Enough is Enough

From my last performance, here is our group.  Will only post one more photo if I can find it of all the Dolls, Lions & Dragon and hopefully our Chinese Rendezvous Queen - all of us together.  If not, oh well.

Our group from the last performance - me, Grace, Mary & Liz.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day brunch at Gramma's house.  After an exchange of Vanentine's gifts, Alanna concentrates on moving those blocks around the wire.

She also did pretty good at climbing onto the chair by herself ... many times - up and down, up and down ...

The were re-united with their new sippy cups and just about drank a whole cup of water.

Emerson found the large pail and thought his head was a good place to put it.  

"Where's Emerson?"  Then the pail comes off and "Oh, there he is".  It was a great game.

Brooke gives some attention to Timber.  Lily stayed out of sight underneath the dining room table.

It was a good visit with a waffle and blueberry brunch but unfortunately for me, they had to leave to have their afternoon nap.

Later this afternoon I am off to the Arts Centre to see Brooklyn.  Am looking forward to that.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Feb 12, 2016

It is February 12th and this is the temperature at 4:00 in the afternoon.  Don't know what the high was today but I sure saw a lot of melting while I was walking.

Oh yeah, below are my lucky sox.  The year of the Monkey and I HAVE Monkey Sox.  What luck.  

My last performance is tomorrow night at the Rendezvous Queen Fashion Show.  I then turn in my Big Head for this year anyway.

Front Page: Whitehorse Star

Photo by Vince Fedoroff

RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR – The Year of the Monkey was celebrated Saturday with the Chinese community at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

Above:  what appeared on the front page of the Whitehorse Star on February 9th (or it could have been February 8th).  I am just to the right of the dragon's head with my hands over my eyes (Big Head).  If I had only taken my mask off a little quicker, you would have seen my face.  Mary (to the right of me) and Liz (to the left of the dragon head) had their masks removed when Vince took this photo.

Still Chinese New Year

All attendees to the performance received a Chinese calendar.  If anyone knows what it says, please let me know.  This is the year of the Monkey by the by.

I wore my Monkey sox (thank you Lisa and Kate) and showed them to a group of Chinese women who smiled immensely and said they were very LUCKY sox.  And my friend Joan couldn't get over the fact that I HAD monkey sox to wear to this event.

Also took my Chinese purse (again, Thanks Lisa).  It fit in well and held all my valuables.  A fun afternoon!!

Chinese New Year Performance - The Big Heads

Our Dance:  We walk on stage waving to the audience (by the way we were introduced at "The Dolls").

We all do our little 4-step dance.  (That's me in the forefront although I didn't mean to be there, but who knew anyway??)

The lions join us on-stage.

Then the Grand Finale.  The Dragon joins the "Dolls" and the "lions" and surrounds us.

And we (the Dolls) exit behind the Dragon with our heads off, so the children won't be afraid of us. The Lions then exit after us.

My costume

I am taking part in a performance for Chinese New Year on Saturday.  This is my costume.  We have been called many things but the most prevalent is Big Head.  In our dance, there are two boys and two girls.  I am a boy.  Also on stage are four lions and a long long long Dragon.

Still January

Did my twinsitting a couple of days ago.  They were happy (for a wee bit) to sit on the couch and read their books.  Alanna's favourite page in her counting book was the number 20 - 20 Rockets.  I found that interesting as she has no idea what a rocket is but liked looking at them.

Emerson had carried his favourite book around all morning.  I tried to read it to him and Alanna, but he wouldn't let it go.  In fact he read it to me.  Big Red Barn had a lot of animals that he could recognize - the moooooo, the nehhhhhh, the baaaaaa ...

We had a fun morning together.  Next is Sunday where both parents are away for most of the day.  Looking forward to that.

My newest venture is participating in Chinese New Year.  I will dance onto the stage with three others wearing a mask similar to the girl mask above (I will be a boy) and a red and gold costume.  We will be the children.  The children precede the lion and then the dragon on-stage.  A couple of practices to go, then the big show, February 6th.  Should be fun.

The Weekend

Saw The Big Short before it finished up in our theatres.  I was a bit afraid it was going to be a bit too technical for me to enjoy (even though I had taken the securities course) but they explained it very well.  It was tastefully done, kept my interest right through and the acting was superb.  I especially liked Steve Carell.  I give it 4 Stars.

Got caught up with an old friend this weekend.  We had a lovely meal and talked and talked and talked.  

Up for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor (even though he hardly talks and when he does it's in a whisper because he had a hole in his throat that he cauterized himself with gunpowder and fire).  This movie should be called "If It Can Go Wrong, It Will Go Wrong".  He is brutally attacked by a bear, almost drowns in a river, goes over waterfalls, leaps off a cliff with his horse, is chased by Indians on a constant basis, gets buried alive ...  The movie was slow and perhaps southerners wouldn't think it, but we northerners know he should have died of hypothermia many times over and should have, early on, lost his feet and his hands to frostbite, if not his ears and nose.  It is based on a true story but I'm sure this very much embellishes the truth.  The meaning of "Revenant" is "one that returns after death or a long absence".   That's Leo.  I give it 3 Stars.

January 15, 2016

Haven't visited the twins for almost 2 weeks.  Tonight I played with them while their parents took a night off. And it was a delight.

They were little bees today.  

Here they are with their Beanie Babies that they received in a treat bag from a birthday party they attended.  These are the ones with the HUGE eyes.  Alanna's is KIT-TEN and Emerson's is AAA-WOOOOO.  We call it Puppy but that is his word for DOG, taken from Timber's howling.

OK, obviously I'm not the greatest at selfies, but give me a break.  I don't have a viewer in the front of my camera.  So I thought I did pretty good here.  I got part of me, Emerson and a bit of Alanna all in one photo.

I took pictures then showed the kids what they looked like in the back of camera.  They loved it and start to understand when I would say OK, sit here and I will take your picture.  I had to be fast though because they would sit for 3 seconds then jump up to see the back of my camera.

Happy New Year

Finally feel well enough to go out in public.  Went to see Star Wars, The Force Awakens, last night.  It was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed and loved visiting our old Star Wars friends who have aged, just as we all have.  

Hans Solo to (Princess) General Leia:  "you've changed your hair".  

As usual we wanted to grab a beer after the movie to discuss what we have just watch.  The Westmark closed at 9 PM, the Edgewater closed at 9 PM...  whattttt !!!!  Finally found the old Capital Hotel bar opened and we were the only ones in there (and they were cleaning and it smelled like bleach).  

Downtown was empty as can be seen from the above photo, looking toward the clay cliffs and the bottom photo looking at the White Pass and Yukon Route building.  The Christmas lights are still there and I love the look.  Thanks City of Whitehorse for decorating our downtown.

Great movie for young girls to watch as a main hero is a SHE, not a HE.  And you do not have to go back and watch the first 3 (or first 6) movies to catch up.  They do a wonderful job of weaving the past with the present and you never feel lost or left behind.  Five Stars.

And since this is the first blog of 2016, let me wish you all HAPPY NEW YEAR.  May 2016 be  good one!

New Year's Eve 2015

The year 2015 is coming to an end.  I didn't see the fireworks tonight (they happened well before midnight apparently) but I still did see a light show - not spectacular but magical as always.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all and I hope that 2016 brings you all health and happiness.  Cheers!

Merry Christmas ... is it still Christmas???

 I will start with an explanation.  The afternoon of December 23rd I started to feel achey.  I napped that evening and awoke feeling weak with a chest infection on the 24th.  I laid on the couch all that day hoping to combat the problem.  I awoke on Christmas Day and didn't feel too bad.  I showered, put on comfortable clothing and drove to the Rudolph House (had to call it that at this time of year) to open gifts with their family and Brooke's parents and her sister Hayley.  All my gifts for them were already there except for the two chairs for the kiddos (seen below).  I entered the house, put the chairs down and Alanna ran up and gave me a hug and Emerson ran past me and sat in a blue chair, ignoring me completely (whell !! ).  Below is my Christmas Day.

The kids, all decked out in new PJ's got their breakfast smoothies and returned to the chairs.

It took nearly 3 hours of present opening before a break came.  There were still gifts under the tree but the kids and the adults were beginning to be overwhelmed.  You can see the sun shining in the window on the left so it was around noon when this was taken.  It was a cold day, -26 in the morning with a windchill dropping the temperature to -40 but nice and cozy in the house.  

Hayley spent some book time with Alanna while SR (not pictured) played trucks with Emerson.  The hosts then busied themselves in the kitchen preparing the fresh turkey and all the fixings, the guests departed downstairs to shower and dress and I returned home to recharge with a nap, then dressed for dinner and returned to the house.

As the finishing touches were put on the meal, Gran and Gramma spent a bit of time with the kids.  Above, Gran pours tea from Alanna.

We all sat down to an absolutely astonishing Christmas Dinner.  Words of thanks went around the table and Emerson even sang us a song - the first one I have heard him sing since Wheels of the Bus song.  Kudos to the chefs - the meal was festive and delicious.

A   B I G   T H A N K Y O U goes out the SR and Brooke for all the hard work they put in to make this another memorable Christmas Day.  Their beautiful children were an added blessing this year.

I left around 8PM.  It was still around -26 outside.  Hayley wanted to do a "tea throw".  When you do this at -40 the tea freezes in the air around you.  At -26 it did begin to freeze but quickly turned to fog/mist.  It was a valiant try though and through a slow-mo camera some frozen spikes  were captured before turning to a foggy mist.

Home again, home again, I went to bed and didn't get up for 4 days.  What I thought was a light touch of a cold was actually a deathly flu.  My chest filled and wheezed, I coughed and coughed and coughed ... which gave me a head ache, my eyes ached, I was hot then cold, then hot and luckily I had no appetite so I didn't have to get out of bed for food because I could hardly move a bone in my body anyway.  The very unfortunate part of this story is the virus also spread to the Rudolph household so despite the extremely enjoyable December 25, everyone has been under the weather since.  Hopefully this too shall pass - the sooner the better.

A Book Club Christmas

Did only did a bit of Xmas baking this year.

It looked good next to my new napkin holder (thanks again MJT).  Also received compliments on my Xmas paper napkins (thanks again MJT) which of course were cut out of this photo.

I had planned to take a group photo after we ate our appies and sipped our champagne ...

... but I forgot and by the time I remember had only 3 club members left.  Not that they don't make a fine picture themselves.

Merry Christmas to all - only 6 days left now

Sunday, December 13

Sunday was my day to look after the wee ones.  SR was out of town and Brooke had to travel to Vancouver for the day.  Above, NO, they are not getting ready to go outside.  Don't tell their mom, but I let them play in the outside clothing room.  Of course, Alanna is trying to get into my purse.

She got tired of sitting the floor and moved into a coat box.  Emerson looks on, then decides he wants to be in the same box.  When I wouldn't let him in the same box ...

... he hits Alanna on the head.  Boy I'm getting a lot to blackmail them with when they get older.

All in all, we had a very good day.  The above was just a small tiff which was easily settled.  We played and read books and went for a sled ride outside and shovelled snow outside and ate and ate and ate and napped.  I really have to give it to SR and especially to Brooke who raise these two healthy happy kiddos in a clean organized house and with all the other things she/they do.  She is amazing.  Me, I was exhausted after a full day.  But it was fun and I would do it again, anytime.

December 2, 2015

On my way to Line Dancing on Wednesday I saw the SS Klondike sitting brilliantly against the blue sky and just had to stop to look at it and take a few photos.  As I was taking my pictures a man walked by and asked if I wanted him to take a picture of me with the boat.  So nice.

I turned to get back to my truck and the Yukon River was sparkling with sunshine.  There were also 3 other people taking photos of the river, so it wasn't just me that was attracted by this beauty.  

P.S.  This is how high the sun is in the sky at 1:00 PM in December.