operastagebeauty

We had our first Civil War Ball last night. It was sooooo...much fun!!! We had around 50 people come, and almost all of them in costume. Pretty much everyone danced too.

Mary, Me and Leila. We made our costumes.

Here are the lovely ladies.

Our Gentelmen

Me and Joe dancing, probably the patty cake polka.

We had our Civil War Ball Practice on November 12th. Pretty much everyone showed up. Some people, (including ourselves) came in historic costume so that we could get used to our strange clothing. I wore my skirt and shirt, I'm going to wear a dress for the actual Ball.

We ended up with just the perfect number of couples for the dances. Most of the people had done the dances before. We did two Reels, two Waltzs, three contra dances, three polkas, and two Promenades.

 The gym was a nice size and has a stage. Were going to have a decorating day before the Ball. A lady has bought flags and two portraits of Generals for it. Were also going to have poinsetas. We will have refreshment tables too.

Daddy set up the sound and ran the music CDs for us. I had to wear a little mic because I was calling the dances. Everytime I walked to near the stage the amps buzzed. The mic did'nt bother me as much danceing as I thought it would. I did however have trouble remebering weather it was on or off.

The little kids had thier own circle to dance in. Some of them were excellent dancers.

Shiloh waltzing with Lily

Emma and Danial dancing a polka

It has become tradition for our family to host Thanksgiving. We always have a sit down elegant lunch. I make the place cards and table decorations. This year I did silohets of Pilgrims, turkeys and Native Amaricans. For the center peices we had Fall foilage. Pressed leaves were scatterd about the table cloth with Bible verses about giving thanks. We had cloth napkins and porcalin dishes.

My grandparts, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins and neices came.

For the Children I made party hats. The girls got Pilgrim bonnets and the boys got head bands with feathers in them. The bonnets turned out especially cute.

We had two turkeys. One of them Mama cooked up here at the house and the other one my sister-in-law cooked at our guest house. We also provided the dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, pecan pies and trifel cake. Everyone else was asigned different foods to bring.

My Sister-in-law and neices stayed with us for the week before and the week of Thanksgiving. While they were here the second week our cousins came and stayed with us.

My neices, Helen, Emma, Annastasia, Lily

Hooray! We finally got our trailer for "A Far-detched Fantasy" on Tangle. We filmed it durring the summer. It's a very funny comedy and has some neat sword fights and costumes. Please watch the trailer and then comment on what you thought of it.

Trailer Here!

website Here

 On Friday we had our 4th Annual Narnia party! I did not dress up this year, but the little guys did. Marshall went as Peter, Bill went as a red dwarf, Shiloh went as Digory and Mary went as Polly.

 Madison made a really great trifle cake and a log roll. They also had some of the best tasting turkish delight I've ever had.

 It was a really nice, warm day, so we danced some Civil War dances that we're going to do at the Ball.

 Also we filmed the last scenes for the Fantasy movie. I filmed the BTS and Sam did most of the movie footage. I posted about it on our movie BLOG .

 Here is a picture of some of the kids in costume.

Back row: Mary as Polly, Baily as Aravis, Elizabeth as a Nyad.

Front Row: Shiloh as Digory, Casey as Lucy, Marshall as Peter, Taylor as Susan.

 As a lot of you know, we go camping with a group of friends every Fall. This year we went to a state park.

 We left at around 10:00, Friday morning. We had packed the day before. We arrived in camp in the afternoon and were greeted by old friends. It did'nt take us long to set up camp so we were able to meet all the new folks that had joined us this year.

 The next 9 days were spent playing football, volley-ball, soccer, baseball and four-square. There was also some scheduled events that we attended, a tea party, Bible studies, singing events, and fellowship meals. In the evenings we visited around people's campfires and played cards, and board games.

 There was only one accident on the last day. The teenage boys were having one last football game. It was a more orginized game than they had had previously. If I remember correctly it was durring the 4th quarter that one of the boys broke his leg in a pile-up. The park ranger came and strapped him onto a strecher, then they took him to the Hospital. They did not finish the game. Yesterday the boy had surgery on his leg. They said he will be fine.

Joe was on the White shirt team. It was flag football so thats why he is wearing that funny belt with the yellow thing on it.

If you look closly you can see Joe. He is the one lunging forward, and is the only barefoot guy out there.

Joe is the one on the ground, Bill is the little guy in the white shirt behind him.

Here is Daddy batting in the baseball game.

Shiloh cooked a apple in the fire, that's what that black thing he's eating is.

 We had a delightful visit with a family from Canada. We were really excited about meeting them, especialy since they are also filmmakers. They are traveling across the USA, interviewing families for a Documentary that they are making.

 They stayed at our guest house for about 4 days. On the first day that they arrived we fed them supper and talked and got to know one another. On the next day they interviewed Daddy and Mama. They also filmed us having Bible study and Daddy Surveying. On the third day they interviewed Leila, Joe and me. They then filmed little segments of our daily life.

  It was fun having so many young people staying with us. we played lots of charades  and other games with them after supper every night. One night they showed us a Educational video that they had made. It was really good. They also taught us a game that we had never played before. It was sort of like Pictionary, so we now call it Canadian Pictionary.

 We were really sorry when they had to leave. Were going to miss our Canadians.

We always knew how many of them were at our house by counting the shoes left at the door.

The adults looking at scrapbooks.

The older boys would bring thier lap-tops up to the house every morning and get on the internet.

Here is the boys team playing charades.

 Playing "Imagine Iff".

 We will be leaving for our camping trip on the 2nd. I can hardly wait! Today we spent packing and cleaning, we still have some stuff to put in the camper though. Were going to be camping with some friends. I think camping is so much more fun when you do it with others.

  Our movie group held auditions on Friday. We got all but two of the parts cast. We still need some  extras, but can make it alright without. Everyone is very enthusiastic about this project, and I belive it will be very fun and a great learning experiance for us. To read more about it you can visit the website. 

I'm currently reading "Rebecca". I love it! It's so very well written. It is a sort of Mystory, Romance.

"We can never go back again, that much is certian." ~  Rebecca

Daddy is fixing up the camper in preporation for camping this Fall. He put in a wood paneld roof and gutted the whole thing. They are going to put in electric wires and add cabinets.Me and Leia had to  repair our tent. Last time we went camping it got torn up pretty good in a storm. We sewed up the rips, and Daddy is fixing the polls.  

Our Home school group is going to be hosting a Civil War Ball in December. Were going to be helping with the dances.

Were going to be making a sequal to our first "Penrod" Movie. As of yet it does not have a title. It's working title is "Penrod 2".  We will not be filming it till January.