Tag Archives: Canada

“The Opus” of Belly Dancing — Grande Prairie

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It’s been a while since we’ve posted. Our lives have been incred­ible busy since we moved to Grande Prairie in September 2010. I can’t believe it’s been over 1 year. Our two busi­nesses we started are going great Beauchamp Creative and Beauchamp Photography, we volun­teer for the Reel Shorts Film Festival, I belly dance and volun­teer to dance at events, Chris does indoor rock climb­ing, we dable at some skiing and cross country skiing in the winter and I’m think­ing Yoga and choir for winter which lies ahead of us.

Here’s a video of what my friend and I like to call “The Opus” of belly dancing. It’s a 6 minute and 40 second dance we per­formed for the first time at a Christmas Festival called the Festival of Trees in Grande Prairie.

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Regional Belly Dance Show in Grande Prairie

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I’m happy to say that our belly­dan­cing per­form­ance went well yes­ter­day! The entire theatre sold out, and seven of the seats were filled with my loved ones and friends. It was pretty special for me to look out and see my mother-in-law, two nieces, husband, sister-in-law and two friends.

The entire evening was three hours long. Below is a video of two of the dances my class per­formed. I’m in the green outfit in the front. Enjoy. –Laura–

Grande Prairie Regional Bellydancing Performace Night, June 4, 2011 from Chris Beauchamp on Vimeo.

The first dance is a Fan Veil dance fol­lowed by a Drum dance.

Dancers: Laura Beauchamp, Macia Bell, Linda, Shirene, Deidre, Carrie, Julie, Christina, Shauna and Oksana.

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Purple Party!

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When I got the invit­a­tion to the Purple Party, I asked the same ques­tion you’re prob­ably think­ing, “What the hell is a purple party?” It’s quite simply actu­ally. The name is telling you exactly what it is. It’s a party where every­one wears as much purple as they can.  Then of course all the dec­or­a­tions, drinks and food will be purple as well. In this case, Abby, the host loves purple so the decor of the appart­ment is actu­ally what inspired the theme of the party. Unfortunately this evening I was more inter­ested in talking and drink­ing then doc­u­ment­ing the decor. However, I did manage to catch a couple shots of some of the lovely purple people that atten­ded.

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Skiing at Powder King in B.C., Canada

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Our good friend (who I also work with) Phil Bell, chillin’ on Powder King. If you’ve never been to the ski hill, I highly recom­mend it.

Chris and I met Lindsay through Marcia and Phil. She’s an art teacher, and yes you guessed it, she’s super rad. Here she is waiting her turn in the rental shop. This was the first time she was going skiing since she was 9-years old. She did amazing!

Just a glance back down the hill while slowly on the way up.

Marcia and Lindsay eager to get to the top.

We got a good chuckle on the way down when we came across this fake, bloody, arm on the trail. That would be the plaid thing hanging from Lindsay’s face. Hee,hee. Silly ladies. So much fun.

Chris and I enjoy­ing a romantic chairlift ride. I apo­lo­gize for my turtle face and fake smile. I seem to have trouble not making that face while trying to hold the camera away from us and actu­ally get us in the frame.

Looking sexy after a full-day of skiing.

Marcia and Lindsay enjoy­ing comfy clothes and drinks in the lux­uri­ous log house we stayed in that evening. The house belongs to Lindsay’s friends brother. It was the most beau­ti­ful log house I’ve ever been in. Thank you so much friends brother!

Here’s the kitchen of the log house. There was a foos­ball table in the house which occu­pied and enter­tained us for hours! Not kidding. We played one-on-one, two-on-two, boys vs girls. Afterwards we enjoyed pasta and wine and slept like babies.

The log house from the outside. We lit­er­ally had to shovel our way out the next morning. You can see why they call the moun­tain “Powder King”. I highly recom­mend skiing at “Powder King”. It was the best snow and powder I’ve ever skied on.

This is the little Echo that got all five of us and our gear the three and a half hours from Grande Prairie to Powder King and back.

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Christmas 2010

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A winter road in Grande Prairie. You don’t have to worry about NOT having a white Christmas up here.

We’ve rented a 4 bedroom duplex in Grande Prairie and the main living room ceiling is incred­ibly tall, so when Chris and I saw this 7 foot Christmas tree for sale at SuperStore we bought it without any hes­it­a­tion. Then we found ourselves holding the tree and looking at the small trunk of our car.

We did manage to get the 7 foot tree in the trunk of our car but...

...it meant shuff­ling around the gro­cer­ies in the back seat.

Chris started sawing off the bottom of the tree.

I tried to help out a bit, but was pretty useless at sawing, so Chris took over again and fin­ished the job. Together we secured the tree in its stand and “voila” after letting it thaw overnight we pulled out the Christmas dec­or­a­tions and dec­or­ated it together.

Chris dec­or­at­ing our first Christmas tree.

Laura getting ready to put a shinny red ball. We were so cute, Chris put on his green shirt and Laura her red sweater in honour of dec­or­at­ing the tree.

Chris and I at the County of Grande Prairie (my employer) Christmas party. (Sorry it’s a crummy point shoot shot.)

Phil Bell (my co-worker/friend) at the County Christmas party, with his arm around the door prize he won. It was hand­made by someone who works for the County.

We had our two nephews and two nieces spend the night one Saturday. Of course the girls and I played dress-up. They both tried on my nun costume from when I was in “The Sound of Music” in Grade 9. This is Delaney, age 6.

Bridget, age 8, dressed up in my Grade 9 nun costume.

Of course the girls had to try on their Auntie Laura’s wedding dress! Delaney, age 6.

Bridget, age 8, in Auntie Laura’s wedding dress. These days, wedding dresses always have ribbing and formed “boob” shapes, oth­er­wise the dresses would loose their flat­ter­ing shape because of the weight of the mater­ial that makes up a wedding dress. Kinda awkward looking on an eight year old, but yet cute.

The mittens I knit my mom for Christmas. I am now making Chris some, then myself. The are made with 85% mohair and 15% natural wool. I made up the pattern and design since I do not yet know how to read pat­terns. Not another pair on this planet exists like them. I hope they are keeping my mom very, very warm, espe­cially this past week when tem­per­at­ures all over Alberta were around –30.

Our niece, Bridget, on Christmas morning.

Our nephew, Ryley, holding the T-shirt we gave him. He is enthralled with palae­on­to­logy and, to say the least, views my co-worker Phil as a hero.

Chris gave our nephew, Gregory, the guitar that he, his cousin Shane and his friend Mike (Ham) all learned to play on. What a great Uncle, passing on the gift of music! On that note, Chris bought me an elec­tric piano for Christmas, jazz sheet music and the sheet music for Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It’s been won­der­ful getting music back into my life. Thank you Chris!

Last, but not least, our niece, “Delaney”, proudly and happily holding up some skates Santa gave her.

Chris and I spent a couple hours one night prac­ti­cing with our light stands and flashes. Here’s one of the por­traits Chris took of me.

A por­trait of Chris that I cap­tured that same evening.

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