Skating Saturdays

Just a quick post with some pics of Seren practicing her roller skating and the boys playing in the garden.

West Side Story

West Side Story by WAWWA The Musical Youth at the Dolman Theatre, Newport

Based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story transforms the play to a musical set in 1950s New York. The story surrounds two rival gangs (the Jets and the Sharks) getting ready for a fight, when one of the Jets leaders falls in love with the sister of the rival gangs leader.

The cast was full of strong performers who were at their best when they were singing but there were parts of the shows opening night that felt under rehearsed especially the dance routines at the beginning of the show. It often felt as if the stage was too small to encompass the whole cast and that a bigger venue would have helped the performance.

The stand out moment of the show was when the whole company was on stage singing the song Tonight, it really did make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A bit of light relief comes in the song Gee, Officer Krupke where the Jets are mocking Officer Krubke after escaping from him.

The shows finale is a bit of an anti climax, (count the bodies!), but thankfully the closing scene is rescued by excellent performances from the supporting cast and Nadia Murphy who played Maria.

Happy Birthday Seren!

It's nearly Seren's birthday and we are having a High School Musical day to celebrate. Her birthday presents was HSM roller skates, HSM fleece blanket and HSM jewellery from Uncle Paul. After school we went to Pizza Hut with Mamgu and Dadcu and then we had HSM birthday cake.

Then, finally almost a year after we booked the tickets, we went to the Wales Millenium Centre to watch the official version of the High School Musical stage show. Look at how cute Seren and Jon look all dressed up in the pictures below:

Spotty Day

Today is Children in Need day and Seren and Jon got to wear something with spots on to school today. Luckily I had been shopping a couple of weeks ago and found these great Pudsey Bear T-shirts. Don't they look great!

Bonfire Night

Tonight is Bonfire Night and as there are no organised Fireworks Displays actually on Bonfire Night in Newport (this year it was on Sunday 2nd Nov) we decided to walk around our estate and see the other ones that have been done. The picture above is the best one we saw and it was done by our neighbours in the cul-de-sac, well done guys.

After our little walk we did some sparklers in the garden, click on the set below to see more.

Uncle Paul's Visit

We've had a weekend visit from Andy's brother Paul. The kids really enjoy seeing him and it tied in really well that he could come down to see them when they were off school. Today he got to spend some quality time with them at the park and then we went to the local pub (The Stonehouse) for a meal.

Click on the sect below to see us enjoying our meal: