more snow pics and the awards ceremony pics

beautiful missoula, montana, seen from some hilltop chanda climbed on her last day before getting on the plane for denver and then home.

 i heard through the morgana grapevine that she almost slipped down the mountain at one point during her hike . .  

 it's so beautiful!

 with her host friend and fellow competitor.

 lots of snow in the backyard. she said it snowed everyday, and was always about 5 to 10 degrees F.

 accepting her award for best choreography . . 

and a photo with a new found friend who once danced with the Royal, her favorite company.

more tag making and day three of the competition

 the apple bread that we made yesterday tasted just like a holiday fruit cake. it was very good and we loaded it with butter . . !

 morgana decided she wanted to make gift tags before i return everything . . 

we watched chanda perform her gamzatti, la bayadere piece via live streaming from the competition. it was fun except she made me watch sherlock at the same time so i had to keep checking to make sure i didn't miss chanda. however, we did miss her neoclassical piece as the live streaming suddenly cut out. i'm hoping they restore it sometime tonight.

cozy madeline . . notice san's gnome on the left?

 today she was out the door at 6:30 in the morning in preparation for the competition. here she is in the gamzatti costume (the "classical" piece), waiting to go on and trying to keep warm.

 in her journey through blue costume, the "neoclassical" piece.

all done for today. tomorrow she does her modern piece again for the modern finals.

meanwhile . . in missoula

i guess the family chanda is staying with has a cat . . 

the university . . whenever she texts me it seems to be snowing . . i think it's always snowing in missoula!

today she had a ballet class and a rehearsal and finished by 2 pm. the grandpa of the family she's staying with has been driving her around. today she asked if there were any nature walks she could take and he brought her to a really lovely one that wasn't too long (though she did end up turning around).

it's just so beautiful!

can you see the deer in the center?

heading back to the house, i think.

passports and airplanes

greg woke me at 4 this morning, but i couldn't get myself out of bed until 4:30. however, we were all dressed and ready to leave at 5 am . . somehow! it was so dark outside! we saw chanda through security and then i was ready to stay until her plane took off, but greg wanted to leave in order to beat the traffic back into manhattan. it was about 6:30/45 when we left.

well, we didn't make it very far before we hit traffic, and when i looked at the conditions on my phone, according to google, it looked even worse ahead of us. so, i suggested we get off at ocean parkway and he could park by korrina's building and take the subway in. i would wait until rush hour passed with korrina, and then drive the car in. korrina and i were planning to meet anyway, to take our passport applications in. the photo above is the view from her living room window.

here is the view from the kitchen window. it's a little further west so you can see the freedom tower in the distance.

we walked around the corner to her favorite coffee shop: milk and honey.

i was so happy to sit with a cup of coffee in front of me!

there's always that anxiety of getting ready for a trip . . it's not easy to stay calm. 

 

so, it was nice to sit down to a delicious breakfast with a hot cup of coffee.

poached eggs with tomatoes, pistachios, cannellini beans and scallions.

we left brooklyn around 10:45 and had no problem getting into manhattan.

korrina is trying on her gift from our friends marisa, tsering and deychen. it looks good!

we thought we would have to go down to the main passport office on hudson street, but since we don't need our passports in a rush, we were able to take it to the local post office.

it was very relaxed. we waited behind one woman for about ten to fifteen minutes, and then it was our turn. since we had done our homework, we had all necessary copies. the only extra expense was that i had to retake my pictures. when i had them taken six months ago, i had read that i should be wearing my eyeglasses. today, however, the woman said they want the photos without corrective lenses.

back at home we met up with morgana, after which they both took off for dinner at brian's restaurant. morgana missed the family and friends event before christmas, as she had gone to pittsburgh for her isadora duncan workshop.

back to chanda: she was flying all day. she landed in seattle and had a three hour layover until her flight to missoula. i think she got in around 5 pm or so.