Renaissance Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to The Renaissance Festival.  There were actors dressed up as people from that time period, the 14th -17th century.  Many famous people lived during that time. For example, Leonardo De Vinci, Elizabeth I, King Louis XIV, Robin Hood, Michelangelo, Galileo, Shakespeare, etc.   There were lots of fun games and shows to see.  Here are some pictures from the day:

Arriving at the Renaissance Festival with Dino and Dominic.

I'm a fairy and Dino is a...I'm not sure!

The "real" Leonardo De Vinci?

The Renaissance women

The Royal Court

The Jousting Tournament

Getting my face painted...

pretty!

Riding an Elephant

The acrobats: Small, Medium and Large

I'm going catapulting!

getting hooked up

Wow! Four stories high! 

Coming down FAST!

"To infinity and beyond!"

Wow that was scary!

Whew! I'm alive!

This bell player performed for the Pope in Rome! He looks a little creepy with that mask! 

Wow look at the perched owl!

The Majesties; the King and Queen!

Watching the jugglers perform with fire!

Choir

A little while ago I signed up for choir and the name of my choir is "One Voice". We have LOTS of songs to memorize: "Jesus Loves Me", "Blessed Redeemer", and more!

In a Choir there are different types of groups. For the deep voices, you are assigned "Alto". If you have a melody voice ( can sing high and low) like me, you  are assigned as a "2nd Soprano"! If you have a high voice, you are assigned "Soprano", my friend Sarah was assigned that and she has a pretty voice.  My friend Ruth who also has a pretty voice (and who played Snoopy in SNOOPY!!!) is a 2nd Soprano.  My friend Leah is an Alto and a 2nd Soprano and has a pretty voice too!

So there! My friends all have different voices but when we sing together we sound like one voice.  That's why our choir group is called One Voice!

Last week was our tryouts for the solo in Blessed Redeemer. In this song one person from each group, an Alto, 2nd Soprano, and Soprano sings a paragraph in the song.  So I tried out for the first paragraph which is to be sung by a 2nd Soprano. Next week I'll find out if I got it and when I know I will let you know!

P.S Our choir group is a Christian group and it's all GIRLS (NO boys allowed!)

Globe

 A few weeks ago Mom, Dino, Dante, Dominic, Mrs. Esposito and I went to Globe and saw lots of cool stuff.

We went to Besh.Ba.Gowah and climbed the houses that the Salado Indians lived in 500 years ago! Besh Ba Gowah means "place of metal" or "metal camp".

We also went to see the Roosevelt Dam and rode across the HUGE Roosevelt Lake bridge.

Also, we saw a village in the mountains called the Lower Cliff Dwellings. We had to climb a long time to get there and once we got to the top it was so cool!  The people who lived there, over one thousand years ago, made their village in the cave out of bricks!

At Besh Ba Gowah

Besh.Ba.Gowah

The 700 year old house 

Inside the house

HaHa

Me touching a 700 year old stone

700 year old STAIRS?

Turn your head and look, It's a twin!

The Lower Cliff Dweling

The kitchen

The very small door (2 feet tall and 1 foot wide)

I call this cactus "Robin Hood"

The HUGE Roosevelt Lake Bridge

The disappointing Dam (thought it would be bigger)

All of us in front of the Dam

All of us in front of the bridge

Two awesome pictures from the cave! This is from the Lower Cliff Dwelling looking out. That's Roosevelt Lake off in the distance!

This is looking out onto Roosevelt Lake!

P.S These pictures were taken by yours truly, ME!

Happy 107th Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield Massachusetts on March 2, 1904 and died on September 24, 1991.
He wrote many books including: The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who!, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! And many more.

He went to Oxford and took classes to become a Professor, but his studies bored him so he left Oxford. But while he was there he met a girl named Helen Palmer who not only became his first wife but was a children’s author and a book editor!

After returning to the United States, Ted began a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.

As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.

While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's sayings called Boners. Although the book was not a success, the illustrations received great reviews, providing Ted with his first "big break" into children's literature. Getting the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence - it was rejected 27 times before being published.

The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted's career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children's book author and illustrator.

After Dr. Seuss’s wife died in 1967, Dr. Seuss married an old friend, Audrey Stone.

She not only influenced his later books, but now guards his legacy as the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.


At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.

Besides the books, his works have provided the source for , eleven children’s TV sires, two Broadway Musicals, and two full length movies!

His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award, and a Pulitzer Prize.

Cat in the Hat (2003)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Seussical the Musical on Broadway!