30th Birthday Photoshoot

While we're on the subject of photography and catching up with all things wonderful from 2012, I forgot that I hadn't show you any of the images from our Turning 30 Photoshoot.

A lot of my wonderful friends that I have now as a grown up (ahem!) were actually wonderful friends of mine when I was smaller and at school. So we all hit our big 30 milestone this last year. To celebrate the event, a few of us got together in August for a photoshoot with Mr Bogert. You know, before we start sprouting any more grey hair or wrinkles! ;)

So we hired our village hall, brought drinks along, ate pizza and mini cakes, and Potato Salad Heather brought a huge 30th Birthday cake for us all to share. It was lovely and relaxed, and we all popped on and of 'set' for our pictures in between eating and chatting.

One of our friends had his restored bike with him, so it was brought in for a few of the shots. You can also see my blog profile pic is a product of the photoshoot -----------------------------------------------------^

You can see a few more of the images over on Robert Newman Photography blog.

Me and Mrs Jones

I mentioned a while back that our very good friends were getting married. The wedding took place this last November. The Small People had been asked to be a little bridesmaid and a page boy, Mr Bogert had been asked to be Best Man, and I was asked to be a bridesmaid. The marriage took place at Stoneleigh Church and the wedding reception was held at Coventry Golf Club.

We had an absolutely lovely day! Everything looked wonderful, the children were actually quite well behaved (although we did bribe them with Haribo in church!) and Mr Bogert and I managed to pull off the impossible by being part of the bridal party, keeping a check on the Small People AND taking the wedding photographs for them. It was a bit of juggling act, but, we did it!

Anyway, the lovely Mr & Mrs Jones have honeymooned and have now received their wedding album. In fact Mrs Jones came over for a drink and a chat to look through the album one evening last week, so I thought I'd just do a little follow up blog post.

You can read more about it and see more of the images over on Robert Newman Photography blog.

Congratulations to our Lovely Friends!

Just popping in quickly to say that Mr Bogert and I were at a wedding yesterday. Our friends Natalie and Darren got married at St Nicholas Church in Kenilworth. The weather was beautiful and so was the bride, and we just had a really lovely time.

Natalie's mum made lots of little things that added all the finishing touches, all centered around a pink butterfly theme, including the cake. We unfortunately couldn't stay for the evening because of the Small People, but were glad to be there for the important bit!

The reception was held at Walton Hall where the food was extra yummy! We enjoyed ourselves which was made all the better by being surrounded by so many of our best friends.



L-R: Ted, Jim, John, Stu, Steve, Mr Bogert, Weller, Mark.



L-R: Sarah, Holly, Gemma, Simone, Andrea, Me.

Thank you so much Natalie and Darren for including us in your day, huge congratulations to you both!

The Ultimate 'D' Dance Show

* EDIT - I've noticed people are finding this blog post by searching for the show gallery on Rob's web site, so I thought I'd edit to add a link for the images: www.twda.robertnewmanphotography.com Once there, click the 'Order Online' link under the brown notice to be taken through to the event selection page. Click on the twda thumbnail, and then the "Click here to enter" bar at the bottom will take you through to the entire show gallery*

I've mentioned plenty of times in the past, the Small Person has been attending dance classes at The Whiteman Dance Academy since she started school two years ago. She does ballet and tap on a Monday, and she does freestyle and musical theatre on a Saturday.
The Whiteman Dance Academy puts on a show every two years. We just missed the last one when she started, so this July was show time - Alexandra's first ever show. It was performed at the Spa Centre in Leamington Spa over two nights: Wednesday 18th July and Thursday 19th July, the last week of term (so, very sleepy children heading off to school those mornings). She looked very grown up with the inch thick make-up on her face! But she looked tiny on stage. Still my little baby.



(Sorry, these were taken on my phone so aren't great quality!)

I have held off posting about it until now because I was waiting for Mr Bogert to release the show photographs (which was his job for the event), but now they're done and out, I can tell you all about it.

She had some fantastic costumes that we had to purchase through the dance school. There was a point where each week a new little note would come home with the costume name and price on (it certainly adds up), then each little costume had a extra note in the bag detailing additional items to buy (white pumps, white ankle socks, pink ballet socks, blue/white/red trousers, blue/red/white hair accessories etc).

Alexandra was in one dance per class that she takes, and the finale, so five in total. She was in the opening number: Sugar Plum Fairies for ballet.

On the opening night, at one point after the lights had gone down and the audience had finished clapping (you know, that big bit of silence where everyone is waiting for the next number to start) there was this little voice that called out "Help! I can't see! Where am I going?!" - it was one of the tiny dancers coming off stage. That got a few laughs.

Alexndra was in Aladdin for musical theatre (and had an Arabian costume), which actually consisted of 3 songs performed by the group: A Friend Like Me, A Whole New World, and Price Ali. This was probably my proudest moment because she really puts emphasis into her acting and her facial expressions just crack me up, but even more proud as she had a solo line to sing in "Whole New World" and I could hear her loud and clear (and in tune!) and it didn't even seem to phase her that there was a big audience of strangers watching her.

She had a quick change for her next number (only one dance in between, and she was the only one with a quick change here) for "Singing the Blues" for tap. The dress rehearsal and the first night everything went smoothly, the last night, she was just a little late, and she came running on stage with a big grin on her face saying "I'm late". Everyone in the audience laughed, and I heard a few people say they thought it was part of the performance :) She said Singing the Blues was her favourite.

She got a little bit of a break then until the opening number of Act II which was called "The School Bell" and was with her freestyle class. Then there was a huge gap until the finale. The finale was in red, white and blue, with an Olympic theme and and appearance from 'The Queen'.

It was so much fun to watch and all of the dancers were wonderful. Sharyn and her team did a fantastic job.

I spent the dress rehearsal night in the dressing room with her trying to make sure it went into her head what she needed to do and when. It didn't go all that smoothly, and she asked if I could write it down, so I did a mini print out for her with a list of things to do for each cotsume change an things to ask for grown up help with (there were chaperones in the rooms), but I was still worried, so enlisted the help of my sister for opening night. I watched the performance on my own, my sister stayed with Alexandra in the dressing room. It really put my mind at ease. The next night, I think Ali had a bit more of an idea of what she was doing and when, so it all seemed to go OK (and we didn't lose any costume bits!).

She had a big smile on her face the whole time, and said how much fun she'd had. She didn't get whiney or tired, which considering she put in full days at school, came home, ate dinner and rushed off to the theatre until gone 10pm, for 3 days in a row, is quite an achievement in itself. We even gave her the chance to take one of the mornings off from school to catch up on sleep, but she was adamant she wanted to go into school on time.

She was just so excited after the whole thing. She loved every minute of it. I asked her if she felt nervous at all at any point, and she said "I think I did a little bit before we went on, but then I was just having fun so it went away." She also asked me if she keep dancing forever. I said she could keep dancing as long as she still thought it was fun. I'm so glad she had such a great time, I really enjoyed watching the show, and I can't wait to see the video when it's finished being edited.

As I said before, Mr Bogert was on photo duty and someone he knows did the professional video, so we'll have plenty to remember her first stage performance by.

She has another show coming up in August, but this time with Playbox Theatre who she goes to on a Friday. The show is called "Starry Nights" and has 150 children of varying ages in, but I haven't a clue what it is about. Rehearsals for that run from the Tuesday to the Thursday, 9am-4pm, and then part day on the Friday, of the week of the show. There are two performances on the Friday, one at 3pm and one at 7pm. She is so excited! I'll let you know how it goes.

But as for this very first performance: Good job Small Person!

Baginton Party in the Park 2012

As part of our busy lives, Mr Bogert is a member of the Baginton Events committee who last year arranged the very first Party in the Park.

This year they aimed to make it bigger and better, and they did rather a good job.

Mr Bogert slept in 'The Spaceship' on the Millenium Field on the Friday night as security. He ctaully took the Small Person with him for a mini adventure and she was super excited. She went to sleep no problem, but at about 1am I got a phone call "Can I bring her home? Now?" It seems she woke up and then couldn't go back to sleep.

Saturday morning we squeezed the Small Person's dance class in then rushed back for the event which started at 11am.

I painted the kids faces before we left the house because, to be perfectly honest, we can't justify £3 per Small Person for face paint. It was difficult though. I had no black! Just about every single design you can think of involves black in some form or other. Enter the saviour of the day: my liquid eyeliner. Not the easiest thing to draw with, but it did the job. I also didn't have any thing paint brushes, but we got there in the end.



Zacky's Dragon - Raaaaarrrr!!!!!



Alexandra's Flying Butterfly

We had told friends about the event and ran into some of them there. I met an old school friend that I haven't seen since school, the Small Person blew bubbles for Little Miss T, Zachary's friend.

We listened to the brass band and watched the dance school perform on stage.

We also watched the dog agility show with Auntie Charlotte and Uncle Anthony and their dog Suzie. Mr Bogert and the Small person even took her around the agility course (without much success!).

Auntie 'potato salad' Heather, Uncle Andy and Auntie Heather's Mum met up with us and we watched the tug of war which my cousin and my Dad were both in. I hen got handed a camera as Mr Bogert decided to lend a hand. The facial expression crack me up!

My Dad and his partner were running a tombola stall and my sister was selling cupcakes and cakepops. My cousin was helping out on the Rugby Club stall. Mr Bogert was busy lending a hand where he was required and taking all of the official photographs of the day.

The kids had lots of fun playing on the fire engine and trying the helmets on.

Mr Bogert's Mum came along with her friend and took the Small Person off for a little while to go on the bouncy castle and some stalls. I took the opportunity to finally make it around to the craft stalls again. I was a little disappointed there weren't more stalls, but supposedly there should have been more and they just didn't show up. I could have spent quite a few pennies on the stalls that were there though. There was a lady who had some lovely knitted items and the price she was selling them for was so cheap! I couldn't believe it considering the time and effort that must have gone into the lovely things she had. Zacky had a knitted teddy bear (who he takes to bed) and it was only £1.75! If I'd had a few more pennies in my pocket, I would have bought a few more things. Alexandra did go back to that stall later with Mr Bogert and bought a similar bear for herself.



The Smaller Person with the two knitted bears later in the evening.

There was a petting zoo that we never even made it around to for the simple fact that every time we started to head in one direction, we raninto another friend or neighbour, which is not a bad thing mind you. It's lovely to see so many familiar faces out enjoying themselves.

AND we actually had decent weather! The weather we had been having was awful! Even the night before it absolutely threw it down. One of the roads on the way to dance class on Saturday morning was flooded. The field actually drained quite well so it wasn't boggy (Except near the one entrance) and it didn't rain all day. I do think ho the weather had been affected how many people chose to come out for the day - it still looked a bit uncertain.

The bad weather came just after the day event had finished and the change over was being made for the evening, but almost as though it had been ordered, it cleared up well before the evening event started.

We sat (we being me, the Small People, Auntie Heather, Uncle Andy and Auntie Heather's Mum) inside the big event marquee that had the craft stalls in earlier with a couple of other groups. The committee had hired a huge stage for the event and they started with Mr Ben, a cover band who were brilliant. As they played more and more people filtered into the field. The food stands and beer tent kept running right through, so instead of the Chinese (like we had last year) we had burgers from one of the stands run by the village shop.

After Mr Ben, there was Espressivo, a quartet of singers who were also very good, followed by the Spires Youth Orchestra who played in the firework finale.



Mr Ben



Espressivo



Mr Bogert on camera duty chatting with one of the other committee members during the performance.

It turned out to be quite a lovely evening, with weather good enough to sit outside. The Small People did not tire and did not get grumpy. The Smaller Person did actually fall asleep in his pushchair just close to the end of the evening meaning he missed the fireworks, but he'll get to see fireworks over on the field in November for the annual village bonfire :)