Far too long!

Time to update!

1st week of trying to sell this furniture was a BUST! Actually had someone attempt to scam me with the "cashier's check" fraud trick! Okay, re-posted it today, dropped the price and hope to sell.This is my "Miska" style painting. I took a class from the artist known as "Miska" (http://www.miska.com/) with a group of girlfriends. We each either copied one of her paintings exactly, or modified one of them (which is what I did) and 5 sessions later, this is what I have. One final touch still to go (outlining the circle/dots on the cheeks) but otherwise, it's time to varnish and frame! I am actually planning to hang this up in our house. I know it's a bit "modern/abstract" for some people's taste, but I had a blast painting it, and it represents my 3 kids, so it's special to me.

This is a piece I did for my mixed media class - it's an acrylic sheet, all done with acrylic paints. It's sheer, if you hold it up to a window it's sort of like stained glass. If you can't tell, it's abstract trees.
Marina is right of center - this is 7 of the 8 girls on her Jazz team this year. (Bailey is backstage somewhere?) They are all 13-14. The routine is to the Depeche Mode song: "Personal Jesus". Those of you who will be able to come to their recitals either 3/22 or 5/31 will likely enjoy it a lot!

David had to drive up to Vancouver BC this evening, he has a board meeting in the a.m. and we hope he'll get back late tomorrow pm, or during the day on Tuesday. Because he just doesn't know yet, we celebrated Jzo's 12th b-day today. He got a very cool miniDV camcorder, and has already starting practicing his videographer techniques.

Ryker bought himself the newly released (midnight as the calendar turned 3/9) Nintendo Wii, SuperSmash Bros "BRAWL" game. So, since dinner, he has been playing that like a mad man, his cell phone keeps beeping with calls from all his buddies who also got it, and they are all playing it. I put a 9:30 cut-off time out there, think of me in 20 minutes, as it won't be pretty getting all 3 kids to wind down for school tomorrow!

New Art Lessons

I'm still teaching classes at Museo Art. I teach 2 days a week this semester, and have 2 classes each of those days. All my students are adults. I'm having a great time!

This is a new lesson for today's "Drawing Foundations" class - it's a graphite (pencil) drawing of a grape. The lesson is on creating smooth surfaces, shading and shadows.

This is a lesson for my "Mixed Media" class. It's a pen & ink drawing we started last week, and then we will mix in water soluable colored pencils and a bit of water at the end to turn the color to a 'painted' effect.

This is a watercolor painting lesson we did in my "Painting" class. I don't love it, but it was a good lesson, and the students enjoyed it, getting fairly decent results.

Now in the painting class, we have just started a cafe/street scene which we are doing on canvas board, beginning with watercolor (as seen here) and we will add acrylic paints as we develop the detail and add texture, interest and focal points. We're having fun with this one!

"All for Believing"

I think the name of the song the Lyrical team is dancing to is "All for Believing"... I can't remember.. by the end of the season, the title and the songs will be engraved into our brains! The Lyrical team's ivory costumes weren't sparkly enough apparently - so the choreographer had each of us moms hand glue swarosky crystals (green) to the costume before the 1st competition. That took a couple hours!
This week, we get the lovely task of adding on another batch of crystals in a new color called "jonquil". I got selected to design the sample so the other 6 moms can see the newly added patterns. (yippee!) I've laid these out, but haven't glued any on yet.. that will be my project of the week. We have 10 days till the next competition.

Prodigy 2008

Bailey & Marina

We were testing make-up designs for the "Personal Jesus" Jazz routine that their team is doing this season. The version on Marina's left side won out. I hope to post a photo after the next competition of the whole 'look' - it's quite dramatic!

This is the "Hip Hop" team
This is the "Lyrical" team.
These are the backsides of some of the Jazz team dancers as they ran off to perform at the last competition. I think that is Marina's face peaking above the blond girl in the front-right. This routine is to a mix of bands doing the "Personal Jesus" song that Depeche Mode made famous during the '80's. It's a crowd favorite!

The girls are very excited their routine got selected to perform at the "Pulse" convention next month in Sacramento, CA. Their's is the only routine from our studio that will perform!

Speedy Good Times

This weekend (4 days) we had Grandpa Dick (David's dad) and cousin Michael (David's sister's son) fly up to visit us. Michael is 19 1/2 and lives in CA. Grandpa is just a tiny bit older than that (so he says) and he & his wife Miriam live in Las Vegas.

Here are a few photos from activities we did this weekend.

There was a LOT of video game playing! Wii & xBox galore!

Friday after school we went to Ryker's high school swim meet. (Marina, Michael, David & Gpa Dick)

Friday night Marina went out with good friends to her first real rock concert at a club in downtown Seattle. She got to see "The Bravery", and got home really late, but with a cool new t-shirt... this photo was taken before she left. She made sure she got lots of quality time with Grandpa, AND kept her social calendar active!

Sat. a.m. we went to Jordan's basketball game.

Sunday, we went to the "K1 Speed" indoor raceway. The 6 of them all raced, 16 laps around the wild track. David was thrilled to come in 1st with the fastest individual lap time. He will razz his nephew about losing by .02 seconds for the rest of their lives, I'm sure!

Our Mexico Getaway!

David & I left for 6 days in Los Cabos, we stayed at the Hilton Los Cabos Resort - it's beautiful!

We had lunch one day up in San Jose del Cabo, the smaller town, closer to the airport. To me it is more "old mexico" style, than down in Cabo San Lucas, which is about 30 minutes south.

That was our one day of rain.

Most of our time there was hot and sunny! This view is from the beach/pool side of our resort, looking to the north toward the Westin up on the cliffs.

the night prior to my b-day, David and I arrived back in our suite to the surprise of balloons, wine & cheese, chocolate dipped strawberries, a bubble bath, and rose petals EVERYWHERE! Talk about "turn down service"... what a birthday treat! Who knew he was that romantic!
on my 41st birthday, on 12/3, I got my first tatoo - okay, it was only henna, but it looked pretty cool for about 2 weeks! and.. it didn't hurt!
Who's "Lina"??? one of the "pool boy/bar servers" brought me this decadent chocolate cake surprise while we lounged on the whale watching deck just over the side of the infinity edge pool at the resort. I could get used to this lifestyle!

My mom was home with the kids, so since she had to fly back to Vegas, we had to get home. We missed out on snow, wind, heavy rains, etc. Lucky us!

Jordan helped with T-Day

Jordan got a bit messy while helping me get the herb butter under the skin on our turkey. We had 6 adults and 6 kids here for a lovely holiday. So glad my parents could make it up here! Yay, Nanna & Poppa!