Baile

Thanks for all of the encouragement about my blogging! You'd think I was learning to ride a bike-Ha! Ok, Garity. Now you shouldn't have mentioned (tempted me) about going to see Ballet Folklorico there. I've only seen videos of the group that Amalia Hernandez started there but our director has been and she said she cried through the whole thing too. I've always wanted to....hmmmm.........What a dream that would be! I'm taking an adult class from her and have always respected how hard it was, but when you feel the pain yourself...you know. The skirtwork you asked about is called "faldeo" and it is wicked harder than it looks--owie arms!! My camera didn't capture it as good as others. One of my friends from the group emailed all of us about a link she found about one of the athletes we danced with yesterday. It says he likes music and dancing....well yes indeed he does!

More about the boy who stole the show yesterday...I am still giddy thinking about how cool it was!

Here is a link to the boy who joined the troupe yesterday. Thought you'd like to see it.

http://live.specialolympics.org/index.php?c=athlete&athlete_id=0DO8HALZWIK4UBKB&

Explaining

So what happened is I sent the first post you see below as an email to a bunch of my friends. Half or more of them came back as "undeliverable" because of all the pictures I think. Meanwhile, my daughter Erin actually received the email, read it and took pity on me and set up this new blog for me as a surprise-with the "clog" below now converted to my first "blog" post. Because she knows I have no time or driving desire to set it up. THANKS, Erin!! So much for my clogging career. Ha! Imagine me, a clogger......ok, just kidding. Don't imagine that.

So that said, I need to explain my new blog title. The Fence. You see I am young enough to enjoy, understand and use technology just fine. However, I also grew up knowing the generation who communicated with each other over the fence while they were watering the lawn or hanging up laundry. And the thing is--I have quite the admiration for it and somehow I am sad that form of communication is gone. Don't get me wrong. I love the whole quick, efficient and multi-tasky email, blog, texting thing going on.... But I miss the fence. I think you knew more about the real person that way. I'm not saying we need to never progress. But we need to remember that we gave something up when we all got automatic sprinklers and computers. So perhaps I'm being nostalgic. I guess this is the new fence.

Clog

So this is the deal, I have long resisted blogging. I like other people’s blogs just fine, but really haven’t had the time or patience to start one myself. But today something happened that begs for a story to be told. So, because I have no blog I’m putting it on a document. And because the word “blog” was originally “website log”, then shortened to “web log”, then they contracted the words and dropped the first two letters to make “blog”; I figured this is a “document log”, shortened to “doc log”, then contracted, with the first two letters dropped to make a “clog”. I also think it will probably clog your email when I send it.

So here you go…my first clog.

Well, I don’t know how many of you have been paying attention to the national news lately, but if you have, you may know that Idaho is host to the 2009 World Special Olympic Games. They are being held mostly in the Treasure Valley and McCall, with the opening ceremonies actually in our own back yard in the Idaho Center here in Nampa. Our family has long been a fan of Special Olympics. Marie competed with them for a year and went to the Idaho State Special Olympics. And Dallan did his Eagle Project for the Special Olympics, too.

Lucky us, our Folk Dance group was invited to perform in the “Olympic Village” in Boise this evening. We were all excited and once we got there, not disappointed with the wonderful international atmosphere and first rate organization of the event. So it came time to dance, and after being held in the green room with an official performer pass (fun!), Ana and the group were brought to the stage to perform.

It was a beautiful show, just as nice as any other we’ve performed. Ana and her classmates did great. The crowd was loving it. In fact, we noticed that part of the Mexican delegation of athletes had gathered.

And then, during the last song, which is so well known in Mexico, there was a Special Olympics athlete from the Mexican ice skating team who recognized the song. In fact we’re pretty sure he had danced it before. He just put himself right into the dance and the show went on. He was having so much fun and so was our group and the crowd.

They were cheering for him right up to the end when he, true to tradition, knelt down in front of his “partner” to give her his hand. By that time another of his team mates had joined in the dance and many of the crowd had a tear or two.So, of course, when it came time to bow, our director grabbed them by the hand and they took a bow with us.

And bam!—instant friends!

And they wanted to wear our hats and beads. They really liked the beads.

So, of course, we gave them all of our beads!

So we have no beads for our show this Thursday. But some pretty cool figure skaters from Mexico do. And Ana got a trading pin from one of them that is worth more to her than any of her beads.

On the way home it all hit her and she got choked up and told me that was the best dance performance ever. It was.