merry christmas from us

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

check out tami's boys on her blog. they're quite hilarious.

It's funny how the longer you leave things like these the harder it is to get back into it. You'd think that after weeks of not posting I could think of all kinds of interesting things to say but in reality, the past few weeks have been a bit of a blur. I had three weeks off of dance which was lovely but it went so fast and I didn't accomplish as much as I hoped to. i did get some Christmas shopping and knitting done which was satisfying...

Oh here's something: Kyle quit his job at the church. After 6 years of running the youth program he has accepted a new job doing media, photography, video and design work for the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. It's been a bit of an emotionally exhausting process - quitting and telling people and making announcements and whatnot but the hard part is pretty much over (we just have a Christmas party to have and a mini-golf course to build) and we're both really excited about his new job and the opportunities that come with it. So that's good...

Also, we bought a holographic tinsel tree for our apartment. It's a little bit ugly but a little bit lovely. It's a good home for the ornaments I got as wedding gifts - including my little reindeer from my mother-in-law. Every year I search for an ugly ornament for my in-law's tree (a story for another day perhaps). So last year, since I was moving out with my husby, the in-laws reciprocated and bought me a funny little reindeer to start off my own ugly ornament collection... (i think she's quite adorable though, really)



petigre wasn't really sure what to think of our new shiny tree...

a new (and old) family favourite

One of my favourite things about my birthday is that I share it with my Grandma. (I know, my birthday was a month away and I'm still posting about it... sorry) Anyways, it's always been special to me to share my special day with such a special lady and I've enjoyed the way she's often shared her love of antiques and family and history with me on this day. This year however, my Grandma had to leave for BC before we had a chance to celebrate our birthday together. While I missed having dinner with her, it was a special birthday for me anyways because my grandparents generously passed on one of their original hudson's bay blankets. We love it. It's cozy and wooly and classic and historical. And it's become Petigre's absolute favourite place to sleep.





Thank you Grandma and Grandpa! We all love our new blanket and it will always have a place of honour in our home.

guess what

today after dance i had a shower
after the shower i was trying to decide what to wear when someone rang my doorbell. being nude I felt a little frazzled and quickly pulled on a sweat suit of sorts that happened to be handy.
it was the canada post lady with a little package for me!
not only are packages extremely exciting to receive, but it also helped me decide what to wear tonight!



Look what I got! (a lovely notebook, adorable birthday cake lip balm and a very pretty top)




(sorry about the poor quality of my photos recently. In my haste to post about things I've been using my computer's camera which isn't quite up to par. Also, sorry about my messy background. Also sorry that my picture is backwards...)

Thanks Devon and Aleksa! I love everything!
I'll try to post better pictures later but wanted to let you know it all got here safe and sound and that I greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and your beautiful gifts.

approximately 4 months later...

i finished my mittens!
nothing like a good snow fall, chilly temperatures and icy hands to increase motivation
here is a grainy picture of them (the colours are a bit funny, they're actually a camel colour and a cherry pink):



hooray for warmer hands.
i love being warm.

p.s. the video we made was done with kyle's regular old slr camera (well, not really that old and regualr. but a digital slr, not a video camera). we just did it claymation-style where we'd take a picture, move a smidge, take another one... so the hoverers and the broom flying was just people jumping, taking a small step forward and jumping again, kyle had to do his best to take the picture at the right point in the jump. it was pretty fun.

remember when I mentioned...

the stop animation video we made without any kids at our youth retreat?
here it is. starring Two Thumbs Don, our good friend and mascot.
*p.s. there are some funny things that happen in the background but they happen fast so stay on your toes*


Don takes a walk from pneumanautics on Vimeo.

A long post featuring many birthday highlights

Well, I think this evening officially ends my week of birthday celebrations. It started last Sunday with my sweat pants birthday party (to which I was the only person who wore sweatpants... ). We had a lovely evening with martinis and thai food and movies and pumpkin ice cream. and my two lovely friends.

Monday night was my Thomas family infomercial birthday dinner. It was very sweet of them to make me dinner as my in-laws have had a stressful week caring for Kyle's great aunt who broke her hip at 91 and preparing for a trip to visit Darlene's sister who hasn't been well. I really appreciated them making time for me. We had delicious steaks and visited and I received as seen on tv gifts. I don't know if it was planned to be an infomertial birthday but I very much love my Magic Bullet and my Sham-Wow!. In fact, I currently have muffins in the oven that I made with my magic bullet. What a versatile tool.

Tuesday I went out for lunch with my parents and then Kyle and I had a relaxing birthday celebration since he's been sick all week and felt he might not be very good company if we went ahead with the date he had originally planned. So we walked down to the falafel place for dinner and then came home and watched planet earth. It was nice to have an evening at home with my husband. Plus I got some beautiful gifts!

... As I was writing this, Kyle just sleepily stumbled out of bed and said very groggily "umm.. wife? what smells like heaven in a handbasket?" (I think that's what he said he was pretty mumbley)...

And yesterday Christie and I went to the Don for breakfast and then wandered up and down Osborne. We realized recently how odd it is that we spend a fair amount of time facilitating other people's shopping trips together and never go out shopping on our own. Shopping with a good friend is a pretty fun thing to do.

And last night Kyle and I went and had dinner with Tami and Mike and then Tami and I went on a little date to a house party where we got out legs waxed and eyebrows threaded and Mike and Kyle talked about bicycles and watched a movie.

And last but not least, this evening I'm looking forward to having dinner with my family to close off the birthday ceremonies.

Thanks to everyone who made me feel so loved and special on my birthday!

my lovely little package

Finally, my long overdue pictures of my yarn swap package. Here they are:



Here it is in it's entirety. Delicious chocolate and fun halloween thingies (adorable vintagey halloween cards, stickery things, a little square pumpkin bag) and my favourite - lovely, soft, hand-dyed sock yarn in very pretty colours. I'm so excited to knit myself a new pair of socks. Hooray!





Thank you so much, secret swap person! It was so much fun getting this in the mail. It made my week (2 weeks ago...sorry about the delay)

Well. I have been putting off posting until I can post the pictures of my swap package that arrived last week but as I still don't have these pictures (I should tomorrow!) I decided to go ahead without them to avoid the wrath of the swap monitor who checks weekly to make sure we're posting. (Sorry swap package sender, I love my package I'm just a little disorganized at present) In any case, here I am.
Kyle and I just got home from a weekend in the Whiteshell with a group of high school students. It was a pretty fun weekend. I think it was a good combination of relaxation and activities. We played games and watched movies and spent time outside but also had a fair amount of free time and sleeping in. Yesterday afternoon we gave the kids some options for free time to make sure no one felt like there was nothing to do, one of the options was to make a short movie starring Two Thumbs Don - the pneumanautics mascot (a mannequin man who is a little worse for wear). None of the children chose this option but somehow that didn't stop some of the leaders from jumping on board and creating a stop animation movie that we all found quite hilarious. I will post this shortly.
And now I'm home for a bit and looking forward to a sweat pant birthday party with Christie and Lindsey. hooray!

my week in a nutshell

Well. I think I have more or less recovered from my brief illness (thank you well-wishing commenters!), although I do still have a some mucus-y issues that are accentuated when doing spinning movements (which i probably do more than the average person on account of my profession)
Hmm... What else do I have to tell you today?
Well. I had a lovely weekend. Saturday was Kyle and my dating anniversary and while we are no longer dating we thought it was a good excuse to spend the day together. So we slept in Saturday morning and I made eggs benedict for breakfast and then we wandered our neighbourhood, a church nearby was having a gigantic book sale so we stopped in there and then made our rounds through the boutiques and antique stores in Osborne Village. We finished our wanderings by picking up some steaks and wine and went home to relax. We had a lovely dinner and watched a movie and enjoyed a day in eachother's company. Hooray for anniversaries! I'm quite happy to celebrate two in a year. It's nice.
Here's a hilarious picture I found of Kyle and I the summer after we started dating. Look at the hair on that boy...



I tried to find a recent picture of us but somehow i didn't manage to... i'm guessing there might be some on kyle's laptop. but here's at least a picture of grown up kyle and the most recent couple picture we have on this computer from last summer, shortly after our engagement:



And Sunday I wrote thank you cards all afternoon (I know... They really should be done already...) and then Christie and Lindsey came over and we had wine and made apple crisp and visited. It's lovely to have nice girlfriends. We have made a standing date for Sunday nights this year and so far it's worked out really well. A nice way to end a weekend.

This week hasn't been overly eventful. It involved a lot of dancing, Monday night my mom and I went on a lovely shopping date... That's really about it (other than one exciting thing that deserves it's own post - to come soon... once i find my usb cord to upload the necessary photos).

And now I'm looking forward to thanksgiving! We have dinner with Kyle's family tomorrow and from there we're heading out to my family's cottage to hang out with these people (and some other people too):





Happy Thanksgiving!

i'm not sure why i'm even bothering to post this...

sorry my blog has been lacking recently. and sorry i'm not going to do much to change that right now. i have a sinus cold and i think i'm just going to go to bed. so... goodnight. perhaps more tomorrow...

in which technology abounds

Kyle and I have recently had a shower of new technology in our little household. I have recently acquired my first cell phone of all time. (A little gray number with an unfortunately limited ring selection and a very exciting pedometer) and i'm writing this post from my brand new macbook. it came in the mail today and it's quite adorable and fun. Aaand with my macbook came the option of a free ipod touch, which i generously and lovingly donated to my husband. i figured he would be way more excited about it and use it more than i would, as he loves figuring out how things work and all the fun little apps and whatnot. and really, he is so excited and i'm glad that i gave it to him, however now that it's here, i have to say i'm a little jealous. it is a pretty great little device. it does just about anything... and my favourite part, after spending a whole lot of time deciding which configuration of numbers and letters worked best, we have our own little ipod monster engraved on the back. i love him. see his funny little toothed face? rawr




how fun to have these new little friends...

yesterday... and then today

I had a good day yesterday. A nice relaxing sunny fall day including sleeping in, tidying the apartment, having the in-laws over for brunch and then knitting while kyle cleaned his bicycle. i made borscht in my slow cooker and handmade buns for dinner and lindsey came over and we watched edward scissorhands (i love edward scissorhands) while we waited for the beets to get softer. (apparently when the recipe says it should cook for 4-5 hours, it really means it...) it was delicious although i apparently failed to notice that the recipe that i chose came from a little section of my cookbook called 'small quantities'. i puzzled as i was making it why it would call for only 1 tablespoon of grated carrots and only 2 cups of water for the soup. i puzzled but i never checked, so by the time (5 hours later) we sat down to eat it we barely got 3 bowls out of it. a little disappointing but still delicious.

and as for today, i suppose today was a big day for me. my first day as a company dancer for ruth cansfield dance. i've worked with her a week here and there over the last year and this year she's hired me for 21 weeks of full time work, so that's exciting. also, strangely enough, of her 3 company dancers, one became injured and is unable to dance for 9 months, and the other is pregnant so i'm also the only company dancer in this company right now. fortunately there are 2 apprentices for me to dance with. so we've begun working on a new creation. i believe we'll be having a show here in winnipeg, one in calgary and touring northern manitoba. so yeah. i'm excited but a little bit regretting my relaxed summer as i expect to be very sore this week. i could feel my legs getting weaker and weaker every time i jumped today...

fall

Fall really is my favourite season. As part of the Autumn Yarn Swap, we're supposed to post on our blogs about our favourite thing about this season.

I think in general I love the feeling of it. I love the crispness in the air and the emergence of scarves and mitts and sweaters and jackets and wool socks and boots (I'm a fair-skinned individual and as much as I love summer, my legs never really got along so well with shorts...)I love the comfortable feeling of settling back into a schedule, the excitement and novelty of beginning new things - going back to school, back to dance classes, the new clothes, new school supplies. So much excitement and anticipation which is always somehow amplified by the refreshing cool air. I love the changing of the leaves and the nostalgic feeling that it brings. I love feeling cozy and snuggly with tea and a good book or a soft, warm knitting project...

October is my all time favourite month. I was born in October and I share my birthday with my grandma so it's always been a special time for me to spend with my family. Also, my husband and I first started dating in October almost 8 years ago, just before I turned 17. So it's a cozy time to reminisce about the slightly awkward teenage romance that developed and grew into the most important and beautiful relationship of our lives.


And that's more or less what I love about fall..

cottage weekend

Kyle and I just got home from a nice long weekend at the cottage. We spend a lot of time sitting around and reading and knitting and taking pictures. It was quite nice.
One of the highlights of our weekend was the annual Nutimik Lake community garage sale. We went bright and early (about 9:30) and the place was packed full of people and stuff. We left with some exciting things and I came to realize that I actually have more collections than I thought I did.
I seem to collect:
vintage aprons
dishes from the 40s -50s
antique tea cups
cameos
and... that's all I can think of right now but they're all good things to look for in a garage sale.
The only sad thing was that we bought a set of 5 glasses and a pitcher and all the glasses were taped together with packing tape and when I was unpacking them today two of them broke, each of them the same way - a big piece came off with the tape, I think they were stacked to tightly and there was too much pressure. in any case, that made me sad. although the remaining three match the little plates we bought perfectly. that made me feel a little bit better.
perhaps i will post pictures of our purchases soon but in the meantime, here are some pictures (the first two were taken by kyle) from the weekend:

the day the lemon pearl came to be

last night as kyle and i were sitting down for dinner my phone rang the ring it rings when someone wants to come in and visit. Not expecting anyone, I was surprised when my parents showed up with roses, a bottle of wine, a bowl of cherries and chocolate bars. My mom had apparently come accross my horoscope in the newspaper which said something about how I needed some R&R this weekend and that I should sit down with cherries, wine and chocolate, so my mom went out to make sure I had the right ingredients. It was very sweet and lovely. We also, fortunately had enough pasta for the four of us so we had a nice impromptu dinner visit before they headed out to the cottage. Thanks parents! The roses are beautiful, the food delicious and I love surprises.

After dinner I went to Christie's house where Lindsey, Christie and I had tea and cookies and chatted. Somehow, before we knew it, we were in the middle of an unplanned craft party. While we sat and talked we started fiddling with some random paint chips that happened to be on the table and soon enough (well, a couple hours and some very sticky fingers later) we had this:





we named our boat the lemon pearl after one of the paint chips and lindsey took pictures on her phone to make sure she (and therefore i) could blog about it (you know lindsey's having a good time and the day's a success when she says 'ooh i can blog about this!')

and then i came home and found that my lovely husband had cleaned our minor disaster of an apartment. there's something very wonderful about surprises, fun with girlfriends, creative accomplishments and a nice clean apartment with fresh roses on the table and somehow i managed to experience all in one day. thanks to everyone who made me a very happy girl yesterday. i love you all.

i have a pretty great boss

my boss cecely is an altogether lovely person. she's one of the most enthusiastic, sweet and encouraging people i've ever met and i love her dearly for it. we got to know eachother because one day, a couple of years ago, i stopped by her store and she commented on the scarf i was wearing (which i had felted myself) and wanted to sell them in her store, and thus our relationship began. Since then, I started working in her little store and I enjoy it very much. She's a very relaxed, supportive, generous and friendly person.
and... one of the added bonuses of our relationship is this:
Cecely and I are exactly the same size.
Last Friday, Cecely came in to work with about 7 pairs of virtually brand new jeans for me (and also a couple of tops). She was cleaning out her jeans drawer (she owns a lot of jeans) and brought in ones she hasn't worn in a while. All of these jeans are worth about $200 a pair and I was a very excited girl. It came at a time when all of my jeans were starting to wear out and I was starting to think about saving up to replace them. Every pair she brought in fit me perfectly and I am so grateful for my generous Cecely-friend.

swap questions

For reference, I have decided to be a part of a yarn swap this fall. In order for us to get to know our secret swap partners we have to post the following questions to our blogs. For those of you who have no interest in my knitting related answers and have felt left out of my dazzlingly interesting life due to the fact that i haven't posted in a while, don't fret! I will post soon! (one of the swap rules is that you have to post to your blog every week, so you'll see more action here in the next couple months)

Do you knit or crochet? How long have you been at your craft?
I am able to and enjoy both but I prefer to knit. I learned to knit when I was in grade 9 so 10 or 11 years.

Do you spin? What type of spinning do you do?
I do and I quite enjoy it although I would say my skills are limited. I have a lovely Louet S10 that my dad bought for me off ebay.

Are there any other crafts that you participate in?
I like sewing but again have limited talent for it. I am interested in embroidery and needlepoint but haven't had the chance to try it yet. I like making cards and other papery things... I have a desire to hook a rug one day...

What are your favorite yarns/fibers?
hmm. i love wool. i love soft things. i love alpaca. i'm not sure i have specific favourites, though.

What are your LEAST favorite yarns/fibers?
acrylics. anything that's scratchy or plasticy. i'm also not a huge fan of machine variegated yarns (like the red heart ones or others that you find at walmart) but i do think haindpaited ones can be very pretty - but i prefer a subtle variegation - not too much colour change. i do love self striping sock yarns though, they're quite enjoyable. also, i'm not a big fan of novelty yarns like eyelash or feathery things.

Are there any types/brands of yarn that you are dying to work with but haven’t gotten a chance?
I heard recently that alpaca is 3 times warmer than wool and have since been dreaming of alpaca socks and mittens and anything to defend me from winter weather. i love being warm.

What are your favorite types of projects to knit/crochet?
I have a new found love for sock knitting. Socks are probably my favourite project but I do enjoy a sweater here and there and some hats and mitts thrown in.

What are you currently working on? Anything you plan to start this autumn?
I'm currently working on a big cozy sweater with deer on it. i have to make two of them because my friend/boss cecely has comissioned one as well so that will keep me busy for a little bit. i also have some sock patterns to try and i would like to build up my collection of winter apparel - mitts and hats and whatnot so the change to cold weather is fun and exciting rather than ominous and depressing.

What is your favorite FO? (Please, post a picture if you would like.)
hm. i love my socks because i get a lot of wear out of them. i made my first wearable sweater last year (actually i had to make 2 again because of cecely buying the first one) which i liked. it was my first attempt at colourwork and i was rather proud of my little whales and bows. the hat i made recently out of llama yarn is so soft and comfy and a pretty colour.

What is your oldest UFO?
my very first sweater attempt which i made 2 or 3 years ago. i made it out of blue sky bulky and it had all kinds of cables and bobbles and it never occurred to me that bobbles in a bulky yarn end up sticking out about 3" and they might make you look rediculously huge. by the time i had it put together enough to try it on i knew there was no future for us. i've started to rip it apart to use the yarn for other things. it's beautiful yarn and working on the sweater gave me more confidence in my knitting abilities, even if it reduced my confidence in my pattern choosing abilities.

Are their any knitting/crochet techniques that you would like to learn?
i'm in the process of learning stranded knitting. i love colourwork. is it normal for stranded knitting to be much tighter than normal knitting? cuz mine sure is... i've also never knitted on double pointed needles. i usually use 2 circulars unless i don't have 2 of the same size, the i magic loop. i would be interested in trying double pointeds.

Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
i love sock knitting. i wear about a 7 1/2 shoe and my feet are quite narrow. to be more specific, my feet are 24cm (9 1/2 inches) long and 21 1/2cm (8 1/2 inches) circumference.

Do you have a yarn winder and/or a swift?
sadly, i do not. although i do hope to acquire on in the near future and in the meantime i make my husband help wind... that way he knows how wonderfully useful it would be to have one.

Where/how to you keep you needles/hooks?
I don't have a great system right now. i have a polkadotted tube that was originally supposed to be a gift tube for a wine bottle that i keep my straight needles in. and i have a set of interchangeable circulars that stay in their little case.

Do you collect anything?
no, not really.

What is your favorite type of music? Are you MP3 ready?
I am and I like quite a variety. for some reason this question is too hard for me right now. i'll edit this to have a real answer soon.

Do you like sweets? What are your favorites?
i sure do. favorites are hard... i'll edit this one too.

What is your living situation like? Any pets? Children?
i have a cat and a husband.

Are you allergic to anything?
nope

Do you have an online wish list (Amazon, Etsy, Loopy Ewe, etc.)? Please include links for your swap pal.
not at this time but it sounds like a fun thing to have. i'll post the link if i make one

Are you having a birthday during this swap?
yes i am... i turn 25 on october 21st

Favourite colours?
I love grey. it's my neutral of choice, followed by cream (i'm not a huge fan of black or brown). i have recently been rather taken with golden yellow. i love peach and i like purples, pinks, blues and greens... i really like all colours when they're in the right context... dang these favourite questions are hard.

What is your Ravelry ID?
tiffanythomas

10 reasons why I failed at the Tour de Fleece

1. My pincher fingers got sore.

2. I went to the cottage a lot and lost valuable weekend time (but had a lovely time, otherwise. Kyle's parents just bought a new boat and we went on lots of wildlife seeking boat rides. I was trying to choose some pictures to post here but perhaps it's best if you just check out kyle's flickr account. the link is on the side...)

3. I had work dancing last week and ended up so sore I was completely useless all week

4. I wasn't overly inspired by the weird colour I chose. I looked at other people's spinning blogs and their yarn was so pretty. It was inspiring that you could make such beautiful yarn but made me less than excited about what I had

5. I realized I'm really not very good at spinning yarn to make socks. I'm not very consistent in my thinkness... Perhaps I need more practice which also seems to require more patience....

6. It seemed to take up most of my living room and looked messy... I need a craft room...

7. Petigre kept wanting to sit on my lap when i did it and then she would attack the yarn

8. I'm easily distracted... I made these socks



9. And then this hat




10. And then started on these mitts



So I guess maybe I was doomed from the start. However, I did manage to pull my spinning wheel and wool out of the basement of my parent's house and get started at least. It's more than I've done in a long time. Oh well...

my old lady soul rears it's head yet again

A while back, Christie and I took a spinning class. At the time we were interested in creating yarn that looked more interesting than regular yarn. We wanted thick strands of crazy yarn with puffs and nubbins and fuzzy bits in colours that we found appealing. Our spinning instructor was perhaps a little alarmed at what we created while all the other ladies spun thin, even strands for knitting socks or some other tiny thing. At that time we never would have even touched such wee little yarns. However, over time I've come to realize that the crazy yarn is really not much good for anything other than being pretty yarn and regular, even yarn is so prolific because it serves a much more useful purpose.... In my experience crazy yarn doesn't really lend itself to becoming a knitted item that I would ever wear. So I've decided it's time to revisit the world of spinning and try my hand at a nice, even, smooth yarn. Plus I have discovered that I like knitting teeny things like socks after all, so it's all the more exciting for me. One of my goals for the summer was to take up spinning again and just recently I managed to come accross a little event called the Tour de Fleece. Basically it's for spinners to issue themselves a challenge that they wish to accomplish within the time frame of the Tour de France. So initially I thought I would challenge myself to spin enough yarn to make myself a pair of socks. However, as I started my spinning it occurred to me that I might not actually have enough wool to make this possible, so I'm challenging myself to spin enough wool to make a respectable skein of yarn and attempt to make it into socks. So I unearthed my spinning wheel and my wool from the depths of my parent's basement and I have begun. Here's my progress so far:

Long Lost Photos from Austria Part 1

I remembered today that I don't think I ever showed anyone except for Kyle my Austria pictures. It was a beautiful place and a big time in my life and my blog readers/family and friends were very supportive of me while I was there. I was reading through some of my old entries from when I was there, my one horrible day in particular, and I was very touched by the comments people left to encourage me. I'm thankful for all of you and for your love and support. You don't always realize how much people like you affect your life until you find yourself in a place where you no longer have them close. I definitely learned a lot that trip and while it wasn't always fun, I want to show you some of these pictures to honour that time of my life and to share some of the beauty and good times with you. (there are lots of them though, so I might just post a couple today and more later). Also, it seems I took the most pictures when I was out exploring by myself, so there are hardly ever any people in them, I'll try to include as many people pictures as I can but you may need to prepare for a scenic tour of Austria.

We'll start with our outing to the Armoury. It chronologically isn't a good starting point but we had lots of fun there with our guide and got to try on the armour, which people normally don't get to do.

Here's me in a helmet:


Here's our guide-man (he was so excited to get his picture taken. He said even though he's worked there for a long time, he's only tried the armour on once and never in a picture... he gave us his email address so we could send him these):



me in my full suit looking ready to fight. It's extremely heavy. I cannot imagine being very nimble in this stuff...



here's the whole crew. don't mess with us...



and these pictures are from a day when I went exploring on my own. First I went for a walk around my neighborhood (and got lost a bit) but found these creepy little lawn ornaments:



and then I took the tram in to the city



this is the tram station we stopped at every day



and then I went to the look out point on top of the hill that our cave theatre was in. You can see the entrance to the cave and then stairs up to the clock tower on top. Apparently it was built during the war, there were canons and stuff on top of the hill and then the cave was a bunker of some sort. It was so beautiful up there.







This was apparently my favourite thing to take pictures of. It's a water cistern that they used when they lived on the hill.







And here is a view of the city. The blue globby thing is their Kunsthaus or art gallery



And that concludes the selected pictures of Austria part 1... stay tuned (if you're interested)

Ottawa

Well, I'm back from Ottawa (I know... old news...) I got back last Sunday. We had a great trip. The first half was busy working towards our show which was on Tuesday and Wednesday but it was really fun working with the other schools from around Canada and all being a part of the same work. It was a really unique experience and the piece was incredible, in my opinion. It was really neat to see how the choreographer incorporated different themes and how he was able to organize 55 people in a very efficient way to create something really beautiful. I'm glad I got to be a part of that.

Other highlights of the trip included:

Dance parties in our enormous hotel room (seriously this place was way bigger than my apartment. It was great, we had a kitchen and a dining room and enough beds for the 4 of us to not share... anyways, here's a picture of Christie and Hilary. Notice how often Christie does the claw in pictures...



Milkshakes at Zak's diner. Many varieties! I had Chocolate Banana:



Discovering I could make this face (actually, I don't know if that was really a highlight...)



We went out dancing one night to 90's night. We had fun in theory but the club we went to was a little sketchy and they played more 90's grunge than we were expecting...









And in stark contrast, High Tea at the Chateau Laurier (we clean up well, except that I had to wear a sweater cuz I was sunburnt from 'landscape dancing' which is a story for another time):





This is their tea trolley, each compartment had different loose teas and they put them in a pretty silver dish for you to smell before committing to one. It was delicious tea. The big silver carafey thing was the hot water:



And of course, shopping is always a highlight. One of my favourite things about Ottawa is the open market with fruits and veggies and flowers and handmade thingies. I would like to get my groceries there.





We also found some really fun little boutiques:



This picture was taken illegally... The lady said we weren't allowed to take pictures because they have so many people's handmade things there and they don't want people stealing their ideas. So pretend you can't see the little owl pillow in the corner...



And I bought this tray at a little vintage shop. It matches our apartment perfectly:



Well I think that about sums it up. We had a lot of fun, got to see a lot of dance shows and... yeah, it was a good trip.