Warm Winter Kittens :)

Here are some photos I took of Seamus and Sally and edited on pixlr. Hope you like them!

~S.

My school picture (edited by me...)

Here is a pic of me that I just edited on pixlr...I'm kind of obsessed with doing that right now :D

More updates about the oireachtas coming soon!!!

~Sonja

(Ps--click to see full size...)

Mississippi River trip with Granny & Grandpa

A few weeks ago we went on a trip down the Mississippi with our grandparents. Mom and Dad got to have the house to themselves for about 4 days! We met them in Wabasha, MN, and after discovering a nail in one of our tires, Granny took all of the girls into the National Eagle Center while Mom, Dad and Grandpa went to the shop. Here are some pictures from outside the building...

One of the Eagles inside
Miranda doesn't like fish

After we finished the Eagle Center, we left Mom and Dad and went down to Prarie du Chien. Here is the statue of Marquette at the Visitor's Center...

Sunday morning we went to Villa Louis, an old mansion that is very authentic and cool especially if you like that kind of stuff like we do....:P The statues were across the road.

Victorian Lady
Blackhawk
Dr. William Beaumont
The Villa Louis

A side building where there was an office and a billiard room

The grounds
I sneakily took a picture of the little girl's room. I wish I had a room like this >:/

After our tour, we drove to Galena, IL, planning on going into downtown, but since it was packed we decided to go the next day. We did drive to look at....
Since Galena was so busy, we went to the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, where we were staying. Here is all of us with Mark Twain:
Next morning we got to downtown Galena early so there would actually be some parking spaces...Here's a nice shot of the street and the hill...

Galena's oldest house
Gpop took us to an old fashioned Candy shop!! Miranda with her "Licorice plop"
Since we enjoyed Villa Louis so much, Granny said we should go to the Belvedere Mansion.
In front of the house...this one wasn't quite as authentic as Villa Louis (there are still some people living there) but it was ok.
A Big tree....
In front of Grant
This picture is from the last day of our trip, looking down on the river on Pike's Peak...not THE Pike's Peak, it was just named after Zebulen Pike.

Thanks for the trip Granny & Grandpa!! It was a lot of fun!!

~Sonja~

Sally on bird duty

Making sure that no little birds come to our bird feeder....but what's it for then? :)

Sucess from last 2 feises!!!

1st Place PC Two Rivers Feile (yes, I got a plate instead of a trophy. :P)
1st Place PC Badger State Feis

July 17 was the Badger State Feis in Milwaukee. I won out of a group of 22 dancers!!!! I was really happy especially because Nationals didn't go very well for me. :S This last weekend we traveled to Des Moines, IA for the new Two Rivers Feile, and I won out of a group of 5! Now I am qualified for the top level of competition, and I will begin competing in it at the beginning of the year. I'm really nervous but also excited! :) Selena also had a good feis, placing 2nd overall. Miranda FINALLY, after almost a year, qualified for her solo dress!!! Izzy placed in both of her softshoe dances. Can't wait for the MN feis at the end of September!

All for now-

~Sonja~

Twins Collage

here is a collage I made on picasa of my favorite Twins players! :)

~Sonja~

Nationals Review

A picture of the Dolphin Hotel

We're back from our exciting trip! Selena and I had never been on a plane before, so we were excited as we got onto the airplane with our dance friends the Clines, who were with us on all of our flights. We thought that it wouldn't be so cramped though :S

After getting to the airport in Atlanta, we hauled our stuff around finding our gate....then we had to wait for a reeeaally long time for some people who were late. By the time we got to Orlando, it was about 10:00 their time. After getting the Cline's rental cars we drove for about an hour to the hotel, the Disney Swan!! We got up to our room and were surprised to see that there was 1 bed and a pull out couch. Not what we wanted. We dealt with it for the night because it was about 12:30 and we were all exhausted. Next morning we got moved to a nice big room, where we stayed for the rest of our vacation (if you can call it that).

Later we went to check out the venue and watch some of our other dancers, practice, and go to awards.

Sunday was my day to dance. I did a good hardshoe round and was about halfway through my softshoe dance when I landed a leap wrong and rolled my ankle. :( I got do to it again but it obviously wasn't as good because I was in pain. If I hadn't have fallen, I probably could have recalled but I didn't....well, I have an excuse at least. :P Really, I was actually glad because I couldn't have done anything well the way my ankle was. So I was ok with it...and we had a fun rest of the day on the Boardwalk and at awards.

Monday we slept in and went to Downtown Disney to shop a little bit, we went to the pool which was SOO cool, Selena stubbed her toe on some kind of rock making it turn black and blue, and so we had to deal with that. She had a practice later that night and we retired for the night. Tuesday: We got up early and got Sese warmed up. I was so nervous I had to walk around with a friend because I couldn't stand the tension next to the stage. Her hardshoe round was great, although she sort of ran out of energy in the last step. Softshoe was the best she's done this year, and we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the recalls to be announced, so Selena went to the bathroom and I went off to find my teacher. I came back and she was warming up with Fauna again. "???" Turns out that she made it (the recall) while she was still in the restroom and I running around! :) We were very happy and I sort of felt like she made up me not recalling by her doing so. She danced a good set and we rested as we waited for awards...well, I went up to the room and they stayed. =P Sese placed 36th!! We were just happy that she recalled her first time going. See a picture from Shamrock Photo HERE.

Wednesday: After a long wait and a long drive, we made it to the airport and flew back to Atlanta. It seemed a lot more boring coming home...well, maybe that was because I didn't bother to get anything out of my "stuff-to-do" bag. We waited in Atlanta for a while but it was shorter than the first flight...finally we got back home!!! It was so nice to be in MN again. :) Mom made an album of the trip you can view here. Enjoy! I might post some more here later....pics and news from last weekend's feis coming VERY SOON, I PROMISE!!!

:)
~Sonja~

Bye, everyone!

We're flying to Florida for the Nationals today. Wish us luck! I can't wait to blog about the trip when we get home next Wednesday!

The website for the event is nanationals.net, but you have to pay to get into the good stuff. However if you just want to read a little about it you can go there. :) Sadly, we won't be able to take a computer, but I'll put lots of pictures here as soon as we get back.

BYE!!

Sonja

Twin Cities Feile 2010

Me in Set (1st place): corda mor top 3!! (And me in my BRAND NEW dress)
Selena: 3rd place in everything except Softshoe, she tied for 1st!
Maria, Me & Quinn, trying on sunglasses....XD
Cecilia, Sonja, Quinn, Maria
Twins Treble Reel: Miranda tie for 5th, Izzy 2nd

We had a good day last Saturday. Selena placed 3rd in Hardshoe, 1st (tie) in Softshoe, 3rd in Set dance, and 3rd overall. :) I got 2nd in Softshoe, tie for 3rd in Hardshoe, 1st in Set, and 2nd Overall. Miranda got three seconds and a fourth, and Izzy got one third, two seconds, and one first, not counting their treble reel placements. It was Izzy's first time to wear Selena's old solo dress, as you can tell from the picture! More pics of my dress coming soon!

~Sonja~

Dragonfly photo...

Hey everyone! I've been really busy lately-- we had a feis last weekend, I got a new dress, and we're leaving for Nationals in Orlando in 3 days! o_O wow! I'll post some pics of my BEAUTIFUL new costume soon but I thought you would enjoy seeing this cool pic of a dragonfly I saw earlier this morning. More coming soon!

~Sonja~

Cats on the deck

Enjoy!

~Sonja~

Ceili video...

Hello everybody! Here's a video of the little four-hand I made up a few days ago! :) We have a long ways to go on perfecting (cough, cough) but I had just made it up that morning and we had only done it about four times through. Please excuse our messy background-we were playing Barbies, Dollhouse, and Polly's all mixed together. Enjoy!

~Sonja~

(And my school doesn't do ceili/teams. Just to let you people who don't really know me know. :P)

(PS- please excuse the talking, etc!!!)

Lilacs

I took some pictures of our lilacs today! Hope you enjoy!

~*Sonja*~