I had my dance recital this weekend. I had so much fun!

He said

With our first trip in the brand new trailer (and all the running around that it took to make that happen last week) out of the way, this week and weekend was much quieter by a landslide. We sadly put the trailer back in storage last Monday afternoon, and immediately started the countdown until the next time we were going to get her out to camp. Pulling the trailer out of storage would happen a lot sooner than we planned, but more on that later. This trip was amazing and we’re so happy we took the hit and upgraded.

It is amazing how much more living space we’ve added in just 4-½ interior feet. Emelia has plenty of room in her double over double bunks. And, Danielle and I have a little privacy to offer Emelia now having our a bedroom. And I am sure than Danielle loves that I don’t have to climb over her now if I need to make a middle of the night pitstop. The outdoor kitchen gives us space outside too. Everything about the new trailer gives us so much more than we ever anticipated. We will this summer work on sharing the video walk through of the new trailer to post on our Bonne Fires channel.

Now, as happens with trailers, we found a couple of things that needed fixing. We had purchased a Fantastic Fan vent that we had installed in the Apex and had negotiated having moved over to the Imagine, as it wasn’t even 2 years old, and they are, as advertised, fantastic fans. When we went to use it last weekend, the motorized lid opened as expected. It responded to the remote control. But when we set the fan thermostat, nothing would make the fan turn on. Shortly after that we noticed, that the speaker just next to the fan wasn’t working as well. We’re assuming whatever happened to make the fan not work, may have also cause the speaker to not work too.

After having a weekend out in the trailer, we also recognized, now having three roof vents while amazing, sucks when you get rain like we did last weekend. So while the trailer is in getting the fan issue resolved, we’re going to have vent covers installed. This will allow us to have all three vents open in a rain storm or even as we drive down the highway. So, today we had to pull the trailer back out of storage, in order to drop it back off at Can-Am RV in order to have that work done. The good news is that the cabinet doors that we ordered have arrived so we can pick them up too.

We got news from my brother David this week that the Celebration of Life for Linda date has been set and for us it worked perfectly into a weekend we already had off. So, given that it’s on a Saturday and we were already thinking about getting another weekend out in the trailer, we’ve found a place that David recommended that friends of theirs had camped at and love and we’re booked in for the weekend. We’re hoping we can convince some or all of his family to come out for a swim or campfire on the Friday or Saturday evening.

Friday this week, Emelia had her Regional Track & Field meet. She had qualified for and had been training for the last month in 100m Sprint, 400m Sprint, and was the anchor on the 4x100m Relay. The meet was held at AB Lucas High School and luckily I was able to rework my schedule in order to watch her compete. She blasted through her first heat in 100m Sprint in first, and ended up 5th overall. After that the organization of the event – which we’ve since learned is historically always a problem which led to them running way behind.

They ran bump starts and no eliminations – it was a one run and your done scenario. And worse they doubled up every race so Emelia ran the 400m with someone in her lane (as did everyone). But the worst part was the kids sat for incredibly long periods in the infield in the sun waiting – getting sunburnt and letting the lactic acids build up in their legs. Their relay team finished 7th overall but I was blown away at Emelia on anchor in their heat as their team was noticeable in 4th place and she blew past the team in third to put Ryerson in third in that heat!

This weekend, Emelia had her final end of year dance recital for her Contemporary/Lyrical and Ballet. About a month ago Danielle sent me pics of Emelia when she got her dresses for the event, and I was blown away at how grown up she was looking. Well, that was the same feeling I had for her as she went through both routines with grace, poise and confidence to a sold out show at Western University’s Paul Davenport Theatre in their Faculty of Music.

She said

I feel that I say this every week but what a busy week we just wrapped up. As we have talked about often Emelia is a constant ball of athletic energy. Give her almost any sport and she will try it and she is often good if not excellent at almost every sport. This keeps us constantly on the go but we wouldn’t change her love of sports for anything.

The one activity that she has grown to love is dance. We originally last year signed her up as a balance of the demand that gymnastics does to her, we wanted a fun outlet that had nothing with competing and she could just enjoy without any pressure. This lead us to Dance London, a dance studio started in London 25 years ago with the exact philosophy we wanted, inclusionary, loving, no pressure and just the love of the sport. This is the exact motto of the studio. We have grown to love this studio and the teachers, Emelia has particularly become attached to the acro teacher – she is just amazing. Last year because of changes to Emelia’s gymnastics training we could not have her in acro but she took ballet and lyrical and just loved them just as much.

This past weekend was the annual dance performance, and again we were blown away. Not only by our own daughter’s dances but the level of skill that comes from this studio. But the most touching and emotional moments was the opening dance, Lisa (the acro teacher) walked out with the biggest smile with a solo dancer, a young woman with Downs Syndrome. Lisa beautifully and patiently shadowed danced with this girl and gave her the centre stage. It was one of the most heartwarming moments I have seen. The whole audience cheered this special dancer and gave her all the love and support in the world. It was beautiful and represented everything that this studio represents.

As we wrapped up the evening we picked Emelia from the change room and in second she begged to dance again next season. So needless to say we will be moving mountains again to get her to dance to see her in a whole different element. It seems we will be back doing acro and ballet next season. They are perfect compliments for her gymnastics and they bring her pure joy.

It seems this coming week might be a bit calmer, we only have one doctors appointment to contend with and one less weekly activity. There is no after school practice for track, no dance classes. We might actually have a night or two off this week – what to do with ourselves?