Love Triangle (Tale of Two Sisters)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

What am I talking about? Stacey's private on Friday morning as her little one, Nikita, had her class. Anna and Malaika were there as well, competing for Nikita's affections. They may have been on top of the world a few weekends ago, but yesterday, it was the end of the world.

Stacey wouldn't repeat this for my camera, but while she was bouncing on trampoline, she told me that she was worried that Nikita thinks Anna is her mom.

At the end of workout, it became apparent to me that Nikita must have been saying as much. I filmed her as they were about to leave, and it turned out to be very sad, very charming, with some drama. Had I known, and had I known in advance that I'd be using the song, "It's the End of the World" (Carpenters' version, since I used it in the last video), I would have filmed more- Malaika crying earier when Anna bumped her, saying she wanted to go home; and also at the end when Anna was "stealing" Nikita's affections away from her. It could have made this video soooo much better. But at the time when it was happening, I just didn't think I needed any more footage of Malaika crying (she stated to me that she didn't like her "Bad Day" video). It seemed inappropriate to capture any more of her stormy drama and unflattering tears. But now I'm sorry that I didn't for fun and posterity's sake!



I'm hoping the girls don't see this video until they are older, and above any feelings of jealousy and grudge-harboring.

I tried to get Anna to empathize with Malaika's feelings of apparent rejection as an older sister role model, by asking Anna how she would feel if one of her younger sisters were to show greater loyalty and affection for someone other than her sister. The wheels in Anna's brain seemed to turn ever so slightly...but there was no selfless Sydney Carton moment in her heart, as she said, "...but Nikita wants me..."

Tis a far, far better film that I could have made, than I have ever made before...

Gymnastics Fiction

Last Year, Stacey and Trish had each other in the Wednesday adult class, as they were the only ones consistently present. They really got into learning the level compulsory routines, and started out with the level one floor; and I think went up to level 3, which they showed off at Spring Fling in May. During their floor routine, they went at the same time along with a couple of the Academy-level kids. After their performance, they kind of shoved past the kids to high-five each other. They were totally into it. Pretty good for a couple of people who had never done gymnastics before, and who have shoulders stiffer than mine.

"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.

Cartwheel-a-thon 2005