Elanor on stage, oh, and a little hike...

I teach ballet at the Shenandoah Academy of Dance and was recently in their production of Sleeping Beauty as the Queen, Princess Aurora's mother. The prologue of the ballet is essentially baby Aurora's party in honor of her birth. All of the fairies present her with gifts and of course the evil fairy, Carabosse (same as Maleficent in the Disney movie), was not invited, but shows up unexpectedly and curses the baby Princess that she will prick her finger on a spindle and die on her 16th birthday. I had to take Elanor with me to dress rehearsal on Friday night and decided to take her on stage with me. She did really well, so I thought I would have her do the matinée performance on Saturday, which she did. Elanor was so perfect. There is a cradle on stage that I'm supposed to put the baby in and she just played and cooed in there. I held her when she started to get bored (it is quite a long prologue), and when Carabosse came in she began to cry and calmed right down when the fairies reassured us that she would sleep instead of dying. It was very cute and everyone commented on how good of an actor she was. It probably had more to do with the music and lighting changes, but still she did a great job!

On stage: King and Queen are worried about their daughter...

On stage: Queen begs Carabosse to let her child live. (side note: It is rather difficult to get up from this position holding a baby, wearing a dress that is just a little too long and a cape that gets stuck under your shoes. I somehow managed to do it.)

 Elanor and I backstage

A friend gave us this tutu and I decided to put Elanor in this instead of something more traditional because it was so cute and the girl who played Princess Aurora, Kathryn Bouchelle, wore a very similar tutu.

Kathryn was so beautiful and did a wonderful job as Aurora!

And now for something completely different....

Do you remember a year and half ago when we got a ton of snow and we had a picnic here?:

This is on the hill above our apartments and there is a trail through the forest up to the top of this hill. Elanor and I walked up there the other day and found this:

To the right it is even worse and an entire bowl that used to be filled with trees is completely empty. It made me feel a little depressed.

 Elanor is so sad as well and shocked at what mankind can do...

Obviously, I know we need to cut trees down. I like writing and reading on paper and love wood things, but coming across all this deadness, where once lovely trees had been somehow tugs at ones soul just a bit. This reminds me of The Last Battle in the Narnia series, when the monkey gives orders to cut all these trees down and the dryads have run to the prince to ask for help and die as they tell him when their trees are felled.

 On the top of a once tree filled hill

 There is quite a beautiful view up there though. This picture does not do it justice, there is a view of the valley to one side and mountains on the other.

Just a funny picture taken up there...

Besides the loss of a thousand trees, we are doing swell and packing up all our belongings to make the trek out west.