
just so impressed with it!!

Skesis!

Spirited Away!

Apparently some guy ran
up and snapped a shot of
my breasts while I posed.
Classy.

Once I was reunited with ma girls, we got in at the last minute to the first panel we all actually wanted to see: Parasol Dueling in Steampunk Style. This was a super fun panel led by members of The Steampunk Arts and Science Society that explored the fictional history of the women's sport of parasol dueling.

Snub!

After that I zipped over to a panel called My Mother is an Alien: Lt. Ripley-From Virgin to Mother. This was a rather dull panel that explored the conversion of Weaver's character in each film. I ended up  leaving after they discussed the second film, as I've never seen the third or fourth.

The three of us shopped around and ended up totally losing track of time, thus missing the costume contest we wanted to watch. I had a few friends that were going to enter, so I'm bummed we missed it:-(

We went for Ramen after leaving the Expo, and it was delicious! I've been craving it ever since, and my instant noodles come nowhere near it! Need to find a place here that has them!

Somehow, I made it through the day, though I was dying to get the corset off. Almost 12 hours in my first corset left me bruised and exhausted. I practically fell into my bed at Christal's that night.
But still excited for one more day...

Calgary Expo Day 1: Amazeballs

So I attended my first "comic-con" this past weekend and I'm still reeling. While the event ran over four days, I could only make three of those days. Here's a rundown of my amazing weekend:

Friday

Selfie of us in line!

I arrived in Calgary around 11, picked up my BFF Christal and we were off!
We secured parking a couple blocks away and walked over to Stampede Park. There was a ridiculously long path to wind through to line up. (Side Note: I'm not entirely convinced the organizers created this for their own amusement..)

At the HP panel

Once we were in, we trolled around for a bit, then wasted about 30 mins waiting get pay for Sean Astin's autograph. When he failed to show, we bailed and headed off to our first panel: Harry Potter and the Panel of Discussion. This turned out to be a fun one where the girl heading it up prompted the audience with controversial theories in HP, then let the audience voice their opinions.

"My Preeecious."

We checked out a few of the booths and were able to meet the refreshingly down-to-earth Jodi McIsaac. She was a total peach:) She was excited that I had sought out her book and signed it for me while we chatted. (Canadian setting for a Celtic fantasy=excellent reading + happy Kelly!)

Sean is clearly riveted by my presence.

Then I went back to the Sean Astin line where he had now shown up, but they weren't allowing anyone else to jump in line. I meandered for a bit (almost an hour), checking out some of the booths, then finally hopped into line. Got some reading done while I waited in line for an hour and a half, then finally paid my money and had my 60 seconds with Samwise. He was lovely to meet, even said my kids' names in Agent Oso's voice:)

He wrote "Nice!" and
drew a happy face:)

I had him sign my Samwise figurine, and he chuckled when I told him I limit how much I let my kids press the button so they don't wear out the battery. Chris was able to snap some shots of us chatting, which was great. (Side Note: I spent a good portion of this day watching celebrities and "regular folk" and I am still totally fascinated by our culture's obsession. I mean, I forked over more than 3 hours of salary, not to mention almost 3 hours of time, just to get a signature from a man who makes millions of dollars doing what he loves. I am still trying to understand it.)

My Astin excursion took most of our afternoon, so we ended up missing a few panels we wanted to see, and ended up too late to see the last one on our list.
Instead, we saw some other incredible booths, and many costumes that were incredibly well-done:

Billy Boyd

Oh, Han!

Life-size Azog, the Pale-Orc

"Honey, where are my pants?"

I actually didn't even think
that there would be Disney
characters there...and there
were a lot!

This costume
was super
detailed!
From Halo, I think?

Tryin' on Christal's goggles!

I can't imagine
how long it took
to get all this on!
She looked
amazing as
Darth Talon.

The detail on this too was incredible.
Lights, sounds, everything.

Mandoshowan from The 5th Element.

We got back to Christal's late and both crashed pretty hard. We're both moms, so having a whole night of sleep without our kids was sooooo sweet. But it was short-lived... day 2 was only hours away...

Spring Break

So, the 2-week spring break was nice time off for my kids, but it was just more guilt for me, as it meant more opportunities for my kids to beg me to stay home with them:(

We did have a couple days together on my days off and we visited Hell-I mean, Chuck-E-Cheese. It was okay because it was with good friends, but man, I hate that place. *sigh* What we do for our children.

We were also able to see the LEGO movie (again) which was fun for the kids, but most exciting for the hubby who I'm pretty sure will be camped out at Walmart the night before the DVD is released.

In a Benny costume.
Clutching his money and shouting, "Spaceship! SPACESHIP!"

We concluded out spring break with jumping on the bandwagon and buying our kids a friggin' Rainbow Loom. I can't believe it. Working at Michaels, I see first-hand the psychotic, obsessive spell these stupid things cast over kids and by extension, their parents. I don't dispute the creativity involved in some of the creations a person can make, and I know my kids just want to feel included, but I hate conforming. Ugh.

Anyhow, enjoy the sun,
Kel

The Giver

So I just saw the first trailer for The Giver film based on Lois Lowry's internationally-acclaimed book.
I'm a torn-up mess right now.
First off, you must understand the role this book had in my life:
I grew up in a house full of books with a father who was constantly urging me to read books beyond the usual Sweet Valley chapter book I was devouring at the time. And sometimes I did read the books he recommended, but I didn't always understand them. I was perfectly content in my ignorant world of aesthetically-immaculate blond, Californian twins.
Skill-wise, I was capable of reading anything--I was very a good reader. But mentally, I wasn't ready for more. I couldn't properly understand more complex books yet.
In Grade 7, I was terribly bullied. I went through months of physical abuse from older boys, and verbal abuse from female peers. This partially assisted in an eventual alcoholism and depression in my teen years.On an especially difficult day in grade 7, I hid in an empty spare room during recess to avoid my tormentors, and cracked open a book I had snatched from the school library based on it's title.
The Giver sounded like something I could use.
I remember huddling in the corner of the room, devouring this book.
It was like the clouds had parted and the sun had begun to shine. I was seeing the bright, red apple with Jonas in a monochrome world.

The trailer looks amazing, don't get me wrong, but it is difficult to see someone else's interpretation of a book that means so much to me.
What do you think?

Booooks!

Today the hubby looked at me in the fabulous Gryffindor shirt my friend brought me back from Harry Potter World and said he's gonna add a 'k' onto the end. I'm currently plotting revenge, and ideas are welcome:)
Along the lines of my splendid nerdiness, thought I would talk books.

Totally loved the short story collection by Juliet Marillier that I picked up. Not only does she do her own take on classics like Rapunzel and King Arthur, but there is a nice longish short story from Sevenwaters. I wish it were longer!
The title story as well is lovely:)



The next book on my TBR pile was Cress! *squee* Super enjoying it. And I was pumped to look at the back and see that there is a fourth book in the series planned. Will mean more waiting, but more story:) So far, the story is continuing well and the new character of Cress is intriguing;)

I also picked up a few books at Walmart, Amazon, and Goodwill (and was given one:) that are now balancing precariously on my ever-growing TBR pile:

 

I'm super excited about these!! And I'll keep you updated on how they are:)

Peace out,
Kel