Yet another busy weekend

Friday night:

Leavers' Dinner at Kaitoke Gardens. My babies are all grown up now... good old 9FH from 2003 have left the building. It's interesting that the only ones who stayed to the end of Year 13 were mostly boys (there were three girls but they didn't make the dinner). Seeya guys! I must admit I shed a few tears during the goodbye hugs and thankyous.

On the way home, Sue (another of the Deans) and I popped in to Paul's place to see if their annual family and friends Christmas party was still going. It was, and we arrived just as everyone was gathering round the piano for a singalong of Christmas classics. With pre-printed songsheets and everything; man, were they prepared! We went through all the carols and tacky santa/snow/winter/reindeer songs, then lo - a bunch of songbooks appeared from the piano stoool, and we sang our way through those too. At some stage a guitar appeared as well. We were just singing "The Midnight Hour" when we realised it *was* the midnight hour, and that the neighbours might want some sleep, so we finished up and headed home.

Saturday:

Hit the shops early to avoid the rush; needed a Santa suit for the Church Christmas Pageant (it's a trad story and a modern story running parallel to each other), and bought a dress for $20 for Sarah and Adam's wedding in 2 weeks. Bargain! Then I headed to Church to 'do a few things' to prepare for the afternoon rehearsal. I ended up 'doing a few things' for close to 4 hours! But the set looked cool, and the rehearsal went well.

When I got home, I had a quick change into the Indian gear and headed to Upper Hutt to dance in a concert. Turns out it was the Anita's School of Dance end-of-year concert, so there were lots of little poppets in tutus and tiaras wandering around. Too cute. We were special invited guests; Rani runs our group, and apparently Rani's daughter does Jazz through Anita, and Rani asked if we could join in. Something like that. I caught myself speeding on the drive home and was wondering what a cop would think if he pulled me over. I still had on a pile of makeup, a bindi, and a sparkly red and gold dance outfit. With a denim jacket on top. Nice.

Here's a shot of us rehearsing, and a posed one at the concert in the Green Room. It really was green!

Sunday:

Sang a solo in Church today. Sam even came to listen, but Dad was not well enough to come due to a bad night of breathing issues. The piece I sang is called "This is the record of John". It's a traditional piece for the second week of Advent: Prepare the Way of the Lord.

After Church I went shopping for school camp and spent around $450 on food. It filled three trolleys, and STILL managed to fit in the boot of our car cos it's so big!

Then I went back to Church for the pageant. It went off, and Dad was even able to make it, so I was really pleased. The angels got carried away and came on way too early with the wise men, but they understood my sign language and managed to get off the stage in time to lead the shepherds back on. The dancing farmers (modern shepherds) stole the show!

At the BBQ tea afterwards, people were all coming up to tell me how much they enjoyed the pageant - I guess it was worth all the stress in the end.

At 7pm I escaped to K and R's where we watched somebody Bergen (the bad ventroloquist), Madeline Khan (who sang badly), and Steve Martin (who plays the banjo quite well!) on The Muppet Show. I got a fab shoulder massage from R, and K fed me feta and herb rice crackers. Yum.

It's now after 11:30 pm. I need to go to bed now.