Black Belt Grading

Last Friday I took my black belt grading and the weekend course with Sensei Yaguchi. I found out tonight that I passed. I am now a black belt in Shotokan Karate :-) The picture is of me and a fellow student, also taking his black belt grading, in the kumite (free style sparing) part of the grading. Many thanks to all my karate friends back in the UK for the lovely emails. The picture below is me, showing off my new belt and Sensei Jones.

The Calgary Stampede and "The Big Show"

The Calgary Stampede has been on for this last 10 days and what a great fun time to be in Calgary. Everybody goes cowboy mad for the duration of the Stampede. Restaurants have bails of hay laying around and the waiters and waitresses all dress in cowboy hats and boots. The Stampede itself was rather special for us as Sophie performed in the Grandstand show, which is deemed as the greatest outdoor show on earth. We helped out program selling and managed to see Sophie for a few nights in the show. The show was amazing with fireworks, acrobats, circus artists on the new cable system which allowed them to float over the heads of the audience and of course the Young Canadians. The kids were absolutely fantastic!! Sophie enjoyed the whole experience and hopes she can be in the show again next year. I have uploaded some more photos - click here.

Here are Diana and Derek in Calgary.

We have had a great time so far, and have been made very comfortable. We have had a couple of short holidays in the Rockies, at Lake Louise and Jasper.
Now we are in the middle of the Stampede, have been involved in Program selling (We didn’t sell as many as Becca, or even Steve, but we did our best). It is a great event, we have learned a lot about Rodeo, and are enjoying the “The Big Show” which is certainly very spectacular with lighting effects and fireworks. At the preview show a thunderstorm was included.
We have also been introduced to Baseball, have seen matches and practice sessions involving Alex and Lewis, and a Calgary Vipers match.All that and we still have a couple of weeks to go!

Rehearsing for "The Big Show"

Here's Sophie at her other job!! This is in rehearsal for the Grandstand Show for this years Calgary Stampede. The title of this years performance is "The Big Show."

From what I've seen already it's shaping up to be a great spectacle!

Sophie is thoroughly enjoying herself there & has made some lovely new friends.

We have to learn to curl her hair!! Although we think we've cracked it!

"Annie"

Here's a photo of Sophie as "Molly" for her dance school show. They did an "Annie" tribute. Although not truly cast (there were no other parts given out) Sophie was! She had to speak a few lines & do some of the parts where molly pretends to be "Miss Hannigen." It was great fun!

The entire show was good & Sophie has decided to take a lot more classes next term! Much to the dismay of our bank balance!

Baseball season

The baseball season is well underway but we have few decent photographs yet. I hope that will be rectified soon!!

In the meantime here is one of Lewis (he's the one crouching down by 3rd base.)

June in Calgary!!!

What can I say, we woke up this morning to a little dusting of snow! But it's June, I hear you cry!! The weather had actually started to warm up and we have recently had days of 24 degrees, so it was a bit of a shock to wake up to this snow. This little guy attracted some attention outside our local Starbucks.