Dancing Queen!

For the last two years, Asia has been dancing with the Dance Depot and has loved it! They are a very well put together company that has AMAZING choreographers! And they wear pretty modest costumes and dance very modest routines. Here is Asia's final pose for her dance "Magic Carpet Ride." (She's the tallest one in the front with her arms up.)

Check out those lashes!
Flowers from her Daddy:
And some fro-yo from Orange Leaf to end the wonderful night:

Great job Asia, you did awesome!! And you were the most beautiful dancer there!

Random Spring Fun!

Mike and I were able to take a little trip to Boise to go see Wicked. My parents and sister were able to come down and stay with our kids so we could go on a mini vacay. They're always so good to come and help us out! The show was kind of a disappointment for us. I know a lot of you are gasping as I say this, but it just wasn't my favorite... I actually got sleepy and closed my eyes for some of it! I guess with all of the hype about it for 4 months before we went, I was expecting more. I would rather see Les Miserables or Phantom any day. It was good, the songs were fun, but I just wasn't feelin' it. The best part was just getting away for a couple of days! Oh, and going out to eat at Tucano's Brazilian Grill!

Here's the stage before the show with the map of OZ as the curtain:

Waiting for the show to start:
We stayed overnight in Boise with Nathan and Amy and Mike's mom and dad. We got up the next morning, went for a jog by the river (I LOVE Boise for their jogging and biking trails by the river!), and then headed for home. We stopped at Shoshone Falls just outside of Twin Falls to see how much water was flowing. And this is what we saw:
Lots and Lotsa Water!
It was a wee bit nipply out there!! Ha Ha!

Asia had been learning about life cycles in first grade and specifically learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. They were able to watch a caterpillar make a chrysalis and then become a butterfly! She even got to bring her butterfly home. She named hers Lilly. It didn't fly away, it just stayed on her little damp washcloth and hung out! I thought that thing would be flying all over the house, but it just stayed in Asia's room for a couple of days. We thought it was mean to keep it inside any longer, so we said our goodbyes to Lilly and let her loose on to one of our beautiful tulips. Hopefully she didn't blow away with the wind!

Asia was a little scared to hold it, so her big brother held it over her hand:

Ethan holding Lilly:
Nothin' better than holding a beautiful butterfly and eating an ice cream cone:
It really was a pretty little butterfly:
My old wrinkly looking fingers holding Lilly:
A dandelion to suck nectar from and a leaf to lay on:
My nephew is on a ballroom dance team and is an awesome dancer. His team is actually in China right now performing all over and seeing the sights. Well, to raise money for this China trip, they held ballroom dance lessons for those wanting to try it out. I tried to get Ethan to try it, but he said, "No way! I'm not dancing with any girls!" (We'll see what he says about that in 6 more years!) So, Asia wanted to try it out with one of her friends. It was 5 hours of instruction with a little show at the end for the parents.

Blurry, but here she is waiting to dance:
And of course, the end pose:

She had fun, but still likes her Dance Depot and her teacher Laurie. I guess we'll be doing more jazz next year...

And one more thing. We have been noticing a pair of ducks in our front yard lately and thought that was pretty odd. There is a canal near our house, but have never seen any ducks hanging around until now. They would waddle in our front yard and into our neighbors' front yard. I thought, there must be an egg somewhere, otherwise why would these ducks be hanging around. Sure enough, I watched those ducks and noticed the mamma waddling over to our little potantilla bush. She squatted down and sat down under the bush. Here is what she was sitting on:
Now, these 2 ducks weren't the smartest. They picked the worst spot to lay their precious little egg! They should've scoped out the joint before settling in. If they had, they would've realized what a busy, loud, and chaotic spot it was! There are always kids around, cars driving in driveways, and mailmen driving right by. I watched and there wasn't 30 minutes that went by where there wasn't something or someone spooking those ducks off of their precious little egg. Poor little thing! I didn't know what to do! We went away for the weekend, came home, and there was no sign of the mamma or pappa duck. So sad! They had just abandoned their little egg. So we left it there for a few days, hoping they would come back, but they never did. We figured the egg was a dud by now and we had to get rid of it. It was a sad occasion, but hopefully those ducks learned an important lesson!!