Move over Darcy ...!

As I write this week's update, I am still languishing in bed after being up half the night with a rather unpleasant bout of food poisoning (while Mr B snored on oblivious).  Yuk! Can't remember the last time I was so sick and today my stomach feels like it has been through a mangle (showing my age? ... thought so).

This week has been another busy week and once again we seem to have packed a lot in.  Last Sunday we headed up to Payson to experience our first rodeo, which claims to be the oldest continuous rodeo in the United States, the first one being held in 1884, and then every August since.  There were competitions in bare back horse riding, roping and of course bull riding - some of those bulls were HUGE - plus 'mutton busting' for the kids where they attempt to ride bareback sheep - all very odd - and barrel racing for the lady wranglers.

It was hot, dusty and I have to say rather tedious inbetween events - (especially as we had to listen to Youngest continually lamenting the fact that there was 'no Wi-fi or 4G signal' and therefore was cut off from the rest of civilisation apparently), but overall we enjoyed the tradition and pageantry of it all and it was a good afternoon out (but not sure if it will be one that gets repeated if I'm honest!)

We also attended a Back to School night at Ethan's school, where parents, armed with your child's schedule and a map of the classrooms, go from room to room and experience 10 minutes in each 'class' to experience a glimpse of their child's day.  I had not experienced this concept before and thought it was a great way of meeting all of his teachers and also the parents of some of his friends.  Ethan's classes were as follows: 

Advisory (where they meet in small groups with a teacher who is nominated as their advisor for the year and where they can discuss any issues and seek help for anything they might need); 

Algebra (I think I glazed over for most of this one); 

American History (nope, still no clue);

Advanced Media Arts - Ethan's favourite subject as focused on designing, writing and publishing their own video game - cool!; 

English - where we were assigned one of those trick passages to read and discuss who was in the wrong, where there is no right answer. (In this case though, it was definitely the husband ... It usually is); 

Biology (teacher was absent as driving her daughter back to college in Conneticut apparently ... Only a 36 hour drive!!; 

Yearbook - Ethan's elective this year where they will produce the school yearbook and learn about photocopy and journalism. The teacher is an ex-military war photographer! Never mind Ethan ... I wanted to take this class!  And finally ...

Spanish, where we were handed a vocab sheet on the topic of introductions and greetings.  Uh oh.  "Practice in pairs for a few minutes ... " then "how about this couple at the front performing a little skit for us?" and there it is ...!  Neither Mr B or I know a word of Spanish (well, except perhaps for that which we learnt from Manuel in Fawlty Towers ... Que?).  Great.  Oh well.  Suffice to say we managed to entertain the other parents of the group when Mr B asked "how are you?" and I answered "I am feeling unwell".  His reply of "I'm going to school" went down a storm.

I also promised in last week's edition to update on how the dancing lessons were going. Dancing lessons? you may be thinking ... let me elaborate.

Being avid fans of Strictly in the UK (now having to make do with Dancing with the Stars though, although they've got Artem so it's all good) we had often remarked whilst watching, as I'm sure have most fans of the show, that it must be lovely to be able like to dance like that and I had often coveted the beautiful sparkly dresses and costumes (I'm a sucker for anything shiny).  Well, a couple of weeks ago Mr B  came home from work and announced that he had found a dance studio really close to where we live and that he had booked us in for a trial dance lesson  Oh God! at the rather optimistically named 'Fred Astaire' dance studio.  Wait ... you did WHAT?!! The last time I had done any kind of ballroom dancing was when I was 7 years old and our mother packed my older sister, brother and I off to Saturday morning dance classes (which I have to say I really enjoyed ... although looking back maybe it was just the silver shoes I liked?).  Ethan was also suitably mortified.  "Oh God.  He is going to burst through the front door singing the Strictly theme tune and doing that embarrassing Dad Dancing isn't he?"  Spot on Youngest, spot on!

We arrived at the studio which was tucked away in the corner of one of the local malls.  I thought it would be full of old wrinklies with false teeth and syrups but i have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  After an initial fit of the giggles when we arrived and saw our names on the welcome board underneath some poor guy they had recorded as 'Mr Ben'  (I had visions of Mr Ben in the back of the shop changing into a pink tutu!), I managed to control myself for the rest of the lesson.

All the staff were lovely and we were given a tour of the studio(which was not at all like the broom cupboard I was expecting) and then introduced to our instructor, a lovely girl called Sarah.   40 minutes flew by and we had lots of fun, usually at Mr B's expense, but to be fair he did an ok job and at least (so far) I have managed to avoid having to cover my feet in plasters!  In fact, we both enjoyed it so much that we signed up for a course of lessons there and then.  We have now had 4 of our 8 lesson beginner course, and in addition to learning a rhumba and a cha cha we have now added Swing and Tango ... get us ... and although I don't think you'll be seeing us on Strictly any time soon it was definitely a 10 from Len!  Watch this space!