1950′s Barn Dance!

May 23rd, 2011

When it was first decided that this year’s barn dance would be a 50′s theme, I thought how fun it would be to wear a simple poodle skirt and ponytail. Then I thought I could go a little further and have some fun with funky colors and prints. Then I considered the red lipstick and authentic hairstyles, and well, we eventually ended up with this!

What do you think? Does it look like we just stepped out of a 50′s soda shop? :-)

Check out the rest of the pictures!

The Photoshoot

The Dancing

Beautiful surroundings, good music, good dancing, and great friends. It was a wonderful day. I hope yours is just as great!

~Kasie

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We Had Another Ball…

April 19th, 2010

…and what fun it was too! Here we are posing with some of our friends there;

I love how half of us aren’t paying attention in this picture:

Click the “more” button for more pictures! (duh!)
Read the rest of this entry »

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Exodus: The Story of Moses

January 25th, 2010

What a fantastic weekend we have had! All four performances of the Exodus ballet went very well, no major hiccups or mishaps – only fond and funny memories. It was such a blessing to be apart of this production working backstage – Nate, Angie and I all had a grand time, as I’m sure Walter did dancing on stage!

I tried taking pictures from my usual standby near the curtain, but it’s such a horrible angle for photography with lights in the way and such. However, a friend of ours took lots of pictures from the audience, so I “borrowed” quite a few of those. :-) View as many or as few you like, and be sure to look for Walter!

Good times indeed! I hope to be involved next year too!

-Kasie

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Of Birthday Festivities #2

October 20th, 2009

Last week must’ve been the week for celebrating 16th birthdays, for in addition to Josiah’s party, we threw one for our new and dear friend, Ashlee, on Friday. This time, it was to be a surprise!

…well, “semi-surprise” is better put. We kept it a secret successfully until twelve hours prior when Ashlee put together many clues and curious details. She figured we were going to surprise her, but she didn’t know when, until we came knocking on her door practically!

Ah! We had such great fun together, as always. Among our festivities planned for the day, we had an airsoft battle! (that’s almost getting to be routine around here!) Ashlee and I had a little surprise of our own to add to that, which you’ll see in the pictures.

You know an airsoft battle has gone well when the all girls don’t mind playing again! We didn’t actually have time for that though, for next up for our birthday activities was to have a barn dance!

Angie and I are delighted to discover that Ashlee’s family has a wonderful barn for dancing in. We came prepared with music and dance instructions, taught a few new sets and danced away! It was very cold for a Fall day, but as any of our readers who have done vintage dancing before know, the dancing keeps you plenty warm. :-)

After a pizza dinner, it was our plan to go to the corn maze in the dark, but here the weather prevented us; it was pouring rain outside, as well as being quite cold. We’ll have to reschedule. But here’s a picture of us all before departing!

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Half of us returned to Ashlee’s house and finished off the party with some music, and an energetic game of “spoons”.  Ashlee said it was probably the best birthday party she’s ever had! It was awesome. Even if the surprise wasn’t a complete surprise, it was great fun!

Happy Birthday Ashlee!

-Kasie

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Civil War Dancing…Blindfolded?

September 10th, 2009

We’re a crazy group of people, but that’s what we did! :-D

In attempt to teach the gentlemen in our Civil War society how to properly “lead” the ladies while dancing, Angie came up with the brilliant idea of blindfolding all the girls! It was very amusing to watch, I’m sure, and forced all the guys to give firm hands/arms to their partners and direct them about.

I was dancing most of the time, but a friend was kind enough to snap these pictures with our camera for us! I thought you might enjoy.

[Note: this is not what we do when dancing at reenactments and balls. this is for practice purposes only!]  :-D

I certainly hope the blindfolds played their part in perfecting our dancing skills, but personally I was glad when they came off and I could see where I was going! We ended our practice with some of our favorite dances, Gothic Dance, Virginia Reel, and the Snowball Reel.

Have a great day!

-Kasie

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Two More Days…

March 26th, 2009

…’til our Civil War Ball! Huzzah!

And that’s the reason I haven’t posted anything lately (and probably won’t until after this weekend). :-) We’re still finishing up projects, putting our final touches on costumes and such. So far we have a headcount of 70 people who we are attending for sure… So yeah, it’s going to be an awesome time!

Cheerio! I must get back to work. God bless!

-Kasie

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Civil War Weekend

October 15th, 2008

The Battle of Blue Springs: a battle fought during the Civil War, and one that’s reenacted every year in October. There’s an education day for school kids, a ball…

Hold it! Did you say a ball? I’m in! :-)

The Civil War ball is what first caught our attention (some of our readers remember the reenactment we attended in VA, and on another occasion a Vintage Ball). But the ball is open only to reenactors. We had to fix that somehow…

Our homeschool leader, a long time Civil War reenactor, gave us and the rest of the group a crash course on what everyone needs to know about reenacting. After a few weeks preparation, everything was officially set – we would be reenactors (along with fellow our homeschoolers), and we were going to the ball!

We invited our friend Emily to join us for the occasion, which added greatly to our enjoyment those few days. We talked and played games in between meals and driving to Blue Springs, and even watched a bit of Spiderman3 at an indecent hour of night. :-) Ah, what fun we had together!

So here is a batch of pictures from the first day of the reenactment, “Education Day.”

Saturday morning found us girls bustling about all the bedrooms in the house; “Have you seen my snood?” “No, I thought you put it on the windowsill. Where’d you put my hat?” “It’s in the closet. Em, can you tie my bow please?” “Sure. Kase, is my skirt covering the hoop?” “Oh, there’s my snood!” “Careful not to trip over my dress please…”

:-D

Over in the boys’ quarters, Walter couldn’t decide if it was better to wear a cravat or not, and Nate declared that he looked like a monkey in his costume! But it is my opinion that, in the end, we all looked super. Don’t you agree?

My favorite part of the entire weekend was the ball. During the reenactment we walked all about the sutlery isle and both camps, and got our pictures taken more times than I can count. But nothing compares to the vigor and excitement that took place Saturday evening at the ball!

And can you guess who we saw there, amidst all the Union and Confederate soldiers and Southern Belles? Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates of the Carribean! No, ’twas not Johnny Depp, but there was a man there who was just like Jack in his dress, voice, and mannerisms.

Complete and absolute randomness, right? But I have to admit, Jack Sparrow added more fun to everything we did and danced, and was the life of the party!

I know, we should have taken more pictures. But see, that’s how much fun we were having! We were so busy dancing, talking and laughing we didn’t have time to think about our camera.

At any rate, it certainly was a weekend to remember. It was wonderful having Emily over; reenacting for the first time was a neat experience, and I loved the ball!

-Kasie

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More Dancing With New Friends

May 12th, 2008

Remember the ball that we attended a month or so ago? Well we made some pretty neat friends there, and they happen to be (as one would expect ball-goers to be) fairly enthusiastic about dancing. One family even invited us to come over and teach some “Pride and Prejudice type” dances. Angie was only too happy to oblige. :)

In case you guys didn’t know, historical dancing is Angie’s “thing”! Out came the CDs, and those cryptic dance figure diagrams (which I believe she had “hanging around” for just this sort of occasion). All in all ’twas a grand evening, with many dances and much laughter.

The Thomas family (you guys around?) would be proud – we demonstrated the famous “football dance”!

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The Vintage Family Ball

April 8th, 2008

I was so thankful that we had this opportunity to go to a “real ball”! God is so good in blessing us this way!

We received an invitation a couple weeks ago to a “Vintage Family Ball”, held and taught by home schoolers in Bedford. Since our friend E.M. from church wanted to attend as well, she got to come over as we finished last minute preparations! Kasie and I had finished our gowns a week or so before, but I had forgotten about Walter’s cravat, and was cutting it out the day of the ball! Walter dressed as half Mr. Bingley, and half Captain John Smith, but everyone thought he was the coolest looking gentleman of them all. I quite agree :D .

I wish we took some video of the ball to show y’all! Alas, we had were too busy talking and dancing to really think about that :D . The fellowship was so amazing!

As far as the dances went, I was expecting more of the slow Pride and Prejudice dances (English Country Dancing) that we’re familiar with, but Kasie and I were both surprised. Most everyone was dressed in Antebellum style, (hoop skirts and all) and the dancing was very aerobic, faster than most square dancing. (Though not as crazy as this dance that we did once). Kasie and I were thankful for our lady-like fans, and we employed them vigorously!

There were simple dances such as Virginia Reel and the Grand March, and rather funny ones like the Polka and the Broomstick Waltz. In the Broomstick Waltz, there is one extra gentleman on the floor who begins dancing with a broom. As soon as the music stopped, all the gentlemen had to switch partners as fast as they could, so they wouldn’t end up dancing with a broom!

Also I liked “Strip the Willow” and “The Snowball Reel” which included lots of weaving arm turns, twirling, sashaying and arching! All the dances were delightful, and so much fun to sway my skirt to! Thankfully I didn’t trip on my dress, but I did sympathize with Cinderella when I lost my shoes! I was twirling and skipping round so fast, that they were flying off. Eventually, I decided to join everybody else and dance barefoot :-) . The ball reluctantly ended at 11:00, yet we were all happy to rest in the car and sleep like logs when we came home!

“Oh I do love a ball!” – Lydia Bennet

As usual, I have written far to much! It’s so nice to easily blog again (Past couple weeks have difficult, with our mouse malfunctioning). Enjoy the pictures!

P.S. Sorry they came out blurry…. Our built in flash was just not doing the job, so we had to resort to longer exposure times.

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