A Dance Update

So this update is mainly for my dance teachers and those who care about my dancing... just to let you know!

So, I met with Tanya Bakala from Mission Dance Centre. The meeting went REALLY well, I was really impressed with her studio and the way she teaches. I tried a class two days later and I really liked it, it was taught by a dancer from Ballet Kelowna. Mom and Dad and I met with Tanya officially and we discussed more in depth. It was really great. I shall be dancing there! I will be dancing Monday-Thursday and helping teach on Fridays. (Mrs. H - thanks to you, she's really impressed with my teaching abilities and I'll most likely be getting my own classes starting September) Mondays, I'm taking a pointe class, a flamenco class and Tanya's teacher training class. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the Junior Company classes. That mostly involves ballet... we are learning the 4 cygnets variation from Swan Lake (We are learning it on pointe too!) for the May performance :D It's so much fun!!! We also do hip hop... uuugh, that's new... and Contemporary and Jazz too. Fridays I help teach a 3 and 4 year old's class. It's quite entertaining! There's just one thing that's a bit weird... Mr. Beales, Tanya uses the SAME CD that you used for a long time... it's the one with a Schubert song for the tendus in Centre...
But otherwise, it's wonderful. I'm really enjoying it there... She's in a beautiful building, the Rotary Centre of the Arts, it's a great location! Only a 10 minute walk from our home!

Well, that's all for now... I shall be blogging (hopefully) weekly, to give you all a glimpse into our new life here.

Update!

Hello once again! It has been a while since I've been blogging and I'm finally able to sit down and tell you all about our last month.

We had a lovely Christmas time, we stayed with friends on the island for two weeks. We spent our time visiting friends and family. On the 31st we made our way to the mainland to spend New Year's with our Russian friends. We ate, played games, ate more, played more games, ate more, played more games…. and stayed up until 2 AM. It was great!!!

On the second we headed up to our new home, the Okanagan valley. We stayed in Enderby with an aunt of a friend. We had hoped to find a home in three days, it didn't turn out to be the real plan. We soon found out that because I'll be dancing in Kelowna, we needed to live close to there. So we started looking in Kelowna/Winfield area and found two options. The next day we signed the contract. It is a great place, 3 bedrooms (I GET MY OWN ROOM) a nice kitchen and a lovely living room. The backyard is the beach and the lake is right there.

So, that's all for now... Busy weeks ahead!

Montreal

So, we had a tearful departure from Switzerland and a long flight to Montreal. There were some good movies, and we flew SwissAir so we got good food too :)

We arrived in Montreal to sub zero temperatures… sub zero as in -17. It was cold. Really cold. We didn't stay outside for long.

Downtown Montreal

 The Notre-Dame Cathedral, unlike anything we saw in our whole trip!

Gorgeous!!! There was an orchestra rehearsing inside, the music was beautiful… I could have stayed and just listened to the music..

Well, now we are back in Canada, actually back on the island. We are here visiting until the 31st. Then we head back to the Mainland. We journey to our new homeland, the Okanagan, on January 2nd. We hope to find somewhere to rent asap and then settle into life again!
I shall try and keep up with what we are doing in the next little while, I know everyone wants to hear about our settling down :) In the meantime have a wonderful Christmas holiday and I hope you have enjoyed following our journey!

Appenzell

So, back on track. I must finish this blogging. We were able to go to Appenzell. A unique village in the mountains, it's known for it's interesting houses and it's cheese :) Like all of Switzerland.

 The mountains :)

 Beautiful houses!

 The village church

 A street in the village

 You can see really far, it's amazing… and it's so spread out!

Lucy saw the banks of snow and DESPERATELY wanted to play in them.. look at what she's wearing… there's no way anyone would let her play in the snow...

Zurich at Night

Well, we had a chance to walk around Zurich one evening.. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

Guarda… The Mountain Village

So, on that weekend…. whatever weekend that was that I can't remember now… The 7th of December I think, we went to Guarda, a little village in the canton of Graubunden.

 Beautiful village homes...

 THE MOUNTAINS WERE BREATHTAKING

 Sheep on the hillside, not fenced in but they knew not to run away.

 Cute little roads

 Beautiful prints on the houses…

 Mistletoe… Mistletoe actually comes in balls that look like bird nests… they are a weed that live in trees. It's really neat!!!

 Gorgeous eh?

 It's so simple… and so beautiful

 Berries

Ok, well, it's not too late yet but I'm already getting tired so I have to head off to bed… Until next time…!

Back to Blogging...

Well, it's been a LONG time since I've blogged. I apologize.
The last post I did was on St. Nicholas Day so I must mention Einseideln too. Einseideln is a village on the mountain top. It's beautiful, and every year they have a christmas market. It's gorgeous!!! There's tons of traditional stands where people sell baking, nuts, worst (sausages) christmas ornaments, candles, etc. It's amazing. It's perfectly Christmassy.

 Lucy got to ride the Carousel

 There. That's the top of the hill, the heart of Einsiedeln. :D

 The market

Well, I have so much to catch up on I'm not going to write tons.. On to the next post!!