I’m trying out a new WordPress plugin that allows me to embed my converted cellphone videos.

I’ve had this video of my great-niece on my phone for a couple years.  It’s extra cute when she sees herself in the front screen of the phone and clobbers me.

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I took this on July 1, 2007.  Abbey had just turned 1!

The Fall presentation this year was “Kodiak FlapJack: Man of the Frozen North”:

Step aside, Crocodile Dundee, Kodiak Flapjack is headin’ south! A likeable young outdoorsman who’s never been far from his hometown of Chug-a-lug, Alaska, Kodiak has just inherited a snooty girls’ academy in Connecticut. But under the conditions of the eccentric Cornelius Inchmeal’s will, Kodiak must serve as principal for a full year! What a hilarious mismatch this is for a guy who wrestles bears! When whale blubber is added to the menu, the faculty resigns. Kodiak solves the problem by hiring his woodsy friends from the frozen north, but Cornelious’ relatives are determined to get rid of Kodiak and his unpolished pals. Ultimately, of course, Kodiak wins everyone over and humanizes the school in the process. Inchmeal Academy relocates to Chug-a-lug, where the curriculum expands to include everything from snow-machine repair to fur sewing. – summary from PioneerDrama.com

It was a great show!  All the kids did really well and made watching all three performances fresh and entertaining.

Ashley played the role of Skagway Sally, the “true heir” of Inchmeal Academy and the surprise ending of the play:

While the kids put their own spin on the characters and scenes, a highlight was a “prank” played by the crew on closing night. See if you can spot the “guest stars”:

Ashley’s already excited about tryouts for the spring musical.

I have to admit… we’re looking forward to it too…

Today was the junior high talent show. It was held during the day, so Carrie and her Mom went up to the school to see the show. Carrie took the video camera and tonight I edited the video down and posted it on YouTube.

Ashley sang ‘Slipped Away’ by Avril Lavigne. I grabbed the video of just her song. Also from YouTube, check it out:

Wow.

Ashley performed the song: ‘Everybody’s Fool’ by Evanescence (yeah, I spelled it wrong in the video below…). While she professed to us that she only got a little nervous moments before she hit the stage, you could never tell. She had a couple problems transitioning from the verse to the chorus, but she said that the music was hard for her to hear and it messed up her timing a little bit. But for a seventh grader with no formal voice training she was pretty awesome.

She’s already decided that she’s joining the Concert Choir in eighth grade. We can’t wait for next year’s show.

The highlight of the day was a family tradition… the smash cake. Although I think the smash cake is celebrated by lots of families with little ones, very often the birthday boy or girl just looks confused at the cake or maybe sticks a finger or two in the frosting.

Not Abigail.

Abbey went cake-crazy. Take a look.

Merit roll and Honor roll awards were given out and all the kids went up and received their certificates. The last academic award was the 4.0 GPA award. The principal explained what a big deal this award was and proceeded to tell us how significant is was that only three kids in the entire school were eligible for the award this year.

That’s right, Ashley was one of the three. Ashley’s name was called along with two of her classmates (two boys who happened to be the class president and vice-president!).

Afterward we all gathered in the cafeteria for punch and bakery where Ashley was congratulated by her friends and teachers.

Our kid is the only girl in Middle School this year to tally a perfect score! We’re so proud of her.

I wound up buying a JVC GR-D370u. It takes MiniDV tapes and apart from a weird noise issue we had with the first one (which we exchanged a week later) it’s pretty nice. Of course in order to make the video play nicely online, I have to compress it a whole lot and that kinda makes the video quality all pixelated. But I could also transfer the vids to DVD and maintain the quality. Hmmm… I’ll have to try that next.

Now I have to figure out the best way to get my videos online. YouTube? Google Video? Just plain old embedded flash? I don’t know.

Until I decide, enjoy this embedded video clip of my family preparing to serve St Patrick’s Day dinner at the American Legion a couple weeks ago. NOTE: I replaced the video with a YouTube version… too many people were having a hard time with the ‘right-click > Play’ thing…)

What’s that? You’ve never heard of Jim Gaffigan? Oh sure you have… he’s the guy in all those Sierra Mist commercials:
Sierra Mist Comb Over
Sierra Mist Holiday Hawk

and He’s a frequent guest on late night television:
Jim on the Jimmy Kimmel Show
Jim on Late Night with Conan O’Brien

He was also Doug, the “open-door-dump” guy on Sex and the City:
(from the synopsis)

…Meanwhile, Miranda is a little freaked out when her date Doug pees in front of her the morning after their first night together. Miranda decides that she should go with the flow, and tries peeing with the door open herself. However, Doug takes the no-boundaries thing too far, subjecting Miranda to an “open door dump” after which Miranda quickly dumps him.

(Sorry, no video link on this one!)

He says that he’ll autograph anything you bring him, so we brought our copy of his “Beyond the Pale” DVD and Ashley brought an empty Hot Pockets box. He signed everything and as we posed for a picture with him he thanked us for coming to his show. Wow. He did two sold out shows yesterday and still had a line a mile long for autographs and he still thanks each of his fans for coming to see him. That’s cool.

Thank you, Jim. What a great show.

She’s so beautiful.

Even though she had lots of visitors, she spent most of the day asleep. Hey – she’s only a day old. And she had a big day. Click here to see more pics.