The Winter Ball - "An Asian Evening" at the Cherry Hills Country Club

On Sunday evening Ellie and Christy attended the "Asian Evening" Winter Cotillion Ball at the Cherry Hills Country Club.


The girls looked forward to this event, but wanted to dress a bit more casually than they had for the last ball. Ellie had a hard time picking out what to wear. She wanted a new dress, but she waited too late since the winter dances in schools in this area all seemed to have happened on Saturday night. It came down to this dress or a brown and cream one. I thought she was lovely in either one. She engaged in a bit of teenager attitude by mixing it up with neon orange nail polish and her huge aray of bracelets in lui of the white gloves that were suggested.

He father was supposed to take part in the last half hour of the dance, but he had to stay home as he was quite ill and feverish.

They played a few fun games using chop sticks and they did a lot of dancing, of course.

I had originally planned to have a special evening with my boy, but that had to shift since I had to take Ellie to the dance. The first hour and a half of the dance was reserved for the kids so Ethan and I hung out at the Whole Foods Market. We chatted with the produce guy and tasted lots of stuff. We wandered through the tea and coffee isles, then over to the bakery. We also had a lovely chat with the man working the cheese counter. Ethan loves cheese so he opted for a few fun cheeses instead of something sweet. It was a tough choice, but the Tillamook Smoked Black Pepper Cheddar and the Apple Smoked Gouda were both lovely.

I got to hear stories of the evening before when Ethan and Tom joined Morgan and a group of her friends at the Ralston Valley High School winter dance. It sounds like it was a bit like a rave without the drugs. The school had a light show and kids sported lots of glow sticks. They shifted the party over to Denny's and continued the fun once they could get a table big enough for the 20 of them.

At 17.5, Ethan has a fairly private life. I told him that I miss going places and doing stuff with him. He feels the same way. It seems that he shares more of his dad's interests these days. It is a little hard from time to time, but I am also glad to see that they have such a warm and wonderful bond.

We returned to the country club where I waited outside of the dance hall until it was time for me to arrive.

Focusing on What is Positive...

Sunday Ellie and Christy went to cotillon class. They felt like this was the most fun of all of them so far. Driving home they discussed the class, especially the dance portion, like many people would discuss a football game - play by play. It turns out that many boys have sweaty hands, but that can be easily overlooked if they are good at the spinning, twirling portion of the dancing.

This is always a difficult time for educators. Each year it seems to get worse for those of us to teach in public schools. Round #2 of budget cuts will be coming. Our school will have to cut four teachers. This is a lot considering that we cut three at the beginning of this year. Over at AVS we begin to worry about enrollment. It is stress all the way around. I find the need to focus on the positive.

Petting this sweet boy does the trick for a short while. Toby loves to be petted, but not held or hugged. He loves the ultra delux kitty bed that our friend, Karin, gave to us for Christmas.


Larr is Toby's favorite person. He is the only one that can hold him. Sometimes Toby forces Larr to stop what he is doing so that he can be held. Toby loves Larr's hard petting and general rough love.

The Cotillion Ball at the Brown Palace

The ball for the Spring Cotillion class took place at the Brown Palace in Denver.


Ellie, Anna and Christy looked lovely.




Ethan danced with Ellie a few times.


Arie and Laura had a good time, too.


Arie is a wonderful character.

Ellie wishes that it was not over. She is thinking about taking dancing classes this summer and another cotillion class in the fall.

Sequins and a Bloody Bandanna

Sunday at our house was a perfect example of the difference in gender. Ethan rose early in order to be ready to go on a snowmobiling adventure for the first time. larr and I got up with him to make sure he was ready. He tried on his new helmet, admiring it, several times. He joined his former boss, Bob, for the day. They arrived in Grandby an hour before the shop where he keeps his snowmobiles was open so they went out for a steak and eggs breakfast. They then headed for the field to play and ride. It is an expanse of about 200 acres, most of it flat. Ethan has an absolute blast, until he crashed. He got going at about 75 mph zooming across the field. He assumed that it was just like the other edge and completely flat. However, he was terribly wrong. As he approached the edge he could see that there was a ditch, but at about 2-3 seconds away, he could not slow down much. His reality went into slow motion just before he hit the ditch. The impact caused his body to fly up and he hit his face on the way down. Thankfully the helmet and the goggles took the brunt of the impact. The lenses on the goggles broke into pieces and cut the bridge of his nose. Ethan says he is pretty sure he would be very seriously injured or maybe even dead if he had not been wearing the helmet. The cut right between the eyes gushed lots of blood, soaking the bandanna he had been wearing. Bob sped over to make sure Ethan was alright. They used a baggie with snow to keep down the swelling. For a while we thought he might get two black eyes, but that does not seem like the case today. He came home and took a warm bath. They he and his dad went to hunter safety class. He also has a soar back. I think he would have been fine with some black eye action - it would have been a good boy badge.


Ellie, on the other hand, spent some of the day being lazy and trying on different hair styles for cotillion. I spent some time altering her dress. It is my favorite of the ones we bought so far, but it needed to be taken in. We joined the others at Connie's and Christy's house so the girls could get ready together. I made soup and brought stuff for salad so that we could spent the entire evening together. We stuffed all of us into my van and were off. I love how daylight savings time means that there was still the glorious sunshine and blue skies when we arrived.
I took the opportunity to snap a few photos of the girls and one of the three moms. Last night's class was a bit more difficult than the first. The girls took the lead this week doing the introductions and getting the refreshments. They were introduced to the electric slide (not the disco version, but the hands over the head, slide along the shoulders, hop and spin version). It was a hoot to watch the kids try to master it. Some kids clearly have rhythm and coordination, while others do not. Ellie is somewhere in the middle. She had a few dance partners who would not venture to try the new moves. One super cute boy added his own flare by doing the girl's moves, too. He would spin Ellie, then he would spin himself. She also got to dance with Jackson again this week. He is fun and can dance. The girls were all chatter on the way home. Some much hard work left them hungry and desiring ice cream so we stopped at Good Times for spoonbenders on the way home.

A Little Dancin' and a Bike Fix

On Sunday the girls, Ellie, Anna and Christy, had their first cotillion class and loved it. They were a bit nervous, of course. But once it got going they loved it, especially the dancing part.

They learned about doing proper introductions, how to share refreshments in a proper, respectful manner and they did a whole lot of dancing. They learned the Fox Trot, the Jitter Bug, The Mamba and the beginning steps for a few others. Interestingly, there were six more boys than there were girls. Consequently, the boys had to take turns cutting in. There was a five second rule that if you did not have a partner, an instructor would find one for you. Some times it was a bit comical as there is a vast difference in size in this age range. It is a session for 6th-8th graders. Some of them were just about half as tall as Ellie and a few looked many years younger. When one of the girls danced with a boy who was much shorter, they'd have to bend their knees to make it work. The result was humorous. It was touching, too.

Some of the boys would not look at their dance partner (Ethan tells me it is the same with the girls in his class.) A few were ready to strike up conversation. Ellie found those boys more interesting to dance with. Many of them seemed to be Lacrosse players. One boy, Jackson, found a way to dance with Ellie three times and he refused to let the others cut in. She enjoyed his conversation (he is pretty funny) and appreciated his ability to dance a bit. Anna's boyfriend, Nial, is in the class, too. They found ways to dance together a few times. I was touched when they spied a girl without a partner (all of the partner free boys were on the other side of the crowded dance floor.) who seemed a bit lonely. Anna and Nial decided that she needed to dance, so Nial danced with her and Anna found another person to dance with. I found that very considerate and thoughtful.

Ethan had his third class. The focus was on how to eat at a fancy restaurant. Ethan was volunteered to demonstrate. He found it interesting to see how differently you would eat something, such as steak, here as compared to how to handle the silverware in the UK. They did a present drive too. Instead of having one of us take care of it, he picked out his own present. It was fun to watch. Walking through the young child toy area was a walk down memory lane for him. Certain toys sparked memories not often visited. He selected a colorful, wooden block set that comes in a wooden wagon. He wanted the child to have something creative.

On an entirely different note, here's a cool video I stumbled upon when I was uploading my most recent show for our bike team.

"It's Your Ride" by Cinecycling on Vimeo.com

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

The music is "The Hustle" by Alan Wilkis.

Ethan's First Cotillion Class

Wow, has it really been just over a week since I posted? I hate when that happens. It is always during those periods where I have too many after work meetings. Last week was so busy that I don't think I had an entirely free evening from Sunday until Friday. Then I spent the weekend cleaning and getting some computer work done. Okay, enough already. This post is actually about Ethan's first cotillion class.

As I mentioned before, I was surprised at how excited Ethan was for his classes to start. He even carefully scheduled his day to make sure he had plenty of time to get ready. Ellie was excited for him, too. We were all curious as to what it would actually be like. I had expected that Larr and I would go together, drop him off, go have coffee somewhere and then pick him back up. I even dressed the part, complete with rhinestone studded hairclips. However, Ethan gently informed me that this was sort of his thing with dad (since they have done all the shopping, lessons on ironing and how to do a tie) and that I should stay home. I was momentarily disappointed, but very quickly swept away by the sweetness of that sentiment and so I took photos instead. It really was sort of a Rockwell type of moment.


They left with plenty of time to find the Elk's Lodge and arrive on time. Ellie and I worked on computer based stuff. I finished the edits for a technical manual Larr wrote and then completed the sets of 2009 Black Sheep racing photo pages I started a while back. I was very happy, and a bit relieved, frankly, to be done with that. It was fun, but got a bit repetitious since we have so many kids on our team. Once I make a cover, spine and back I will post a slide show. We both kept an eye on the time. We were hot to find out how it all went.

The boys arrived home a little after 9:00 p.m. Ethan was still very excited and had a great time. Once they arrived the instructors had the boys line up against one wall and the girls along another. They were then put into pairs. Each person met the other. Then they went through a receiving line with the young man introducing the young lady and learning to shake hands with a proper amount of grip and a gleam in their eyes. After that the young men escorted the ladies to the tables. This was followed by dance instruction. They did the fox trot, the tango and the jitterbug. The dancers changed partners with each dance. By the end of the evening Ethan had danced with six young ladies. There was also a break during which the young man seats the lady, then retrieves refreshments, being sure to offer the young lady her choice of drinks first. During all of this there is a lot of bowing and curtsying. At the end of the evening they learned how to have a proper parting and were on their way. Ethan came home brimming with advice for his young sister. He was firm in the idea that she should wear gloves, "Ellie, think of it. Each guy dances with six girls. He always touches her shoulder and her hand. That is like you touching all of those guys, plus the ones the other girls danced with. You have to get some gloves!" Her eyes were wide. This girl who previously announced that she would not wear gloves quickly changed her mind. He then preceded to give her a bit of dance instruction and talked the whole time about how he can't wait for the next class. I could not have asked for a better report!