Just Malaika's Imagination

This video is from Malaika's birthday party last September 2nd. It was a lot of fun to work, given the number of kids I knew (former SMGC students) who attended but don't get to see anymore.

Lilly, I think, was shocked to see Teri and I, and disoriented by our presence at LASG (I can't remember, but she said some "funny" and "curious" things about the gym switch, and why we left). I seem to recall her expressing some irk and ire, as though holding me accountable to SMGC's closing.




When we were at SMGC, at the end of her class, Malaika used to always ask me to make her a paper airplane. It was kind of a ritual, like when I used to come in and share my breakfast with Anna.

Madison's comment about the haunted maze in the video's closing credits can be better referenced and contextualized by clicking here. I should revisit that updated video, and prefix it with this clip of Madison, talking about it.

It took me 8 months to get around to doing this video. It just kind of happened accidentally while sitting in front of my computer, Friday morning, perusing my music library files as well as going through video files, looking for pictures to send to those who appear in them. Less than 24 hours later and....whalah! Video made, wrapped, printed!

I miss these kids and am grateful for being able to preserve some of the memories!

Malaika's currently been fencing, and loving it!

"Friendship Story"

I've had the idea for this video and the song for quite some time, but only just now got around to bringing it to fruition. Unfortunately, I had to leave a few pieces of footage on the cutting room floor...but I'll just sweep those up and salvage them for a future video, somewhere down the line.

This video is my first experiment in utilizing photos with captioning to help tell a story. It's a bit of a tedious process...almost like stop-motion, but of course, far simpler. You can see the results as part of the opening and closing credits of the video.

Stacey and Jolene bring their two daughters to the intro level class. Instead of sitting on the bleachers, around December of 2004, they decided to do gymnastics themselves, during the time that their daughters, Lilly and Malaika took class.

Stacey had actually been dreaming of trying the adult gymnastics program a year or two earlier, when Malaika was enrolled in the mother-and-me, baby class.

Last year she went through a pregnancy, and still worked out, almost to the end (check out her front flip, 7 months carrying). Stacey has been a very enthusiastic student. Both her and Jolene have some athleticism that has served them well in acquiring their gymnastics skills, basically from scratch.

They were also good sports, back in April, when they participated in the annual Cartwheel-a-thon.

Video is uploading right now....stay tuned.