We Love the Blomidon Inn!

I couldn't blog about the school tour without mentioning the Blomidon Inn. What an amazing place! When I was organizing our hotel stay, I was originally dismayed to learn that the Old Orchard Inn was totally booked at this time. When I was little, my family and I used to stay there in the winter and go on cross-country skiing trips, which I actually hated at the time, but I still remember loving that hotel. I quickly reserved rooms at the Blomidon Inn down the street, and hoped it would have everything we needed.


Well. The Blomidon has everything and then some. All of our rooms are outfitted with victorian style furniture and four poster beds. There are beautiful sitting rooms for reading and tea, and high tea is served everyday from 3:00 - 4:30pm. There's a beautiful complimentary breakfast of bagels, homemade bread, homemade granola and fruit - sometimes they play strange jazz piano/musak versions of chariots of fire and the titantic theme song, but it's still pretty awesome. The rooms also have free wireless internet, so we've been able to keep up on some other work after each school day. This is such a great little spot, maybe I'll come back this summer for a little vacation!








We've also had a chance to explore a little of the local landscape. Yesterday, Tania, Carolle and I went for a walk along the dykes before supper. It was really breathtaking. Thanks for taking all these great pictures, T!

Tomorrow we go to Horton High for workshops and then again on Friday to prepare for the evening performance. It's going to be a great show!

Kathryn

So many schools!

Hi all! Kathryn, here, for my first ever blog post. It's not often that I get to go on tour with the company, as office work usually keeps me in Halifax, but this tour is a little different. Over the past two weeks, Mocean has been visiting elementary, junior high and high schools in the Annapolis Valley, conducting workshops for students and performing school shows. By the time we're done, the dancers will have performed 8 shows for over 2500 students and will have taught over 30 workshops for more than 1500 students. Yup. That's a lot of students. I don't know how the dancers do it. They are machines!

Why am I here? I'm acting as a travelling sound technician, school-company liason, prop manager and speaker during the shows. The space and the set-up is a little different in every school and it's keeping me on my toes. For the most part, everything is running smoothly. I have to say, the kids in the valley schools system are some of the nicest I've ever met. Really enthusiastic, polite and eager to learn.

The valley schools have also treated us well in terms of food! Port Williams Elementary was kind enough to offer us baked potatoes with cheese (pictured) and today's lunch at Evangeline Middle School was a genuine feast! I'm talking chicken burgers, salad, yogurt and berries, cookies, muffins, rice crispie squares and juice. This cafeteria was not messing around. There was no way we could have finished the spread they put out for us. It was awesome. Thanks to all the schools for making us feel so welcome (and sometimes so full!).

More to come...

Kathryn

Mocean takes a detour!

Oakville!!

So I need to catch you up on several days of our Ontario Tour!! Sorry - we've been slacking a bit on the blog posts, but so much has happened!

We arrived on Friday, did a little teching at the Oakville Performing Arts Centre. I have been suffering from this nasty little cold virus for a few days and my voice was beginning to sound a little groggy. By Saturday morning (show day) my voice was pretty much non-existant. A few squeaks was all I could muster when I woke up that morning. Now....this might not be a big issue for a dancer in most shows....but this show literally has speaking, singing or yelling - or combinations of all of the above, in EVERY PIECE.....one of which is my solo. Not good.

I called on my sister Erin (Opera singer) for advice and tools of the trade. Hot drinks, no caffeine, advil, losanges (lemon, not menthol), sleep and hydration were all necessary. Also - we looked into a few controversial things like Cortizone shots (not recommended - so we didn't go there). It was a stressful day of tech wondering whether I'd be able to squeak it out! We made a few modifications. Erin showed up with the homemade "wonder tea" that saved me. The raspy voice actually ended up working well for my rock star solo (Live From the Flash Pan) - it just sounded like a partyed too hard the night before. I made it through the rest of the show with a few modifications. Close call.

Minor glitch in my solo....the sound computer decided to reboot and my music shut off towards the end of my first song. Had to improvise once again. This piece is totally keeping me on my toes! The beauty is.....it usually seems to work alright! The audience actually liked it and thought it was deliberate. Ok - enough curve balls already.

Oakville was a warm and friendly audience! They laughed a lot - which we love. They also cried! I totally heard some sniffles during Lisa Phinney's piece (Beside Myself Gasping)! Nice! We were delighted that Paula Citron came to the show and reviewed it! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/moceans-fine-line-accessible-but-never-simple/article1530653/

Sunday was a day off for us! We headed to Toronto on the Go Train for a little shopping and visiting with sisters. Lishe's baby sister Talia and my voice saving sis Erin met up with us. Sarg (Marcel) came shopping with us and often waited near the entrance reading on his Sony Reader.....we felt a little like celebs shopping with a body guard. It was a fantastic day!

This morning we headed to St. Catharines and to our first outreach workshop at Port Colborne High School. Amazing dance students there with a fantastic dance studio right in the school! On the way back to the hotel we decided to take a quick detour into Niagra Falls! My first time there!

More to come.....

Hitting the hay for a full day of outreach and tech tomorrow

CC (Carolle)

Creation and Performance at the Imperial......check!

Well, we had a fantastic time in-residence at the Imerial Theatre. Peter D., if you'd like to have a new company in residence just move in...well, we're available. That space is just incredible! and a great staff and crew too!

Our creation group did an outstanding job. The piece was tight and their dancing was stunning! We were so inspired by their passion, creativity and unwavering focus. We were very proud of this group and of the quality of work we were able to create together in such a short time! Bravo ladies! ....and thank-you again for the lovely hand-crafted gifts (from the market that we fell in love with) and for the thoughtful card! We hope to see some of you again!

As for us....we had a great show! The crowd was warm and very alive in Saint John (lots of laughs and energy). That stage is just a pleasure to perform on - it's luxurious to have that much space!!!!!! We ate it up! Mel was particularly funny in Lesandra Dodson's piece (You Tackle A Staircase Face On) Saturday night... she had the crowd roaring during her improvised speaking part. Could have been the slight concussion from a mishap earlier in the piece....but hey, it was working out for you Mel!

We left lovely Saint John at 6am Sunday morning to make it home in time for a bit of time with our families before starting a week in studio at home working with Toronto's Bonnie Kim. Just enough time to wash all of those sweaty dance clothes from the week!

As always - Mel provided the comic relief on the ride home with her "larger than head" sized rice crispy square from the Saint John market (Java Moose!). We love you Mel!!

Thanks to Peter D., the Imperial staff and crew, the residency dancers, Marcel (Sarg), the Korean place at the market (we love you), Java Moose, and Carol and Janet at the Courtney Bay Inn!

We'll be back writing in Feb......when we hit Summerside, PE!

CC.

Last Rehearsal Day

A quick video post of our Day 5 rehearsal!! We're ready for tech and showtime!
CC.

Day 3 and 4.....a short clip from our process!!

Well it's now the end of Day 4....so we have some catching up to do! Yesterday started with an early rise for me. I've been hitting the local Nubody's in the early mornings (it's massive and pretty empty in the morning which I love). After some "hotel administrating", i.e. working on stuff back at the Courtney Bay Inn, we all headed down to the Port City Ballet Studio where our friend Sarah Johnson introduced us to a great concept....."Express Barre"!! We loved this fast paced barre without breaks between exercises - it was a great warmup for us in 25 minutes! We plan to bring this back to Hali and make it our own for those pesky after lunch warmups when you just don't feel like kickin' it into gear! Thanks Sarah!

After a great 2 hour rehearsal on the Imperial stage, we headed back to Saint John's famous market (our new favourite place) for some eats. We all tried the Korean food this time.....(extra spicy for me).....glorious!

Day 3 with the Creation group was our first day of crafting the piece. We began to draw on all of our vocabulary and phrases and set the first half to 2/3 of the dance! These ladies were ready for anything and so focused!

Today we decided to have a massive Cora's brunch. This is a bit of a tradition for us when we're touring. We LOVE a big breakfast! Sa (Sarah Rozee) headed to an Ashtanga class where she was told she was "born to be an Ashtanga Master" (nice one). The rest of the afternoon consisted of more hotel admin, some hotel rehearsal for next week, and a ballet barre at the Imperial (gotta keep the bods ready for Saturday night!).

Day 4 with the Creation group was truly amazing and inspiring!!!! We are very excited about this piece and what we, as a group, have been able to accomplish in only 4 rehearsals! The group is such a strong group of 11 females ages 13 to 34, and it's beautiful to see them all moving together. They are going to rock that Imperial stage Saturday night!!

Tomorrow we clean the piece, work on quality and on details! Hope that you enjoy the clip of our process.

CC (Carolle)

Second Day!

The second day is over and it was productive! All the material for the piece is there. The girls learned a lot of movement, like... a lot! They are great! We are going to start putting the dance togheter tonight and it's very exciting.

We found kind of a little indoor market close to the theatre, so we went there for supper. It's a really cute place with goooooood Korean food according to Sa and CC! We might go back today, so maybe Mel and I will get to try it =)

Other than this, today we are going to try an "express barre"! A 25 mins ballet barre with no break between exercices.I have no idea how it's going to be, but we will tell you more about this after we did it =)

Day number 3 in process
Yééééééé!!
T

First Night!

Saint John

And so it begins again - the blogging.... dun dun dun, and similar to our other tours this one is not without an entertaining beginning.

This time however we had winter tires!!! To be honest we feel like princesses because we don't usually have such luxuries. Now mind you we had to pay extra for those at the car rental because they are considered an "add on" in the winter (yeah I know that sounds crazy) but CC was more then happy to get that" add on".

The drive was pretty nice. The Cobequid pass was clear and uneventful (thank god) even though the toll guy told us it was "getting better", what ever that meant. We of course got a little lost trying to get into the city because the roads are crazy here and the GPS doesn't seem to like them. However can you really go on a road trip without getting lost, I think not because its too much fun!.

We started our first day of creation with the residency participants and it was fabulous! We have 10 lovely dancers and it is great fun. Two of them are even driving from Fredericton each night to participate. They had a lot of material thrown at them last night and they did amazing. It will be an intense few days but they are up for the challenge and the piece is going to be really great. We are all excited for day 2.

Our hotel is sweet and the front desk ladies are so lovely. They have helped us out A LOT. We got back to our hotel late last night after the workshop because we had to get groceries. Both of our rooms have fridges and microwaves which is awesome because then we don't have to eat out every meal. Tania and I finally settled in and were going to play on the internet when we sadly discovered we didn't have internet. After calling the front desk we found out we are too far away from the server and we would need to switch rooms. Luckily there was another room on the same floor that had a fridge and microwave and also internet. So at 11:15pm we started our move. Also keep in mind that we had completely unpacked, filled our fridge and our all drawers. So we re-unpacked in another room and were happy little clams until I sat on the bed. Yes its true I broke the bed. I sat on the bed and broke it. Good god. I would like to think it was already broken because come on - I am not that big but hey such is life. So after T and I died of laughter we thought we should call the front desk. I was a little nervous because sometimes they make you pay for things like that in hotels but the ladies were so nice and were more worried about me then the bed. Someone is coming to look at it today but there is no fixing this bad boy and T and I are NOT changing rooms. So last night we made a new leg for the bed which consists of a book and an ice bucket! It is really sturdy and I am completely happy sleeping on the bed all week - I just avoid the right side... ha ha ha.

Maybe we will post a picture of our new bed leg. I sat on the bed and broke it and I am going to leave you on that note.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is my first post on the blog, how exciting!! I don't know where to start? Let's start with the plane. I discovered that Mel is instantaneously sleepy on a plane which is the total opposite of what I am during a flight. I was very excited and could not sleep at all and she slept on the shelf all the way to Newfoundland. What a nice contrast =) During the week, we met a lot, a lot of elementary kids and they were amazing! It is always fascinating to see their creativity and their energy. Same thing with the dance school, the students were motivated and talented. It is a pleasure to watch them dance. We also ended the day celebrating Valentine's Day in a room watching 'The Notebook' and crying every 5 minutes=) A Happy Valentine's Day isn't it =) Tomorrow is the show and it's going to be very interesting to performe Susie's piece in an intimate theatre. Can not wait!

À plus tard...

Tania

Signal Hill and Burlesque!

Greetings from The Rock!
The sun was shining when we had breakfast with Karen in the "penthouse kitchen" (the dining area is on the fourth floor of this awesome B & B!) and it was the start of another great day. We took the opportunity of a morning off to take in some of the sights and headed to the famed Signal Hill! The scenery was beautiful and we had fun taking pictures at the top. Nothing like 3 cameras with self-timers to keep everyone entertained!

We then took a quick drive around Quidi Vidi Village before heading for lunch. We were a bit pressed for time before our workshops, so Tim Horton's to the rescue!

Our workshops were at Holy Cross Elementary and they were a rowdy (I mean lively), but enthusiastic crowd to saw the least. We had two groups of grades 4-6 and they learned step-digs and step, cross-over, step-digs like the best of them thanks to skilled teachers Carolle and Sarah. Unfortunately, CC strained her eye muscles from having to yell for quiet so much...All in all, they had fun though and it was another successful workshop.
Tonight we were off to The Dance Centre where Mel taught modern to a lovely group of hard-working and talented young dancers. They learned alot in only an hour and were very appreciative.

Our last event of the night was a Burlesque show, which was a fundraiser for Neighborhood Dance Works at the Dusk Lounge on George Street. It was so much fun! They reserved the best table in the house for us and we were treated to an evening of dancers, jugglers, magicians, musicians and an overall good time!

Now we're back at our cozy inn and it's time get some sleep before gearing up for more workshops at MacPherson Elementary in the morning...
Saragan

Bishop Field elementary and Jill Dreaddy DanceCo

Today was a stunning day in St. John's....god, I love this town! We awoke to a lovely breakfast made by Karen at our Inn - The Roses. We promptly hit Bishop Field Elementary in downtown St. John's for 4 workshops.....250 kids served!! They were amazing kids with some stellar moves.

Maria from the Arts and Culture Centre was our guide today, and she showed us around the Arts and Culture Centre. We checked out the Basement Theatre.....the performance is going to be intimate....should be exciting! During our break time this afternoon we split up and did various things: I hit the Nubody's downtown and stared at the Harbour on my treadmill, Mel and Tania explored downtown, Saragan and Sa went for lunch, Saragan and I did some administrative work, and we watched a bit of our recent mainstage on dvd....newly edited version by Rohan (thanks Man of Mocean!).

Tonight's workshop was an adventure and a half! We were headed to Jill Dreaddy's DanceCo which is quite a drive - just past Conception Bay South. Now - google maps failed us tonight I have to say. We got off to a shaky start and stopped to ask directions at a gas station where a lovely taxi driver gave us directions....then he actually lead us on to the highway!! what service! We managed to get lost again though and ended up finding the dance school exactly on time! I taught a Jazz class (Mel and Sa took the class and saragan was DJ preggo while little T observed). The girls were great and it was nice to meet Jill. We hope to get back to work with them again sometime.

I had fishcakes for dinner. Gotta love the seafood!
Over and out.
CC.

So now lets pretend it is Feb 10^th and we are going to the airport - bahahha – I like to pretend. The two Sara’s were driven by the lovely John to the airport and little T, CC and I were picked up by the Big Guy (aka my dad or you can also call him alex, or mr. investor) which was obviously quite the adventure. We got there in record time – to be expected with papa driving and checked ourselves in and went upstairs. I was pretty excited because this was the first time I would be flying with the girls. The two Sarah’s met us upstairs and then it was pretty much time to board. We were at the back of the plane because we were the rowdiest bahahahh – I was actually asleep right after the plane took off and the only reason I was awake that long was because Tania was beside me.. hahah. Planes + Mel = sleep.

The flight landed after one dip down and no free food – boo to no free food. Dick was there to welcome us and that was a lovely surprise. It was nice because he showed us how to get into the city and where to go to eat – which was good because in the end it was actually the only place open and we were STARVING! But before we get to that we should discus the car rental process. It took a really long time to get the vehicle because it wasn’t ready of something (to be honest I wasn’t paying much attention because all I could think about was the smell of fries and ketchup that was in the airport). Then the doors on the van were frozen and either we couldn’t get them open or if we did get them open, they wouldn’t shut… good god that was funny because Tania and I were sitting next to the ones that wouldn’t shut and we were laughing about us falling out, which lead to some stories about saragan almost falling out of a vehicle two times. She is funny.

Anyway we made it safe and Dick was lovely. He showed us to the cutest bed and breakfast ever and we all love our rooms. It is old and Victorian and so wonderful. We have the best breakfast maker in the morning and she is super sweet.

So yes we finally made it to dinner after walking down a street to find some other place to eat because there was apparently a wait at the restaurant recommended. The walk failed and we had to return and then there wasn’t any wait. All I know is by the end of the night I was eating fries and ketchup and everything was all-good.

It’s good to be in NFLD!

Ummm apparently I am not smart enough to figure out how to copy and paste the text in this message and get it to be at the top so we will also pretend that these pics are at the bottom.











So we may be a little late (it's actually Feb 11th and we are in NFLD) but for these purposes we will pretend it's Feb 8th and we are leaving Charlottetown. Last night was interesting and I apparently had too much garlic or maybe I am actually allergic to red wine because I had some crazy dreams and didn't sleep well on my cute day bed at all - sad because I thought it was extra cute. The morning was nice, we checked out and found a little diner to eat at, which was really great. The food was good and there were no lines. It was quiet and comfy. Then we went to the dance studio and taught a couple of modern workshops. They were great and we had a lot of fun. I think everyone left happy and you never know, maybe we'll be coming back sometime soon.
We ate our last meal at a sweet little coffee shop and it was nice. I was a little sad we weren't staying longer because there was a lot of restaurants I would have like to have tried.


Then we hit the road. We had to stop for gas and money when CC realized she had left her purse at the coffee shop - holy poop that was scary and would have been really bad if we didn't find it - but we were silly and of course it was still there - everyone is so nice there.


To be honest I wasn't awake for much of the drive... if I'm not driving I find it hard to stay awake and since I had all those crazy dreams I passed out in the back. Apparently the roads weren't all the great and CC was glad to be off the road when we got back. It was fun and I liked it there. All the dancers were super cute and I had a good time at the gym and hot tub.


here are some photos for your enjoyment!

Jazz and Oysters in C-town

Well it was a lovely day of workshops at the Confederation Centre for the Arts today! Lots to tell.

This trip is just three of us.....Mel, Tania ("little T") and myself (Carolle) for a residency in Charlottetown, PEI. We left Halifax yesterday for a lovely drive over the Confederation Bridge - totally pleasant driving unlike our recent Cobequid Pass fiasco! ....Little T's first time on the island! We arrived at 7pm, but the hotel room wasn't ready (strange), so we hit the Dublin Pub for some eats. It could have been the hundreds of hockey families in town for the "spud" tournament.

This morning we took advantage of the Delta's fitness centre - did a little morning training and then brunched at Cora's (a Mocean staple!). After a quick tour of the Confederation Centre backstage, we began our workshops in their brand new Studio 2 - a fantastic space. I led today's series of 3 Jazz workshops (Intermediate, Advanced and Performance skills) with assistance from DJ mel. Lovely dancers here in Charlottetown. They really brought a lot of passion and energy to the classes.

After the workshops...Mel had her heart set on Oysters Rockefeller. PEI is known for its Oysters....and apparently she grew up on this stuff with her grandfather being from PEI. We headed back to Dublin Pub where you can eat and drink for cheap, but order nice Oysters from the downstairs restaurant!! Mel got her wish, and also continued on her quest to learn how to drink red wine because it's good for your heart (not something I have any problem with, but her face gets really red). I tried some of PEI's famous "slidders" (raw oysters) - Yum!

Now we're settling down for a cozy night at the Delta getting ready for tomorrow's modern workshops.
Photos coming soon....
good night!
-CC

Frenchy's and Sally Ann are lighter because of us!

It's our last day in Sackville and we've had a few more adventures to report. Yesterday began with a self-directed ballet class (Catherine, our ballet teacher would be proud!) at the university fitness centre and then we headed back to Patterson's for a classic diner breakfast (guess that cancels out the ballet class!)

After that, we stopped back at the hotel to drop off our sick little Mel (seems she always gets a cold while we're on tour...there's something suspect about that...) to get some sleep and Carolle to slog away on the operating grant appendices. That's a full-time job in itself!

Sarah, Tania and I then took off on a cross-province adventure (meaning we drove back to Nova Scotia, to go to Amhearst). We'd been told that the second-hand shopping was something to write home about (and as you can see I'm doing that, so they must have been right!)

We started off at Guy's Frenchy's and wasted no time jumping into the 2-for-1 bins. We were also shopping for Carolle too, so each of us were constantly pulling out items and calling out who we thought it might be good for. We quickly filled up our laundry baskets and headed to the dressing rooms. Sarah, as usual, was the most successful and came away with almost a whole new wardrobe, including the "piece de resistance"...a pair of black, snake-skin, high-

heeled, shin-high boots! We then headed on to Salvation Army to discover that it was "Bag Day"!

This meant that you could fill a garbage bag for $5! The tricky part was that we had less than 10 minutes to do it because they were closing! Well, we took this as a challenge and grabbed anything that we thought might be good for anyone we knew! This included some choice finds like this pink hippo sweater jacket, a fur lined hat (CC was looking for a russian model hat, but I don't think this is what she had in mind!), and some black snake-skin pants!

After dinner, it was off to the theatre to meet up with Marcel and Tom to start our tech. Those two are so good that we were even able to start an hour earlier that we thought. (There boys, how do you like those accolades!)

Today, we're about to begin a very long day, which starts with teching the rest of the show, doing a dress rehearsal, then the show and then driving back to Hali tonight. Ahh, life on the road...

Till next time (which will be Moncton in a few weeks),

Saragan

Patterson's, Jean Coutou and more....

After lots of admin work at the Bridge street cafe this afternoon we hit up the local Sally Anne and it was 50% off! A few good finds! Mel (not able to second hand shop due to extreme allergies...see previous posts) and little T (Tania) walked home through Waterfowl park instead. They saw waterfowl - 2 ducks, muskrats and bull rushes. There are mysterious skinny birch tree sticks just stuck into the ground all over the place here....we're on it and will let you know why as soon as we solve the mystery.
We then stopped back at the Coastal Inn for some quick modern and jazz combo "hotel choreography" (between the bed and tv) in prep for the workshop with the Mount Allison Dance Society. Then...we found it.....Patterson's. Oh yeah baby. The best diner food haven ever. The fish and chips was more than Saragan could handle. Sa finally satisfied her unstoppable hunger with some jalapeno slammers, a haddock dinner and an old fashioned milk-shake. Mel was really disappointed that she didn't realize you could get breakfast all day, so we'll be heading back there for an after class brunch.
After dinner we took a stroll to Jean Coutou for some candies and spa treatment face masks (anti-aging for the old hags - Saragan, Sa and myself, and moisture treatment for the young ones). Then we were off to Mount A dance studio to teach a workshop for the Dance Society. We had a great turnout of about 25 women. Mel taught a modern class (cunningham technique)....highlights include her elaborate "you're underwater and a fisherman catches your chest with hook and starts to reel you up" image for doing a high lift properly. I taught a jazz combo at the end of class. Such a great group of ladies!

We ended a great day with our spa treatment face masks (slightly gluey, but nice). Thursday is tech day and Sarg and Tom are on their way here.....more to come as we prep for the show!
CC

Bridge Street Cafe

So here we are at Bridge Street Cafe. We're hard at work with each our own laptop and Carolle contacting Rohan through the banana line. Everything is calm today. We all went our separate ways this morning and were free to explore the town with no scheduled activities until 8pm. I enjoyed a walk through the water fowl park which was stunning, Carolle went to the gym, Saragan worked on Nutcracker, Melanie did some internet shopping and Tania pondered her new roles in Susie's and Roger's pieces. We've hooked up here at the hottest coffee shop I've ever been in. It feels like we're in Cuba and our pregnant member in a turtleneck sweater feels like she's going to expire of heat exhaustion very soon. She's hanging in there. What a trouper!

Anyway, across the street is the cutest theatre I've ever seen and I wish there was an afternoon show but no such luck. Next door is also the most authentic diner of diners called Mel's Tea Room which we decided to pass on because they served Jo Louis, Packaged Brioche and Canned Heinz Soup under bright floursescent lights that turned us an unusual shade of green. I would like to go though because it looks perfect with the mint green and dirty beige plastic furniture and old vinyl floor tiles.

I may hit Sally Anne later and walk back through the park. Sackville's a nice town. It would have been a fun place to go to University. OOOOH no! Actually we just found out this second that they don't compost here. On second thought I wouldn't be able to live here. So sad.

Until next time. Sa

Tania's first time in NB

So we are back on tour - this week we will spend our time in Sackville  NB, yes that is right in sweet old NB... It's kinda exciting to me because I have never been in Sacville and even more exciting for our new girl Tania who has never even been in NB - she is very excited to say the least, hence the title of this blog. 

Now I must admit I am not the "best" with computers and because this "fall time change" has really got me all messed up I am too tired to figure out how to put this photos in the right order so I will explain them in reverse order.

These first two photos are from the last workshop of the day. We went to the local curling club and taught a wonderful group of little ladies who seemed to have a great time. Unfortunately my allergies and asthma don't allow me to hang out in environments such as Frenchys, musty rooms, mildewy spaces and old buildings like the Sackville curling club, I lasted about a half hour and then had to leave so I could pass out in the van and start to breath normally. No worries though because the rest of Mocean suffered through it and prevailed. By the end of the workshop there was 12 smiling little girls which was wonderful. 

Now this last photo and the next few that follow are almost the highlight of our day - don't get me wrong the workshops and performance were great and the kids were sweet but we found this playground and thought it was unreal. I don't know about you but when I went to school we didn't have mini zip-lines on our playground - woap woap - it was so wicked fun.... Sa (Sarah Rozee) was the star and we now know where her little Sophie gets her monkey skills from. 

I am pretty sure these photos explain everything and I don't need to add anything, except I will take this time to say that solo shot of me on the zip-line is actually way cooler then it looks and I am really doing some fancy trick with my leg and I am not actually just scared. 

These next two photos are from our first workshop of the day - we had three workshops and one demo today. The kids at this school were great!!!!! They were sweet, energetic and extremely creative. What a treat. 

So I know I said earlier that the playground was almost the highlight of our day and I am assuming you are wondering what the "actual" highlight was..... Well today on our hour break we drove to Dorchester to see the penitentiary. CC told us that it was maximum security or something. Anyway I highly recommend driving by it if your ever in the area! It was crazy cool. We couldn't get too close because apparently only authorized vehicles  are allowed up the driveway and also your not allowed to smoke, have cell phones or video cameras on their site. Anyway it was awesome!!!! and the town was really interesting. 

Now my friends it is time for me to run off too bed and finish watching the election!!! fingers crossed. I will also address the fact that this entire paragraph is underlined. Actually you can choose one of two options, 1 - either I thought it was extremely important or 2 - somehow the underline got turned on at the bottom and I have no idea how to fix it.

Good night and sleep tight!

Last Show!

So sad - today is that last show!

Yesterday was awesome. The photo shot was very, very successful and we got some wicked shots, which is always good news. So check out the website soon and you can see the new pics.

The show was also great. The Lieutenant Governor came (we call her the LG for short - everybody needs a nickname) which was such a treat. Afterwards she came to speak to us and told us that she loved the show and it really made her think. She was a lovely lady and I hope she will come back to see us again. - we also got our picture taken with her but I think we might need permission to post it. :)

It was also great to see Alicia. She came and spoke for us at the top of the show and it was nice to have her hanging around backstage with us. I love when the gang is all around!

After the show Carolle, Sara and I went to the "shoe shop" for some eats and drinks!!!! Unfortunately I won't be able to go out after our last show because of my friends wedding so we had to go out last night - that is sad because I couldn't have my traditional after show food - DEEP FRIED PEP. That particular cuisine is only for instances when I don't have to do anything the next day. ----- but I had spring rolls which was a good compromise. 

So tonight is that last show - and the last pre-show banana which makes me sad. You should all be happy to know the life of Nutella is still going strong and I still carry a container of it around with me. During this run of shows, we decided to test the banana theory I came up with last time we were in Fredericton and I must say this particular pre-show practice is a keeper!!!! woap woap. Feel free to try this - Before a show at about the half hour mark, eat a banana (I enjoy it most when it's accompanied by Nutella and CC even bought peanut butter to go with it) The effects are amazing. It totally calms you down and stops the shakes that most people have before a show. I now swear by this "law" - yes I just declared it a law and I will practice it before every show - Jon if your reading this make sure Sara has a banana before her show, you ate her one from last night.

Alright back to the fact that it is the last show. I must admit I love this show. I love the continuity it has and I love the things it makes the audience think about it. Hopefully someone that runs a theatre will enjoy the show as much as me and we can tour it. I really believe that this show is worth seeing and sharing to as many people as possible. 

My mother just phoned me and read the review in the paper. She started the conversation saying it wasn't a good review - I was sad and asked her to read it to me. When she was done I was laughing and saying mom that was a wicked review and you are a jokester.. she thinks she is funny sometimes. - here is the link if you would like to read it. http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1057795.html

This will be my last post until the fall, which is sad but don't forget about us when the fall comes because there is lots of touring - which means lots of new stories and fun adventures. 

Cheers

Melanie