So You Think You Can What?!

OK. I know I'm probably going to be one of many people posting about this, but after watching last nights show today I just have to say something. I was so excited when "So you think you can dance?" came on the first, second, and third seasons. I thought, "Finally a show that shows real dancers and real dancing." This season has really started to bug me. These are the reasons why aside from the obvious Mary Murphy and her screams.

1. Why are there so many hip hoppers and hip hop routines on the show? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good hip hop routine and I KNOW how hard it is, but there are other genres that totally get overlooked. Being a person that was in ballet for 20 years, I feel like they are overlooking the toughest of all the dance genres. The ballet dancers are always the first to go.

2. Everyone's bad technique is being overlooked time and time again by the judges. Courtney never turns out her legs in her pirouettes and don't get me started on Comfort. What is the worst of all is the so called Russian routine the guys did last night. I have seen real russian dancing and that wasn't even close to as good. Plus their costumes were actually Ukrainian not Russian. I don't feel like any of the dancers are very technically trained as they were in past years. The ones that were left the show early.

3. Why is this new style of dance so frantic. I feel like the dancers never slow down for us to feel anything about their movements. It's all too fast.

4. Ok this is the last one. Why do all the dances have to have a story. Can't we just enjoy the dance movements and appreciate the beauty of the movements. The dancers have to be actors too. To me the purpose of dance is an expression of a person and what they are feeling. When you have to be so overt and explain a story that goes with the movements, it really takes away the art of expression. After watching Alvin Ailey on the show you can really contrast what real dancers should be doing and what they do on the show. They were amazing!

None of this really matters now because it's over, but I feel better.

Oh one more thing--I wish they would stop with all the different camera angles. I end up missing some intricate footwork because the stupid camera guy thinks I want to look at Chelsea's face. Just give me the wide angle.

Dining Room on a budget

Before

After



Ever since I moved into this house I've been slowly redecorating/remodeling one room at a time. The dining room is the latest thing I've done. It's been bothering me because it was still the original paint from the last makeover in the 70's and the color didn't match any other rooms nearby. Now I feel so much better because it flows, and makes me happy. We don't have much money, so I felt like design on a dime. I made the curtains and chair cushions. I re-painted the table which I don't have a "before" picture of. Then I repainted the room and cleaned the light fixture. Here are the before and after pictures. It isn't quite as good as I wanted it to be, but what can I say when there are limited funds. Plus Braden thinks I'm a little hard on myself--I am slightly perfectionistic.

Ketchup packet--phone--same thing

I know that probably every baby goes through this phase, and our baby is probably not exceptionally cute for doing it, but we thought it was the funniest thing. Jonah will hold everything up to his ear and talk into it as if it were a phone. The craziest thing he did this with was a ketchup packet as you can see. We think he IS exceptionally cute!!!





This was our first trip to the beach with Jonah as a family--except for last year when Jonah could only sleep and poop. He loved it!! He gets so excited around water.

What's the big deal?

This is a picture I took from my phone while I was at the mall with Jonah. I could not believe my eyes. This is worse than Disneyland! If you look really closely you can see that the line of people extends from the left side of the picture and makes a "u" over to the right side. That wasn't even the full line. What is going on? Then I realized that today was the day that the new iphone came out. They started at the apple store and that is the line! Come on people!! I don't understand why people can't wait for a few more days or even a month to buy it. I've always favored pc over mac anyway, but am I missing something? Does the phone come with a genie that grants you wishes or something? If I'm going to stand in line for a phone it better come with a maid, nanny, and a trip to Europe! Didn't the first iphone come out not too long ago too? Really if someone could explain to me why apple has such an effect on people I would like to know. I'm truly baffled.

What? A coyote in our front yard?

This is a picture of our front yard at 4:00 am that was taken by our neighbor on her way to work. Yep. That's a coyote! It looks like it's eating something. Braden and I went outside to the front yard as soon as we saw this picture to see what the coyote was munching on. All that was left was a few tufts of hair and a small bone. We thought it looked like cat hair. We were just glad that our cute little Bandit stays in the house! Well a week later there was a posting for a missing cat hung right outside our house on the lamp post. It said that the cat was missing the day before we got the picture of the coyote. We gather all the evidence and put it in a plastic bag like they do on CSI--we've seen a couple episodes. We examine the hair and then compare it to the picture of the lost cat. The hair looks like it came from a tabby cat and the picture was a tabby cat! So sad! Now we have to make the dreaded phone call to the owners of the lost cat. Braden called and let them know the story and invited them to come look at the evidence to come to their own conclusion. Poor little Leo! He was only a year old and mostly an indoor cat. He was just going outside because they didn't have him neutered yet.

We have the cutest video of Jonah walking that Braden did, but I'm waiting for him to upload it to his computer. In the meantime here is another on that shows him walking the first week he knew how. He's been walking for two weeks now!! He's a pro!

Cute Cats

I was talking with a bunch of girl friends about how we love cats and especially how cute mine is.

I thought I'd break up the monotony of only posting things about Jonah. Here is the cutest picture of our cat Bandit. He's a persian, so his hair gets really long and he sheds a lot. We shave him about twice a year, but he gets cold when we do that. I decided to buy him a sweater, and I think he looks so cute in it. He kind of looks like a monkey. Most people don't even know he's a cat. I took him for a walk once when he had all his fur. We accidentally walked into a swim class at the swimming pool in Burbank and the old ladies in the pool couldn't help but ask, "What's that?" We love Bandit!