Start of a New Year

The garland is down, the tree is put away and the presents stored. It always makes me a little sad but it is a physical sign of the clean start of a new year. The Her family is looking forward to a 2011 filled with new adventures.

To close out 2010, below are some pictures from the Radio Disney New Year's Eve party the girls attended.

Toasting the New Year

Thumbs up to a great party.

Dancing the night away.

Yesterday was the girl's last performance. The girls came home full of tears. What a fun run Joseph was. It was an amazing experience and the girls are excited about what the future holds for them. Last photo with the kids cast.

Opening Night

Opening night was so much fun. This has been such a wonderful experience for the girls. The opportunity to be a part of a large scale production and work with such amazing talent has been truly a blessing. The cast includes Anthony Fedorov, American Idol season four finalist; Jennifer Paz, Broadway performer; James Rocco, Ivey Award winning Director/Choreographer and a whole host of other extremely talented actors and actresses.

(The girls with the lead dancer Bridget Noltimier)

The girls favorite part of the evening was the cast party. What a treat to mingle and talk with everyone. What amazed me was how beautiful and thin the actresses were in person and up close. The stage (and I'm sure this is also true of the camera) is so unforgiving. Don't get me wrong, the actresses were pretty on stage but in person they were stunning. It makes you wonder how an average person would look like.

(Balcony view of the cast party)

Anyway, if you are in town and have a chance to see the show you should absolutely do it. Kong and I were so pleasantly surprised at the funny twist of such a well known story. We laughed throughout the whole show. The music and choreography will make you want to jump to your feet and dance with the cast. The show felt more like a party than a theater production. It was so much fun!

(The girls and Anthony Fedorov)

(Taylor, Ayden and Jennifer Paz)

(Director James Rocco)

Skiing Season Officially Open

Kong took the girls skiing last night. Only the bunny hill and one run was open but they still had a blast. The highlight of the night, Ayden getting major air on a sizable jump. The girls have only skied for two season so it was quite impressive that Ayden felt she was ready to try something so daring. As Ayden approached the jump all eyes, of those on the lift and those near the jump site, were on Ayden. Kong could hear chattering from on lookers of whether this little girl was going to make the jump or turn away at the last minute. She surprised all tose who stopped to watch. Ayden was fearless, made the jump multiple times and never once wiped out. We are looking forward to an awesome season of skiing.

Scanner and Pat Down Haters

What do you think about the new scanner and pat down procedure at the airport? I'm sure no one cares about my opinion but I have to say, I am really sick of hearing people irate about it and the boycott initiatives being reported. It appears that it is people in the racial majority who are really against it (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/24/underpants-beat-airport-body-scanners). Welcome to the inconvenience that people of color endure on a daily basis.

Everyday people of color are profiled for any number of reasons, by police for suspicion of drugs, by airport security for suspicion of terrorism, by retailers for suspicion of shop lifting and the list goes on and on. People are all for profiling when it can help protect them from terrorist threat. That is as long as they are not the group that is being profiled. Now that everyone is being subjected to the same procedure people are whining at epic proportions.

I do not disagree that the pat down procedure is extremely invasive and there are legitimate health concerns for pilots but safety is the number one concern. Pilots aside, it is important for everyone to comply with the new procedure. Bombs are getting smaller and smaller making them harder to detect. Remember the Detroit bomber? Cries that not enough was being done to secure safety filled the airways. Now that more is being done people are complaining again. Is this maddening to anyone else but me?

Yes, yes, I know, terrorist will find a way around this, TSA needs more training, these new rules only create fear, there are more effective tools for bomb detection (ultrasound is one example), etc., etc., etc., we can keep making excuses, do nothing and continue to complain or we can get off our butt and make an effort. Even if we are one step behind the terrorist, isn't that better than being 100 steps behind? We want less intrusive procedures but we don't want the government to spend anymore money so what we want is something for nothing. God bless America.

Here is what I propose. There should always be two separate flights. One for people who do not want to go through the scanner or subject themselves to the pat down procedure and a separate for those who will. Then, if the flights of the scanner and pat down haters comes under terrorist attack then no one should complain, their families can not sue airport security or the airline or blame the government for poor homeland security. Problem solved!

Hardest Working Kids

Rare moments when the girls get to have unscheduled fun time.
(Ayden caught this large mouth bass with her Mickey Mouse fishing pole. Taylor caught all of these perch by herself. Kong and I got nothing on the same day she nabbed these fish.)

I'm sure every one's life is very similar but it just amazes me how busy kids are these days. My girls go non stop from the moment they wake up to the when they go to bed. A day in the life of my girls includes school, theater rehearsal, gymnastics, martial arts, band, brownie, and girl scouts. From 7:30am to 9:30pm they go, go, go, go, go. We are often late getting from one event to the other, the girls eat in the car, do homework whenever there is a spare moment and they rarely get to watch TV.

They love everything that they do and never complain. Well, at least not to me. I wonder if this is too much for them. I regularly remind them that if something they do ever becomes work and is no longer fun, they need to let me know so that we can reevaluate. Everything that they are involved in has been their decision. Taylor had to give up dance and swimming. If she could control time she would add those two activities back into her routine.

As a parent, what do you do? You want to give your children every opportunity yet you also want them to enjoy their childhood. Considering how busy they are, the girls never fall behind on their homework and they are excellent students. The answer doesn't seem to be clear now but I'm sure one day I'll know. That trickster Time, it always has a way of telling.

Wearing Dirndls their dad bought them from Germany.

Interesting Conversation

Last night the girls and I had a conversation about government. Yes, very odd in deed. I can't remember how we got on the subject but we talked about democracy, communism, dictatorships and what it might be like to live in countries with different governments. The girls were shocked that the basic freedom to choose your own thoughts, have your own opinions, choice of foods and goods available for consumption, access to different types entertainment and news, ability to practice religion, and a whole host of other stuff depends on government.

The conversation led the girls into a bunch of tangent questions. The rest of our conversation went was follows.

Taylor: "So...then...what are Republicans?
Kaohly: "They are one of the major political parties in the U.S."
Ayden: "I don't like Republicans."
Kaohly: "Why?"
Ayden: "Because they are bad and always try to scare people."
Kaohly: "Well, not all Republicans do that. We should judge people not by the party they are affiliated with but on their own character."
Ayden: "Are you are Republican?"
Kaohly: "No. I'm a democrat and daddy is an independent."
Ayden: "Then I don't want to me a Republican either!"
Kaohly: "Why don't you wait until you are older to decide what party you want to be affiliated with?"
Ayden: "Well, if you and daddy are not Republican then I will never be one either."
Taylor: "You know Adyen, not all Republicans are bad and not all Democrats are good."
Kaohly: "That's right."
Taylor: "We can't put everyone into the same group. We just need to look at what is important to us and choose based on that. I have a friend who is a Republican and she is really nice."
Kaohly: "That's right, because we don't want to be judged based on our party affiliation so we should not do that to others."

We pulled into the garage and the girls reverted back to their 7 and 11 year old self.

It was really hard not to interject my own bias towards Republicans. I had to remind myself that not all Republicans are on the far right and not all Democrats are far left. Easy to say, hard to do when all the media every does is report what's happening on the extremes of the spectrum.

On a lighter note, we had a wonderful Halloween. The girls really got into decorating the house and carving their pumpkins. I love it now that the girls get really into the holiday. Can't wait for Christmas.

Mid-term Elections

As our civic duty, Kong and I both voted on Tuesday. We tried something new this year. For elected positions that we knew nothing about, we wrote ourselves in as candidates. Kong and I both voted for me as Ramsey County Commissioner and we wrote Kong in as Sheriff. Although we were not surprised to see that we did not win, it was a fun moment on a dreadful day. God bless America! And who said only Republicans could be patriotic?