San Antonio Robert Burns dinner 2013

Every year the last Saturday evening of the month of January, the girls are participating in the Robert Burns dinner for the Scottish Society.  They had a great evening, and all did a fantastic job in their dances! 

Katie warms up before going on stage

 

Mom's gotta get in the pictures every once in awhile!

 



The girls with their best friends ... they started dancing a year ago with the girls

The entire dance group before the performance

Katie & Christine (on the far left) both realized they have the EXACT same tartan for their kilt!

This dance the girls learned in just two practices.  They all did amazing well for the Broadswords in such a short amount of time.  They are dancing with their teacher Miss Annette and her daughter Christine (also a teacher).

Katie & Christine both are dancing the Seann Triubhas  .... after they dance this, they have literally 5-8 minutes to change into their blue dress similar to what the other dancers are wearing

Look at those leaps!

Maddie is dancing the Lilt

Here all the dancers are dancing the Highland Fling

the last picture is of the girls & one of their current (and former) dance instructors, Mary Beth ... aka "Miss B".  She taught the girls' first dance instructor, Carla.  Miss B traveled to Kansas City to do workshops, so the girls have trained with her before.  Imagine our surprise when we found out she was moving to San Antonio.  They took up lessons with her, then Katie decided she wanted to quit.  She took a bit of time off, and is now back to dancing again and preparing for her first dance competition this April after being gone from the competition world in almost 5 years! Miss B is whipping her in shape!  The girls LOVE Miss B!

Katie + the mall

I'm obviously not blogging as much as I used to, so when I find pictures on our little point and shoot that I forgot we had... might as well document it especially when I love the pictures!

Katie had a Young Women activity at the mall one night... and this mall is an outdoor mall.  Very uber cool.  It was also right before Christmas time, so the lights were out and it was just gorgeous.

and this little piggy ..... was shot

**** warning ****  dead hog pictures included!  Enter at own risk!!  *****

Back in November Mike took the girls to the cabin for a good 5-6 days.  Every night they went hunting ..... and one night they (aka ... Katie & Mike) was successful!

Hogs are wild down here in Texas, and they are EVERYWHERE.  They destroy so much, so typically property owners try to get an upperhand on reducing the amount of hogs that are wild.  Naturally... my family members do their part ... happily!

This one particular night, Katie managed to shoot a hog.  This is her second hog to shoot.  Notice I say the word "shoot".  She doesn't kill these animals.  I don't think she's ever killed an animal in her life (except for a cockroach or a spider, if you count those?).  She shot this hog in the butt.  THE BUTTOCKS. 

The hog squealed and squealed... and so naturally -- Daddy has to come to the rescue and put the poor hog out of his misery.  I mean.. his butt?  Poor hog!

 
Mike said the first thing out of Katie's mouth was "Is it bigger than Papa Rod's hog?"  My dad shot a hog when he took the girls hunting back in August last year.  Is this girl competitive or what?  The answer was yes... the hog was bigger than Papa Rod's. 

However.... the hog was very very sick.  Very diseased.  The smell was so incredibly bad .... so Mike didn't bother skinning it or doing anything with it.