The Wedding Trip!

We're back from the Wedding--our trip to Nashville and Chicago is complete and was SO much fun. Mike and Lia had the most beautiful wedding of the century! It was SUCH a touching ceremony. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house (seriously!). My Uncle Bill (a Deacon in the Catholic Church) celebrated the event and made it SO very touching and emotional for everyone. It was such a unique and personal service. The vows were an amazing exchange of love and commitment, and the sermon so moving and powerful. It felt so REAL...it was a marriage at a personal level--Mike and Lia were getting married...they weren't just the "bride" or the "groom". It truly was a moving event. Of course the reception was a blast, as everyone knows how Mike and Lia know how to have FUN! What a party it was! The wedding and reception were held on an old Plantation, called The Belle Meade, dating back to the 1800's. The feel of the was of simplistic and natural elegance....of pure and unrefined beauty. Lia was the most beautiful bride. Her dress was smashingly gorgeous... Krista and Mia were the perfect little Flower Girls; and Erik, Jacob and Luke were the 3 cutest ring bearers on the planet! This wedding was "simplistically stunning"! There was a Bluegrass ensemble playing for the ceremony...adding such a perfect touch. Mike and Lia designed this wedding around WHO they are. It was a beautiful celebration of Mike and Lia ---their unique personalities uniting on that special day.

Krista's Regional Division Team

This is the team of 4 girls that was selected from their club to enter the competitive level this year. They are in the "DR Poussine" group which stands for Regional Division 'Chickies'. It is the youngest possible team for competition. The competitions are REALLY quite and ordeal! There were some 500 girls in the Regional competition on the 16th!! Luckily the day is broken down by level, but it was still a really long day! It was a great first experience for Krista and they did a wonderful job. These girls put in a lot of work. They had an extra 2 hour training every week, in addition to the two other trainings per week (so Krista had Tues, Wed, Thurs nights!). It paid off though, as they won FIRST place in the Region and 2nd place in the Department (state). I put their two competitions side by side on the video clip below. They were much "tighter" in their first competition and didn't have any major errors. In the second competition there were a few significant errors (and thus 2nd place). This team is now finished for the season. Krista will continue with her individual 'Formation Cup level 3' and has one final competition in May for that. The final photo of her is with the new trophy that she got last night. The team passes it around from girl to girl and it will be kept for the Club.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Easter Happenings '08

What busy time of year! Easter week was filled with many religous activities for us. Krista, as an altar girl & First Communion student, had a lot of events to attend. There were 2 masses this past week and we also went to the "stations of the cross" on Wednesday. The Easter "Eve" mass was great, but SOOOO LONG! It started at 8:30 and we didn't get home until past 11:00. Poor Erik fell asleep on my lap at church. Krista did a wonderful job as "servant de mess" / altar girl. There was a candle-light procession from the parish center to the church which was really neat . (see photo of Krista in her altar-gown). It was SO COLD that night though, and on Easter morning we woke up to snow! It was still a really fun Easter, despite the SNOW falling outside. I had visions of the girls running around the yard in their matching dresses and Erik in pure bliss on the BIG day of the Easter egg hunt! Instead it turned out to be a fun morning of indoor egg hunting! Kaitlyn didn't really 'get it' at all. She just wanted to eat CHOCOLATE! This posed a small problem because it always seems to trigger an allergic skin reaction for her. I ALMOST managed to keep her from eating chocolate on Easter, but she was a sneak and quickly swallowed it whole! It was a fun day for all! I also will try to post a few photos of the kids Easter craft projects too. I'm pretty much swamped right now with all the preparations for our big trip to the states for Mike's wedding! WE CAN'T WAIT!

Gymnastics News!!!!

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Wonderful news! Krista's Gymnastics team routine won 2nd place in our region on Sunday! This would be equivalent to a State competition in the US, as our region is considered a small "state" within France. The winning team came from near Switzerland (Saint Louis)...We will be going there at the end of May for Krista's final individual CF3 competition. There were over 500 gymnasts there on Sunday! It was a LONG day for us on Sunday (1:30-7:00).

The weekend started off with the individual competition for her CF3 team (Formation 3 level) on Saturday. Krista did a wonderful job and I will include a video clip of two of her three routines. She had ball, cord and freestyle routines to perform. This is the 2nd of 3 performances that will be added together towards the final season personal score (as was the case last year also). The gymnast with the highest score will be the champion of our region! Can Krista do it again this year?????? We'll see....

On Sunday we had her group routine for the DR Poussine group (Regional Divison "babies"). The team wasn't quite as "sharp" as they were 2 weeks ago, thus the 2nd place position. It was still a great honor for Krista to be runner-up!

Here is a small show from Krista's individual on Saturday. I will post a video of her group sometime this week also.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Gymnastics Weekend and Professional Photos

We have a big gymnastics weekend ahead of us. Krista has competitions on both Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. On Saturday she has her individual competition for Coupe Formation 3 (CF 3) and then on Sunday she will do her group routine on the team of 4 girls in the DR (Regional Division) Poussine level. The CF3 competition will be based on points and the total will only be tallied up after the final competition in May. The group routine will have an awards ceremony directly afterwards. She is really excited! I'll probabally be watching gymnastics for about 8 hours this weekend!

Also, the photos from the professional photographer are on their website. I downloaded the thumbnails (this was from the competition a few weeks ago). Here is the website:

http://www.photos-sports.fr/ensemblesGR-67/ The first part type Savere and the password is 2008. On the photograher's website you will see yellow titles. In the second part you see "DR" that is their group level.. Click on that and there are the photos. To see the awards ceremony click on "Palmares Apres-Midi"

Bringing back "The Gown"

After cleaning out Krista's closet last week we discovered that Kaitlyn REALLY wants to wear nightgowns! Currently I still have her in her "baby" sleepers from Carters...the snuggly ones with the feet. Somehow I didn't think she was old enough for gowns yet??!! Well she thinks she is, anyway! She took one of Krista's big gowns and tried to put it on. Unfortunately it was a size 7 and was WAY too big...but the stage was set. I now know she is going to be like Krista in many ways. They both have a very stubborn, insistant and strong-willed personality. This had been a real asset for Krista and I hope it will be the same for Kaitlyn. This "driven" personality has already led to many small successes in Krista's life and I pray the same will be the case for little Kaitlyn.

Anyway, back to the gown issue... So after I realized she was ready for the 'gown transisition' I headed off to find Krista's beloved "Disney Princess" nightgown. It is tattered and torn but VERY loved. I have so many fond memories of Krista running around in that gown!! When I put it on Kaitlyn she just LIT UP! She loved it. She started swirling, running and dancing. It was so funny to see. When I uploaded the thumbnails onto the computer I couldn't belive it..it looked JUST like Krista. Toomas said the same thing when he saw Kaitlyn in "the gown"!!!

So here she is...22 months and already in "the gown"!!!

Mike in the Studio!

Wow, look at my cool little brother...A big professional music producer!! So here he is in action, recording The Fray's next album (as chief producer). I'm sure it will be a gem just like their first masterpiece. (Quite an impressive sound board and studio there too--click to see the detail!!!)

We are counting the days until we get to see him and his future bride-to-be, Lia for their big wedding day on April 5th! I went out dress shopping for Kaitlyn this weekend and found a sweet and simple off white dress at Galeries Lafayette.
Krista and Erik are in the wedding party so Erik will wear a little tuxedo, and Krista will be wearing this precious flower girl dress:

http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/multiProductCrewcuts.jhtml?ids=prod79567201,prod79550201,prod92740201,prod91374201#

They WON!! First place!!

This year, along with her CF3 team, Krista was selected to be on a team of 4 girls who will participate in the French Regional level (called DR Poussine--Regional Division). They had their FIRST competition on Saturday and came in FIRST Place!! Each of the girls received a medal (on the FIRST place podium) and the team recived a trophy. It was in a city about 45 mintues away from here, and we spent the WHOLE day there (We left at 11 am, returned at 7 pm). There were teams of all different competitive levels, with Krista's team being the youngest. We saw some AMAZING talent. It was really great. If I have time I will post a few of the advanced level's performances. Here are a few photos. I will post the professional photos once they appear on the photographer's website ( I checked today and they have not uploaded them yet).