Christmas Around the World 2011

Last weekend, we went to watch Kristina dance in Christmas Around the World.  She was amazing dancing the Polish and Russian dances.  I loved the scarf dance and all of the beautiful costumes!  The Polish costume has really thick material like the native Polish dancers wore (since all of the costumes are authentic to the countries).  My other favorite were the dances from Mexico--it brought me back to watching the dancers in Cancun last year do very similar dances while we were there last spring.  There also was a group invited to perform folk dances from Africa which were really amazing. Knowing now that this will be her last time performing in Christmas Around the World, we're especially grateful that we went over to see her dance in this incredible show.

We enjoyed having the family all come to see her perform and one of my good friends, Analane, who has been a supporter of Kristina's dancing come, too!  We went out to dinner afterwards to Terra Mia, which I had wanted to try, and the food was delicious and was served very quickly for such a large group--they even had gelato which the kids loved.

Another highlight of the weekend was getting to see friends of ours which we hadn't seen since we lived in Texas (the Janis') and catching up on our lives again and friendship.  I'm so glad we'll be able to see more of each other in the future!

Beautiful set decorated for the holidays

Congratulations hug from her cousins & sister

Polish costume

Always on the go, never can catch Matthew for a picture

Summer Boating & Work

This summer, Kristina spent another summer working at Bailey's Moving & Storage. She really was a great help to them during their busy time & came to appreciate the people who work there, too.

She also was very busy with the Young Singles activities at church (almost every night there was something fun to do). She also took some of her YSA friends out boating on Saturdays. She's becoming quite the amazing waterskiier!

Christmas Around the World

Kristina auditioned for the BYU International Folkdance Ensemble in the fall. There were over 200 dancers who auditioned and only 33 made the team. She was one of the lucky ones who did. She performed in the Homecoming Parade and in December in the Austrian dance at Christmas Around the World. We flew over for the weekend to see the show. It was spectacular! We bought tickets at the front and with so many dancers it took a while to find her, but she ended up dancing right next to us. It was great to see her performing in such an amazing show!

Education Week and starting BYU!

After we came back from Bear Lake, we had a busy week of cleaning up the house and getting ready for Kristina to go to college. There are a lot of things to pack when you're going to be gone 2 semesters, and she wanted to get together with some of her high school friends she hasn't had time to see (because of working so much this summer) before she left. Plus, there were missionary farewells of some special guys in her life, and a boating trip with them that kept us very busy that week.

It was my first time to drive over the mountain passes (like Vail) by myself so I was rather nervous that I could do it or that our old Acura could do it either! The car had some trouble getting up the high passes but in the end, we made it to Provo.

Then we checked into the dorms for Education Week. We had such a fun time going to classes and spending some time together before she started school. I enjoyed showing her around campus, too. We met a lot of our friends from Texas there, and that was a highlight for me. One of my friends, Debbie, I hadn't seen since high school!

Kristina's already having a great time with lots of activities and new friends to meet. I'm so grateful she worked so hard to get into BYU because I know she will have so many incredible experiences and make some of the best lifelong friends there!

Sleeping Beauty

Last Ballet performance of Kristina's was the most memorable with her dancing the lead parts of Fairy of Beauty and Carabosse (the evil witch). Kristina wore a costume that she accented with a black wig giving her the look everyone kept saying she's a "beautiful yet evil" as Carabosse. She has a Russian teacher who taught her so much about acting and dancing this type of part--she really learned a lot! It has been one of her long-time goals to dance with a special tutu and she finally got the chance in the fairy part. She also did the Wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood and Katherine was a Rose in the Rose Adagio part. It was a beautiful ballet! Love the music, too!

June 8, 2008- Kristina

Kristina is out of school now. and has a busy summer planned. She is playing USTA Tennis events this summer, and won her first tournament last weekend. She played girls from the other high schools and played really well. Speaking of high school she earned her Tennis letter from Chaparal High School. She had a 4-2 record @ #4 doubles. It was really fun watching her play this year. She is developing a powerful serve and enjoys hitting high backhand volleys which she calls backhand overheads. She even survived getting hit in the forehead by her partner. Her goal is to play singles next year, which will be a big challenge but with only 4 returning lettermen it is a good possibility.

Kristina also earned her second stake president's award for seminary. She was one of 29 of over 200 that earned the award and only about half of those earned it for the second year. She was nominated to the National Spanish Honor society, and she is on her way to the National Honor Society with a really awesome cummulative GPA.

Next week, we're going to Utah so she can go to BYU Folkdancer's camp with her cousin, Nicole. Then she has Girls Camp where she will be a 5th year leader. We also have a trip planned to go with Grandma and Grandpa Murri to visit Palmyra and Kirtland. She is looking forward to Youth Conference and a planned trip to Trappers Lake at the end of the summer.