Archive for February, 2017

February 2017 – wow, where has the time gone?

Tuesday, February 14th, 2017

The answer to that one is a busy rest of 2016, with over 100 performances (108 to be exact!). Had an excellent trip home from the southern U.S. last March, with one free day to take a breath before Easter weekend, which had performances at Fort Edmonton Park, Muttart Conservatory, and the Valley Zoo over the 3 days – so we had our Easter dinner on the Tuesday following!

April as usual was catch-up time with much office work and preparations for May, which, along with mid-Nov to mid-Dec, is one of our two busiest times of the year. Children’s shows follow with the arrival of Thomas the Tank Engine to Heritage Park in Calgary, an event that gets bigger every year and we love it! Then the opening of Fort Edmonton Park for the season sees us in 1905 outfits, playing appropriate music and welcoming the thousands coming in! More children’s events; we like to donate our time whenever possible to a special night at the Zoo for Stollery Children’s hospital patients, also did Battleford Children’s festival – always good; plus schools, and the special days for schools’ parties at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage village, where we have appeared for many years, taking 2 extra performers with us to also run a stage at a different location in the village. We alternate with a skilled dancer who teaches the children Ukrainian dancing, always very popular.

Canada Day saw us back in Calgary, with a big parade and also 2 stage shows in Heritage Park – a few other different things included a seniors’ show in Edmonton with songs from around the world in several languages; the exhibition in Battleford, Saskatchewan, where we have appeared previously – this year doing the grandstand show as well. There were also several varied events at Fort Edmonton Park, before we joined with two long-standing U.K. friends for a 3 week tour through the Rockies, B.C., and Vancouver Island. We were blessed with great weather for all but 3 days, and Mary managed to get positively spectacular trailer sites the whole tour, including several where Jenny (our dog) could go into the lake/ocean. An amazing trip, which brought us home in time to bid farewell to our friends, perform for ‘free access day’ at the zoo, and for Mary to tour direct and host a full bus to the Hostfest at Minot, North Dakota for a week.
The Christmas season was a special one this year, starting a little earlier on Nov. 12th, when we got to do a children’s show for the City “Lights Up” – appearing for 11,700 who were standing in a light rain and had no intentions of leaving, regardless of the weather. At least it was warm and we had a big overhang, so no danger of getting electrocuted! Many different things before year end – Glendale Country Club, where we welcome Santa and do kids’ shows, 2 different events for Churches, 2 seniors’ lodges and four shorter performances for children on New Years’ Eve at Muttart Conservatory, to name but a few.

Now it is 2017 and we are doing some administrative catch-up until mid-March, apart from the last week of January when Mary flew to L.A. for the KAX convention of children’s and family performers from all over Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Europe, at which she had a great and productive time, as well as meeting friends, and saying hello to the beach whenever possible.

This year we have Canada’s 150th birthday since Confederation, so we look forward to letting you know the year’s activities as they unfold.
Thanks for catching up with us!