Tag Archives: grande prairie

Regional Belly Dance Show in Grande Prairie

1 Reply

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.

This entry was posted in Canada, Video! and tagged , , , , on by .

Purple Party!

Leave a reply

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.

This entry was posted in Canada and tagged , , , , on by .

Christmas 2010

1 Reply

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.

This entry was posted in Canada and tagged , , , , , , , , on by .

Laura’s Photo Shoot of Kat Lord

1 Reply

My dear friend Kat Lord took a 13-hour Grey Hound bus ride up to Grande Prairie on December 30th to be with Chris and I on New Years Eve. She stayed the week with us and  then on Friday January 7th we all drove down to Calgary for the 50th Anniversary of The Gauntlet, the student news­pa­per Chris and I met at and the hub and heart of our uni­ver­sity careers.

While Kat was here, she wanted some photos of her and Zappa. Zappa used to belong to Kat when he was a new born kitten, but in 2005 Kat couldn’t keep him anymore and she asked Chris if he would take him. Zappa moved in with Chris and the other room­mates during the summer of 2005. I moved in with Chris, Zappa and the gang in September 2005. So, Zappa has seni­or­ity.  Unfortunately that means I clean his lit­ter­box, being the under­ling of the household.

So one day, while Kat was vis­it­ing, I set up the light stands, pre­pared the flashes, the camera, the CF card and lenses and did my very first solo photo shoot without any assist­ance from Chris.  Not only was this exper­i­ence valu­able for myself as a budding pho­to­grapher and essen­tial for the busi­ness Chris and I are start­ing together, but it was also fun, exiller­at­ing and left me wanting to do more.  Here a few of “the better” shots from the shoot, as  well as a couple that I didn’t com­pletely nail the focus on, but cap­tured a part of Kat’s per­son­al­ity.  She is a women of many layers with a rich and beau­ti­ful char­ac­ter, cha­risma and determ­in­a­tion. I look forward to doing another photo shoot, to capture more of the layers that make up my friend.

This entry was posted in Canada and tagged , , , , , on by .

Dinosaur Christmas Tree & a Cat in a Christmas Sweater?

2 Replies

People have told Chris and I that we look a like.  Do you think it’s pos­sible for two people to start looking alike just because they’re together all the time? Take a look at an old couple. Do you think so?

Here’s a photo of my parents.

Photo by Chris Beauchamp (www.beauchampphotography.ca)

Um? Well, at least my mother doesn’t have a beard.

Earlier in November, with the help of a volun­teer and my mother (who sent the blue ribbon) I designed ideas for dec­or­at­ing a “Dinosaur Christmas Tree” for a fest­ival called “Festival of Trees” in Grande Prairie. I decided to do the tree to help raise aware­ness about the new dino­saur museum we are trying to raise the funds to build in Wembley, Alberta. Check out the future museums website!

Our little 3-foot tree was sold for $100. It made me so happy to see “SOLD” on it, and even happier to see how many people were enjoy­ing it at the festival.

Laura’s “Dinosaur Christmas Tree”, rep­res­ent­ing the museum that will soon be built just outside of Grande Prairie, Alberta. As it stands right now, the museum will be called the, “River of Death & Discovery Dinosaur Museum”. How do you feel about that name? Like it? Don’t? Please let me know your opinion.

Our volun­teer con­struc­ted this crate. We had designed it to have a pile of sand sur­round­ing the base but the people organ­iz­ing the fest­ival wouldn’t put it there. Honestly! How hard is it to clean up some sand?

I hand painted the museums name onto the blue Christmas balls, and found dino­saur bones to hang from the tree!

On Saturday December 11, 2010 Chris and I hosted a grand Christmas Party. We had Christmas crakers, pot-luck, rockin’ Christmas songs and a Chinese gift exchange. It was a mar­velous time. We also had man­dat­ory UGLY Christmas sweat­ers. We made our own ugly Christmas invit­a­tions for our party, so we decided to stick Zappa, our cat, into a Christmas sweater.

Ah, Christmas cheer and spirit even in a cat. Don’t worry we gave him a treat after this humiliation.

He look’s pretty fat.

The gang who made up our Christmas party!

This entry was posted in Canada and tagged , , , , , , , on by .