2009 Natchez Pilgrimage Pageant: Part 2

I borrowed this image from Torri who had this in her 2009 pageant album on facebook. Surely, she doesn't mind since she had it on facebook anyway. [I had tagged myself for the images.] We were sitting in the far righthand corner close to the stage...not a very good angle for capturing images of the dancers. So I glad I got this. I tried to wait to capture it at the end, but to no aveil, I don't think I got it. FYI: Cari (right back) and Alexa (front center--pink)

This is Natalie and her mommy, Brittany. I took it before the pageant started trying to get my camera setting ready.
I am really not that great at capturing images in the dark like this and I would probably do better to bring my whole photography set up like for a wedding or something, but as usual I was running behind as I was leaving. So just remember these are not professional images, but my candid memories captured from the audience.

An awful capture, but I still wanted to include (I think this was before I decided on all the settings that I was going to use too). But this is Cheryl Morace the President of the Garden club (who put on the pilgrimage pageant each year), one of the many hats that Cheryl wears, along with her escort.


Natalie is intrigued and loved every minute of it.


Cari and the other Fanny dancer as they came to the stage.

Mostly back angles, but still oh so pretty.

Cari did struggle some with the dance this time because she had to wear her new toe shoes that weren't broke in...

I just love capturing images of these girls on toe. It amazes me of the strength and agility to have the ability to perform dances like this. I never had the opportunity to take any kind of dance, but I truly respect and admire these girls who can!

Alexa had the lead. This is her coming out on the stage.

Alexa again...

and again. Alexa had been taking ballet for years. She took last year off, but missed it so much and came back this year. I am so glad since Cari is taking it too. It's so great for best friends to share things like this!

My last shot. I wanted some images showing all three girls. I wanted this one and I wanted the back view of the first images that appeared in this post. But this image was the last image that I could capture on my memory card!

To read more details of Natalie's experience through my eyes, scroll down to the next post. As you glance at it, it probably appears that I double posted. I did repeat some of the images. The next post was intended for Natalie's World. After I finished it, I realized that I had it here. Oh well...

~~ja~~

OOPS...I was wrong one more image...this was the last one that I captured Saturday night. I thought I was at the last images that I posted. Sorry!

Natalie's First Pilgrimage Pageant Experience...

Saturday (March 28, 2009) was Natalie's First time to go the Historic Natchez Pilgrimage Pageant. And again she loved it. It was about like taking her to the Nutcracker (4 months ago). She was amazed at the dresses. She had tons of questions. We all love seeing things through her eyes. It makes everything so much more special.

Natalie and her Mommy...

[...posing for Mimi while waiting for the pageant to begin.]

She was mesmerized!
[She her holding the program book. She wouldn't let go of it. It was very important to her to hang onto the whole time. Another little insignificant moment that will remain precious to me because I captured it.]


We didn't have the greatest seats. We go more angles from behind than in front, but I am glad that I captured these from a different angle that the imags that I captured of her last time. Natalie's Aunt Cari is the one closest to the camera (right).


This one is all three girls doing Fanny. Alexa has the lead and again that is Cari closest to the camera (right on back row). Natalie loved watching her Aunt Cair and Her Alexa dance. She says she wants to be a ballerina too. So guess who will be taking her first year of ballet this upcoming school year?

I really didn't get very many images. I had to get myself ready and Natalie so I was running behind ("now what's new?") so I was on game when I grabbed my camera bag. I saw that it had a memory card in the pocket so I was thinking that I was good to go. The memory card only had about 10 imags left. Normally I just re-format the card and go, but I was pretty sure I had not downloaded the images on the card from our Saturday afternoon about 6 wks ago playing golf at the country club. It was another one of the precious fun days that I certainly don't want to forget. Without those images, I know I would forget some of the moments. Hopefully, I can find some time to go back and post them before I forget all the enthusiam that Natalie displayed that day. I am telling you, this girl has such a zest for life that I wished we all possessed!

I was just going to say that I was going th share the rest of the images on Worth Remembering when I realized that's where I have been putting this. It is way too much trouble re-doing this. So I will just add one image and do a link to this post on Natalie's World. Again this is the problem of having more than one blog!

~~ja~~

2009 Natchez Pilgrimage Pageant: Part 1

Cari: on the right

I am titling this Part 1 because I hope to go to a few more performances over the next 4 weeks. When you're daughter does this four nights a week over a four week period, you can't make them all. Today I was still beaming with pride that Randy and I had last night over our daughter's performance.

Cari and I were discussing the last time that she performed ballet before an audience was the last Mini-National level pageant that she competed in the summer of '99 in Shreveport, La. A little background to those of you who didn't know us back then: We, I mean she, had competed in pageants since she was 8 months old, off and on. This particular year we decided to lay off pageants for a while..okay I decided...maybe she had input. She was still five when we made the decision.

So rather than competing in pageants, we competed in dance. [edited to add: I think competition can be very healthy for children.] Her dance school started back competing that year! So we decided to tried a new kind competition. She was supposed to do a little tap dance with another girl and two boys, but for some reason this dance did not work out. So Cari being the youngest performer in the group that was committed to performing, her teacher choreographed her a solo. I think...I would have dig out the papers to make sure, but I think her dance was called Tiny Ballerina. She competed in three different competitions in dance as a solo and in also at each competition she also competed in a very large group dance. This included all the children that were competing. I don't know exactly what the wins were on the group dance, but I know they did well. In her Tiny Ballerina solo, she won two first place awards and a third place. The third place had many kids in her age group. I was pleased with the third.

In the collage that I posted yesterday, you see five different costumes. After the competition, they finished getting ready for recital. At recital, Cari performed five different times. I still remember our first recital that I discovered then that the seniors get to perform a solo. So then I started looking forward to Cari performing her solo when she was a senior. So it was quite exciting that we didn't have to wait until she was a senior, she performed her group dances with her class and she performed the large group dance for competition. SHE ALSO PERFORMED A SOLO AT SIX YEARS OLD!

For many reasons, I was so glad that Cari was allowed to perform that solo at Debra Franco's School of Dance recital in Vicksburg, MS. Because less than a year later we moved to Concordia Parish and Cari has not had dance with Ms. Debra again.

I don't want to go into details because I am finding that I am already being too wordy...much more than I intended to be when I started the post. But this fall, after everything...I mean somethings, went back to normal after Hurricane Gustav, Cari began ballet classes again. This time at Natchez Ballet Academy. I really don't think her teacher thought Cari would be that great. Cari nor I didn't really know what to think...Okay...I felt like she would be good. Ms. Debra always said that Cari was a natural ballerina, but I just know how she is...if she wants to be good at something "you can bet your last dollar" that she will be. THAT'S MY CARI!
So who would believe that it had been 10 years before this child (young woman) had performed ballet before an audience? Apparently not any one who saw this performance last night! And even her dad and I, who knew this, could not believe our eyes.

Cari: on the right

Okay...I confess I am not very professional at this kind of photography...so I did black and white images of the ones w/red-eye...it's okay, huh? since this isn't my professional blog?
Cari: right (back)

By the way, Cari is actually just an understudy. She only been on point shoes since November!

She is actually committed to this dance...Can Can!

Cari: in the middle (front row)

I don't know how many of you who view this actually read the text or just look at the images. When I view blogs it all depends on my mood and the time that I have at the moment. If it looks really interesting and I just don't have time, I come back later to read the story behind the images. But just for your information: That pageant that she did her solo in August 1999. She won overall supreme age 3-6...accumulative score of many different competitions including photogenic (by mom, the photographer) and talent (her ballet solo). I was very nervous because girls that we had known for years in our age group had been getting very serious about pageants were taking voice lessons and such for talent (so I had heard through the grapevine...if that was today it would be facebook or someone's blog, huh?), we spent that time in dance competition. I was concerned that our judges wouldn't recognize her ballet as "real" talent. Since the pageant was in August, several children did recital type dances, but I (and our friends) could tell that Cari's dance was much more than a recital dance. and by the way...SO DID THE JUDGES! SHE WON TALENT!

And to those of you who don't know much about pageants and think that's it all superficial...well some of it really is, but it is a serious competition that a lot can be learned out of it, but at the same time I think if you stay in it too long, around "some" of those people too long, you get sucked right into it too. It's sort of like gambling, but with some "crazy" moms. Maybe I was one of them, but I don't think I let me myself go that far. As I often tell some people...I was like Jon Benet's mom, but w/o money. And in the pageant industry...no money can keep you a little more grounded/humble however you want to word it.

Okay, I did not intend to post so much info...but there I go again. I did, however, want to do something with these images right away. So often my stuff gets put on the back burner for so long that it really is old news.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT! NEW NEWS! OUR BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER WAS A BEAUTIFUL DANCER LAST NIGHT!

~~ja~~