School holidays half over already...

and the girls have done a week of skate school at Paradice Ice Skating in Botany. They have sore ankles, but want to do it again next holidays, so I count that as a success.
The aim of these school holidays was to wear Tamsin out. She's nearly six in so many ways now, and needs challenges and activities to keep her on an even keel. Plus last holidays Jess was away at cheer comps and gym camp while Tamsin was "only" at Grandma's. That Tamsin needed more structured activity (much as she adores being spoilt rotten at Grandma's) was only too evident by the end of the 2 week break.
Next week, they have 3 days at a holiday programme run by Extreme Trampoline, who are based in the gym complex where Tamsin does her rec gym class (TriStar). The girls are looking forward to it.
At the last rec gym class of the term, they handed out the gymfun badges from the testing done the week before. Tamsin successfully passed Level 1 - yay Tamsin.
Evil Gym Mom that I am, I also had a quiet word with one of the rec gym coaches about Tamsin going into competitive gym classes - mainly to get her doing more structured stuff in a more challenging environment. Tamsin being Tamsin was going to be bored by the end of Term 4 otherwise. The lovely coach said she'd discuss it with the other coaches in Tamsin's class and get back to me. Which they have, and they would like Tamsin to try the Pre-Comp class this coming term.
Excellent. I'm not expecting anything fabulous from Tamsin - she's all tangly long legs but momma's gut feel is that she has to have a challenge 90% of the time in anything she does.
So in Term 4 I've booked swim lessons for her, once a week while Jess is at her gym class (there's a teaching pool within walking distance). She's really excited about it.
Heaven help me, but also wondering about continuing the skate school - there's a Sunday class that would fit in the timetable - just to build on the little bit they did this week, and as they want to do the skate school again next holidays it would mean no gap in the learning AND it would help with the keep Tamsin busy idea.
I know, I'm nuts. However, there is no ballet this term as I decided that I couldn't cope with the chaos that is ballet recital. Ballet will happen next year as the girls enjoyed it and the two syllabus programme at Lily Fong's works well for my two. Guess late January will again be the great timetable shuffle as I try to make it possible for both girls to do gym and ballet. No cheer leading in 2008 to complicate things at least!

Proud mama gets to brag AGAIN

Yup - the BAL exam results are in, and one very proud mama simply has to brag about her girls.

BAL doesn't give marks like RAD does, just a "report card" with the examiner's comments and pass level: pass, pass plus, commended, highly commended, honours, honours with distinction.

From what other ballet people tell me, BAL is a lot like RAD was about 20 or so years ago.

Tamsin surprised us all again, like with the cross country a few weeks back, by not only passing the exam (Beginners), but getting Highly Commended!

Miss Lily was very pleased. I thought she might pass, but certainly wasn't expecting such a great result.

Woohoo Tamsin :)

The syllabus work is a bit harder and more involved than the RAD syllabus - the two compliment each other rather well I feel. BAL 3 fits nicely between RAD Grade 3 and 4, providing a nice extension to the techniques taught with RAD. The dances are longer, the barre work more complex and from grade 1 up the students have theory questions to answer as well.

Jessica hated the BAL work to begin with - cos it made her think and work to master it all. By the end of the two or so months that they had to work on their exam pieces though she was enjoying it. And it showed in her result.

Honours with Distinction.

Way to go Jessica!

Mama is so very proud of both her fabulous daughters.

As promised

A pic of Penguins on Ice, framed, on my mum's wall.

And, yes, that's my mum. Now bear in mind that she hates having her picture taken, so I'm taking her willingness to pose for this one as an indication of how pleased she is to have the l'il critters on her wall at last. Especially as she knew I was going to post it on my blog!

Apologies for the fuzziness, I only had my phone with me at the time.

Stitching Update

Trying to stitch on this one a little everyday, and here's a progress pic from this morning (Monday Sep 10):

I've now reached the bottom right hand corner, so that's 3 corners out of 4. A lot of colour changes on the bottom half of this design, which is really slow going, but I'm determined to stick at it awhile longer.

I've left the Stitching in the Dark SAL piece in the cupboard for the moment. I was remiss and didn't say, but it is Dimension's Barnyard Kitties.

Stitching in the Dark

This is another SAL on the group I belong to, 2muchXS. It's a bit of an in joke really, as we're not stitching without lights. The SAL was started when we worked out that several of us were working on pieces using black or navy fabric and decided to "encourage" ourselves to keep on stitching. Here's where my "Stitching in Dark" piece is at as of today:

It's a lovely bright sunny day this morning - just right for stitching on black fabric....

Marty Bell's The Abbey

This is where I had got to in April of last year, and where I picked up from when I pulled it out of the stash cupboard. There is now more done of the trees on the bottom right - will post a progress pic when there is some noticeable progress to show, LOL!