We posted in February of last year about Hayley and I having an awesome time at Drag Bingo. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is Drag Queens and Bingo, joined together as a fantastic fundraiser for the Alliance of AIDS Services. They alternate drag performances with a round of bingo.
We had so much fun we started going regularly, bringing our friends and making new ones there. It’s a great event, we sit with friends with kids too. We’ve run into others we know, friends, teachers, all sorts of families and people. It isn’t for everyone and maybe some people find it shocking that we take our friends but it’s never too young to teach tolerance and it’s a damn good fun time.
The moviemaking camp Hayley was in this summer had their big screen premiere for their films at the Varsity Theatre, a real theater in Chapel Hill this afternoon. The theater is one I went to a kid so it was absolutely amazing to see her on the big movie screen there!
Hayley was one of the vampires in the Gothic/Supernatural short film entitled Maximum Judgment. The film is about 25 minutes long and fantastic. It was scary enough they had to tell people they might want to take any little kids out for that short… so you know Hayley, the horror film fanatic, was thrilled with making it and how it turned out.
With the help from the staff, the kids write the script, bring in props & costumes, do each others makeup and even help film it. This is an amazing camp with fantastic staff. The kids did an super job – the instructors even said how they took more shots and footage of this group than any other camp. Really just an amazing group of people all around!
We had a great time on Friday night going to Drag Bingo at the Raleigh Convention Center downtown. Yes that’s right Drag Queens and bingo, joined together as a fantastic fundraiser for the Alliance of AIDS Services. They’d alternate drag performances with a round of bingo. Hayley almost won one of the big games, she was sure she was going home with a bag of cash. Hysterical hosts, amazing performances and a fun crowd. Taking photos was remarkable – the motion of the outfits, the over the top vibrant makeup… I was in photo heaven. We can’t wait to go to the next one!
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What a great Christmas! It started off with going to the Carolina Ballet performance of the Nutcracker with Jenn and Mason. We did lots of crafts and baked, did our Christmas Eve Gingerbread house decorating and then our Christmas day Demolition Derby, the sixth annual! Between them, we opened scads of gifts and then had a full house for dinner. Top it all off with snow for a white Christmas and I don’t think we could ask for more!
It’s been a busy week! Hayley wanted to go to the NC Museum of Art so we headed over there to wander around since we hadn’t been since the renovations. She took lots of photos of her favorite stuff, mostly Egyptian and modern stuff. Good warmup for our big Chicago trip and visit to the Art Institute there!
I took this one photo of her but the rest are hers:
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Then this week Hayley and I went to see Rent put on by Broadway Series South group in Raleigh. First time I’d seen it on stage and it was wonderful. Hayley was transfixed by Angel – it was a raucous intimate setting in the Fletcher Theater so she had fun hooting and clapping. I think we would have stayed after for autographs but Hayley was in a very cool movie making camp over in Durham all week and morning was going to come early!
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If you are a reader of my little site here, you know of my great affection for the Keeper of the Gems, aka Leslie Hall and her band Leslie and the Lys. I mentioned her on her two years ago and several more times including meeting Leslie and the band at a show last year (CNN story, 09 concert pics, initial post).
Well fast-forward to February and Leslie and the Lys were playing in NC again. We arrived early to get good seats and lucked out as the band was just hanging out before the show so we spent 30 mins chatting, getting autographs and being silly – they actuallydid US State flashcards on Hayley’s iTouch with her which was hysterical but informative since they were on a concert tour of the country. A bunch of folks we met at the show before and kept up with on facebook showed up, all in our sparkly sweaters. It was a great deal of fun.
After the show, Leslie grabbed Hayley (literally) to take all sort of funny pictures.
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I’ve written in this very space of my love for Leslie Hall and her world of Gem Sweaters. Leslie is simply hysterical – the combination of great song topics and a midwestern white girl rapping in gold pants rocks. Hayley loves the Leslie & the Lys CDs and asks me play it in the car all the time. I love her website and her music because she’s original, funny and infectious.
I hadn’t checked the band’s website for their tour schedule but I found out one day last week on facebook & twitter that not only were they back on tour but over in Chapel Hill that very night! Leslie, her gold pants, gem sweaters and the Lys had arrived all the way from Iowa and we would not miss that chance. The Midwest Diva had knowledge for the Junior Gems!
She was playing at a legendary club, the Cats Cradle, that I grew up going to as well. I called them and they said it was cool to have kids there and Leslie, while appealing to adults more than kids normally, is pretty G/PG stuff (booty is the worst word I heard) and after all, they did invite her to dance on Yo’ Gabba Gabba twice last year. I informed Hayley about what I’d found out and she proceeded to jump around and scream like a crazy person, so I knew she wanted to go too.
The show was fantastic – not too packed or rowdy. We sang and danced, it was GLAMOROUS – shazzam! Hayley was the only kid there so she was feeling very cool. And then, things got even cooler when Leslie brought her up on stage! Hayley was thrilled – wasn’t even worried about going on stage at a concert. We even stayed after the show to meet Leslie and the Lys.
Needless to say, we haven’t stopped listening to the CD since the show. I’m so excited my kiddo gets this stuff – she can have her Hannah Montana, etc but I’m content to fill the rest of her noggin with offbeat original stuff.
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The last night of July, we piled up everyone for the nearly sold out massive Avril Lavigne & Jonas Brothers concert. It was INSANE but the girls had so much fun. We found their friends and had a group of ten girls from our neighborhood mostly of them on the swim team together. Great concert and such well-behaved kids.
I had posted a few photos right after the concert but here are all of them:
Wednesday night I took Hayley and her friend to see Corbin Bleu, Drake Bell, Ally & AJ in concert. Talk about insanely screaming kids, my hearing is still partially gone I think. Ally & AJ were better than I expected but between the High School Musicalfans to see Corbin and the Drake & Josh fans to see Drake, the boys definitely got more noise!
They were bummed that Corbin didn’t do anything from HS Musical 1 or 2 but he did do the main song from Jump In as an encore and came out in the Izzy Daniels boxing robe.
Drake was great – better than I expected as well. He’s got a whole mod, early-beatles sorta thing going on with the music and style. Luckily he did the theme song of the show, which we ALL screamed along with him. He did the song he released last season I think on the show as well as the new song that was the center of the story for the Really Big Shrimp Drake & Josh special.
(i didn’t take all these photos, some of them a friend sent to me. the security guys said my camera was too professional to bring into the concert so i could only use my cell phone camera.)
I hadn’t checked the band’s website for their tour schedule but I found out one day last week on facebook & twitter that not only were they back on tour but over in Chapel Hill that very night! Leslie, her gold pants, gem sweaters and the Lys had arrived all the way from Iowa and we would not miss that chance. The Midwest Diva had knowledge for the Junior Gems!
