April 24, 2008

We had such a fabulous time playing in Red Deer, AB!  The concert was put on by the Waskasoo Bluegrass Society (thank you so much!) and it was so much fun.  Thanks to everyone who braved the mad Alberta weather and came out to the show. 

We are World Vision Artists, so at our shows, we try to get as much child sponsorship as we can.  We are so blessed and lucky to be able to get up and do what we do at our shows.  Sometimes it's easy to forget how lucky we are and how much we have.  It's not hard to take the "simple" things for granted, like running water and electricity.  This is our way of helping others without, and as a thank you for sponsoring, we give sponsors each of our CDs at our shows.  We brought all of our World Vision materials with us in Red Deer, and were so utterly happy and excited when two children were sponsored that day.  We just want to give a shout out to those sponsors!  We truly, truly appreciate what you have done and have agreed to continue to do.  You have given a child, and an entire community a chance.

It only costs a coffee a day, and I'm not talkin' Starbucks or Second Cup here.

Peace,

Alex
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September 11, 2007

Well school is back in session. I’m in my last year of high school, Grade 12! Andrea just started her first year of high school, Grade 9. We were really excited to see everyone after the summer holidays but just as soon as we got back to school we were back on the road.

From September 7th to September 10th, Andrea, Alex, My Mom and I were in Regina, Saskatchewan for the 2007 CCMAs. (Canadian Country Music Awards)

We spent the week going to seminars and meeting young artist just like ourselves. It was a lot of fun. We loved going to see other artist perform. Another great part… the food! We were never hungry at the CCMAs. We had an amazing dessert ever at the Gala Night Dinner, Saskatoon Berry Moose in a Chocolate Napkin Ring! Mmmm!

It was also great because we got to stay up late! It was late night jams in the hotel lobby for us! Alex jammed until four in the morning one time!

It was certainly a great way to start a new school year and end the summer! We can’t wait to go back next year in 2008.

Well that’s all for now, please remember to sign our Guest Book!

September 4, 2007

Well, summer has been great, but it’s back to school again for Aleisha and Andi.  Andi is starting grade 9 (it was her first day today!) and Aleisha is in her last year of high school! 

Our summer was pretty busy this year.  We got around Alberta, that’s for sure and even played at a festival in Saskatchewan.  It was great to run in to friends along the way, and awesome to meet new people.  Thank you to all the festival and event coordinators this year and of course the volunteers!  Everywhere we went we were well taken care of, and we truly appreciate the hospitality. 

Our new three-song CD should be ready pretty soon, and we can’t wait to have it in our hands!  It features three original compositions, all of which are written by us.  It includes Paper Doll, The Ferris Wheel Song, and Make You Believe.  Stay posted for more updates on when it will be available!

Please check out our full Tour schedule, and don’t forget to sign the Guestbook!

Cheers,

June 13, 2007

Hey Guys!

We haven’t written in forever! Well we’ve been keeping busy!  School is coming to an end for Aleisha and me and now there are summer performances to get ready for!

I can’t wait until summer! I’m getting so tired of school.  Just let it end already!!  But there are still the yearly school reviews and exams to go through.  That should be fun!

Well last Thursday we were at the Children Services Conference at the Sutton Place Hotel in downtown Edmonton, AB.  First of all compliments to the chef!  The food was positively amazing!  We had such a blast performing there!  Like très bien. 

On Saturday we went to our cousin’s wedding.  They had perogies at the dinner!  I love perogies!  Actually, we had perogies and bratwurst for supper Tuesday night as well.  It was the best supper ever!  Other than soft tacos!  As you can probably tell I just like food!  Except green vegetables.  They are just disgusting.  Just don’t eat them.  Especially broccoli.  It’s the sickest!  But of course that’s just my opinion and for most people it doesn’t count.  You know what I like?  I like ice cream!  And those McCain Cool Quenchers!  I pretty much drank a whole jug of the Berry flavored one by myself…I think Alex only had one glass. 

Now back to singing…on Sunday we sang the American and Canadian Anthems at an Edmonton Cracker Cats baseball game…then we stayed to watch the game!  I got to call on the peanut man.  So Mom, Dad, Alex, Aleisha and I all shared a bag of roasted baseball peanuts!  Then Alex was thirsty and Aleisha got popcorn (we eat so much unbuttered popcorn in this household I hate popcorn now…with a passion.) But I got my favorite…a corndog!  Now those are amazing!  Then I called on the candy man for some of those Maynards Fuzzy Peaches.  That candy man just kept walking back and forth in front of us so I had to get some, right?  Yes!  And by the way, the Edmonton Cracker Cats won the game!  Whoo!  The score was 9 to 8!  Hey! That’s a ratio!  …sorry, that’s the math kicking in. 

So tomorrow I go on my grade 8 retreat with all my classmates!  Or would that be more of grade mates??  Meh!  Either way!  On Friday we have our grade 8 farewell.  Good bye Junior High, Hello High School!  I can’t wait until High School, but I really need a break first, so thank goodness for summer holidays!

Monday we perform at the Global Country Festival of Stars.  We’re first on stage, so we get the pleasure of starting the show.  I have decided it’s going to be awesome!  We will be performing our new song that I wrote!  It’s titled “The Ferris Wheel Song.”  Pretty original title, huh? 

Well I have to say peace out for now!
Everyone take care and wish me luck on my exams!

Well, I was out of luck.  Andrea was lucky because her hair still looked fabulous from that morning.  Same with Aleisha.  I, however, cannot be bothered to do much with my hair on school days, so it usually ends up in a pony tail.  Anyways, no electrical outlet to be found.  We did our soundcheck and were told that we could go grab something to eat because the event wouldn't be starting until 7:30pm and we weren't on until about 8pm.

On the way back from dinner, I thought up a brilliant idea.  I think it was triggered by all of the schools we passed along the way.  What do school parking lots have?  Outlets!!!  Rows and rows of electrical outlets!  Soooooooo...we pulled into a school parking lot.  I got out with my curling iron and plugged it in.  No power.  Plugged it into another.  No power.  Grrrrrrrr

Lucky for me, there was a school on practically every block, so we hit up another parking lot.  I got out and plugged my curling iron into an outlet.  It worked!!!  I stragically parked the van so that no one could see us...it would look a little odd...and Aleisha agreed to curl my hair.  So much for my plan to hide.  A guy walking his dog came right on through the parking lot and gave us one of those what-the-???? looks. 

So, it was a success.  Call it what you will, but I call it innovation!  I'll put some accompanying photos up to go with this to help you visualize the situation.

Cheers!

-Alex
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March 4, 2006

Hello everyone!

Well, February went by fast, and now we are into March!  I think we need to start doing these journal things more regularly.  Then we wouldn’t have to do this “recap of a whole month or so” thing all the time LOL.  Wow.  I just checked when our last journal post was and it was waaaaay back on December 31st!!!  Just a little ridonculous if you ask me.  My apologies.  OUR apologies.  January was a month for recuperating after the holidays, so I’ll talk a bit about February.

On February 23rd, we were invited to CIXM105 Country Radio in Whitecourt, AB.  We were featured on the Coast to Coast show, which is broadcast in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Thank you to everyone at CIXM105 for having us come in.  It was really a pleasure!  Also, thank you to everyone who tuned in to the segment!

February seemed like a short month.  I know for myself, I had reading week in there, and then midterms starting near the end of the month, so not a lot of school hours.  It was kind of nice. 

One highlight for all of us was getting a new bassist to play with us!  Brodie Roberts is 17 and he will be seen playing with us at our upcoming performances, the first being in Red Deer, AB on March 18th at the Harvest Center.  Our previous bassist, Aleks Argals, has moved to Arizona, U.S.A. and has also gotten engaged!  Congratulations Aleks and Neil!  We are sad to see Aleks go, but we are really looking forward to playing with Brodie.  He is a multi-instrumentalist playing electric bass, piano, guitar, and, as of recent, the double bass.

I guess for myself, a highlight of March is March 3rd…my 18th birthday!  I had a great time with friends and family.  Do I feel any older?  Not really.  But “18” has its benefits.

Anyways, I think that’s about it for now.  Check out our Tour for all of our confirmed dates.  The summer should be a busy one hopefully! 

Peace,
Alex
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December 31, 2006

Wow! Sorry we haven’t written in a while! It’s been a busy holiday season.

This November was particularly busy! We were part the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions week, where we participated in the Canadian Youth Talent Competition. It was really fun for us because we got to meet so many talented performers who were our age.

This year there were 18 participants, showcasing the best young talent between the ages of 13 and 21 from across Canada. We were honored to receive the second runner up position in C.A.F.E’s 17th Annual Youth Competition.

We would like to congratulate the first runner up, Jordan Collins from Southwestern Ontario and the Grand Winning Act, Karl Kohut from Manitoba.

This year for Christmas we had our relatives out to our home. I love Christmas not just because there are presents but because I get to see my family and we get to catch up!

On the 28th we went to Homestead Recorders to do pre-production recording for our new CD. We hope to begin recording this May. This CD will consist of all original works written by us! I’m really excited… especially because my new song, Paper Doll, will be on it!

I almost forgot! We just created a new Myspace page at www.myspace.com/vissiasisters. I’m really excited because I designed it! It was a little tough in the beginning because you have to use so many codes but I’m getting the hang of it! It also has clips of our new live recordings! We recommend that for the best sound quality that you use headphones… computer speakers aren’t the best for great sound.

We would love to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope 2007 bring good health and fortune to you and your families.

Please be sure to sign our Guest Book, we would love to hear from you, and to check out our schedule for more updates!

Later!

-Aleisha
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October 14, 2006

It is said that for people who believe in superstitions, that Friday the 13th is a very unlucky day.  Well, if I didn’t believe in luck or un-luck at the beginning of yesterday, I definitely did by the end of it.  So many things happened… Aleisha’s car broke down just as our mom was about to pull it out of the driveway, one of our dad’s service trucks broke down on the highway, another ran out of gas.  We had a performance for the Japanese Farewell (which I will explain about later) and we had to turn around to go back for the CD suitcase, and once we were at the event tuning up, both E-strings on Andrea’s mandolin broke for no significant reason.  Fortunately our dad was still at home, so we asked him to bring some strings.  When he got to the event, we shuffled through the various strings, and do you think we could find the one’s we were looking for???  Bad luck hit us again.  So for all of you who had an unlucky Friday the 13th, we empathize!

The main event of last night was the Japanese Farewell in Stony Plain for the students of Shikaoi, Japan.  This year we took part in the exchange and were host family to two Japanese students.  They arrived very early Saturday morning (last week) at 2:30am due to delays in flights because of two typhoons in Japan.  We had a really good time showing the students a little bit of western and Canadian culture, like taking them to West Edmonton Mall (of course!) and having them with us for Thanksgiving dinner.  Last night was the big farewell.  The students (55 in all) showed off some of their culture for us, like karate, and Japanese calligraphy.  Later on, the three of us gave them a taste of western music.  It was a really great night!

Coming up this weekend, the three of us will be taking part in the annual Bluegrass Camp out at Camp He-Ho-Ha.  We have a lot of events coming up in November, so please check out our Tour for more details.  Oh, and please sign our Guestbook!!!

Cheers,

Alex
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September 4, 2006

Well, it has been a very, very long time since any of us has written!  So I guess this is kind of a re-cap of our summer…

From the Magnificent River Rats Festival in Athabasca, Alberta, to the Vancouver Island Exhibition in Nanaimo, B.C., we had so many awesome opportunities, and a fantastic time!  We met so many nice people.  Thank you so much to everyone who came out to see our shows, to our loyal fans, and to the new ones we made.  We truly appreciate your support and encouragement in our music!  Also, thank you to all of the events’ organizers and volunteers.  Your dedication and enthusiasm makes our performances so comfortable and enjoyable!  Thank you, thank you, thank you…

For those of you who check out our site regularly, you may have noticed how quickly new information is up and how accurate our schedule is to the current date.  We would like to thank the webmaster of our site, Lisa Seal, for all of her diligence and hard work in keeping our website up to date!

We are all starting school this week…Andrea will be in Grade 8, Aleisha in Grade 11, and college for me.  I think we are all looking forward to the new school year, but sad to see summer end so quickly.  I guess that’s what we get for living where we do!  Andrea and Aleisha will be performing at Seba Beach School for the students tomorrow.  I will be at my orientation for my college courses, so unfortunately I won’t be able to be there. 

So I guess that’s about all for now…Good Luck to all the students who are about to tackle yet another school year!

Oh yeah, and please sign our Guestbook!  We read every single one, and we really love hearing what you have to say!

July 24, 2006

Well, how is your summer going?   Mine is AWESOME!!!  My dad, Alex and I went to the North Saskatchewan River for two days (one night) and my mom and Aleisha came for one day.  Mom and Aleisha didn’t sleep over because I accidentally got Aleisha sick when I was sick.  HeheJ  My bad!

Anyways, we sang at Taste of Edmonton yesterday and tomorrow we’re there again!  It was really hot; hopefully tomorrow it won’t be quite so hot out.  It was a good time though. J  We met some nice people and did a half hour set of all-original songs, which was pretty cool.  We’ve never been able to do that before!

Today I just sat at home (and at my grandparents’ house), ate some ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s, my favorite!  I love ice cream! If I don’t marry a human-being I’ll marry ice cream haha) and watched a movie!! So as you can see I lead a very, very exciting life when I’m not singing. Oh! And I practiced my violin and mandolin!!  It was fun.  I really like violin…but it will never take the place of my Mandi (aka: mandolin).  So yeah!  Aleisha and Alex have summer jobs (he he he...I mean *ahem*, “Man, I feel sorry for them!”)

Any-hoodle, I gotta bounce!! So see you all very, very soon!

Peace Out from “A” town,

June 22, 2006

Well hi!  [Spoken as Dori does on “Finding Nemo”…because that is how I roll.]

Well…you could say it’s been a while since we last wrote.  Hehe.  So here I am just sitting here, typing away to you…and what am I thinking about?  One word…SUMMER!  Whoo!  (You must imagine with how much passion I am speaking these words.)

Yes, it’s true.  Summer is finally here.  My last exam is tomorrow.  I am so happy! 

We have many different shows on the list for this summer, including the Magnificent River Rats Festival, and opening for Adam Gregory in Nanaimo for the Island Exhibition.  I went to Vancouver Island once when I was 6, and I’m really looking forward to going again…they have really good fruit. 

As for this weekend, we will be celebrating at our cousin’s wedding!  Alex, Aleisha and I will be doing a little musical arrangement for the occasion.  It should be a good time!

But anyhoodle, I think that my pizza is burning in the oven (AAaahhh!) so I better go check on that.  (It’s not delivery, it’s Delissio!  Mwa ha ha!)  And on a final “note”:

♫♪ “School’s out for the summer!”♪♫

Peace out from A-town,

April 6, 2006

Hey!

Well, we had our second day back at school today.  It feels so weird to get back into the regular rhythm of everyday life!  It feels like we should be getting ready to take off to a new destination.  We are slowly getting back into the routine of things and it feels good to be home...but I could seriously survive without the catch-up homework...I have about a mountain of it.

I think I can say on behalf of all of us that we feel extremely blessed to have had the experiences of the past two weeks.  Our travels to Japan were amazing, and the trip to Arizona was such a great learning experience.  I'm sure it will be something we will remember for many, many years, and perhaps for the rest of our lives.  We met so many exceptional people and would like to thank everyone we encountered on our journeys.

Thank you as well to everyone who has been leaving us comments on our Guestbook!  Pretty much everyday after school we check for new entries, and when they appear it really makes our day!  We love to hear from you, so if you haven't yet, please feel free to drop us a line.

We hope that those of you who followed our Journal entries had fun following us along.  And thank you so much to the webmaster of our site, Lisa, for being so diligent in keeping our website updated!!  Without her...you probably wouldn't be reading this right now!

So thank you and God bless,

Sunday, April 2, 2006

This morning we went to the church that Chris goes to (First Baptist Church) and shared a song with the congregation.  It was a really good service with lots of music and singing.  Everyone was very friendly and inviting.  Thank you Chris for inviting us to come!

It was really nice outside today…26˚C!!!  It’s like summer to us.  So…we took advantage of the great weather and Bruce took us boating!  We went to a lake called Lake Pleasant and cruised around.  All of us got to try driving it…Bruce sure is brave!  It was sooo much fun…a really beautiful lake too. 

Andrea was very brave…she jumped right in the water!  And it wasn’t very warm either.

Tomorrow is our last day here.  We leave for home early Tuesday morning…then it will be back to reality!

Until tomorrow,

So now it’s off to bed.

Keep it real,
Alex
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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Greetings Fellow Friends!

Well so far things have been pretty nifty!  Although, my knees are a bit red.  I spent most of the time crouching on the floor for a scene in the video, and believe it or not (I’d believe it if I were you), Alex and Aleisha were whining more than me (actually Mom and Dad said they were very proud of us girls because we didn’t whine at all!  We were stuck in that studio for like fifteen hours!  That’s like the time it took for us to travel to Japan!!)

I really liked our outfits!  They were really pretty.  I wore a long yellow dress with a high collar and little light purple, green and pink flowers.  Aleisha’s dress was a dark forest green with little white flowers, and Alex’s dress was light pink with darker pink flowers and a “V” shaped neck.

I can’t wait to see the finished product!  It was so much fun!!  But I still have homework to finish before Tuesday (that’s the day we catch a plane home!)  Yeah, I kind of miss my bed…right now I share a bed with Aleisha, and Alex gets the comfy cot.  Lucky (said with somewhat of a whine)!

Well I’ll chat with you later!  But now I gotta go and get ready to go out again!

- Andrea J

P.S. – Oh! And remember to eat your green vegetables, because for a week I had to drink powdered vegetables with warm water because I was lacking some of the stinkin’ nutrients that green vegetables give you.  * Celery and cucumber didn’t count as green vegetables because they’re not dark enough! :( So I have to eat more broccoli I guess!  (Dang it!)

Any hoodle, see ya! 
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March 26, 2006

It's so hard to believe that we have left Japan!  I mean, it seemed like a long time, but it was just so amazing!  Thank you to everyone who played a role in the celebrations in all four cities, especially all the people that helped to make our visit possible.  We are truly thankful, and will remember our stay for the rest of our lives.

Well, we arrived in Phoenix, Arizona today. We passed really close to the Grande Canyon during our flight, which was pretty cool.  We are staying at Bruce Cormie's place, which is really nice of him to let us
crash here for the next week and few days.  (I wonder if he knows what he's getting himself into...three girls + one bathroom = potential lateness.)  Bruce is the director and executive producer of our music
video.

The weather feels like summer for us!  It's 78 degrees farenheit, which Bruce says is actually kind of cool for Arizona...can you believe that!?  It's going to be so nice to be able to wear skirts and shorts and not freeze our butts off!

So tommorrow we are going to try on dresses for some scenes in the music video...but I'm afraid I won't tell you what they're exactly for.   You'll just have to wait and see!

So until tomorrow, goodnight!

-Alex

Tonight we went to Chucky Cheese's for pizza!  It was great pizza, and there was a caged animal at the top of the kids' play place.  Here's an exotic photo: ..Okay I lied, it's Aleisha.

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

Reporting from the Pacific Ocean, ½ hour away from Vancouver:

Well it was pack up day today.  This morning we had to get everything ready for the trip home.  Our flight cases for the guitars and banjo were loaded!  Not only did they contain instruments, but there were also a parasol and a few other souvenir items.  Speaking of flight cases, if you are ever in the market for flight cases for your instrument, check out our Extreme Cases.  These were great light-weight cases that our mom found on the internet.  They worked great for us, they have attachable wheels which made them very easy to handle through the airports.

Anyways back to our day.  Kenji had arranged a tour for us before he left, so the driver picked us up around 10:00am and off we went to Osaka Castle.  It was mind boggling how they constructed the moats centuries ago, with no heavy equipment.  Then it was time for more of Alex’s favorite past time—shopping!  She finally found the teacup she had been searching for.

Then it was back to the hotel to pick up all our luggage and I do mean all of our luggage.  Every time we had to load it into a shuttle bus or check it at an airport, it looked like there was no end to it.  Those instruments take up a lot of room.  We always got a lot of looks in the airport; they are shaped a bit like a coffin.

We were at the airport plenty early, but guess what?  It was full of more places to shop!  I think we finally finished all of our shopping and found a little something for all of our friends.

They are showing a couple of movies on the flight, and one of them is “The Legend of Zorro.”  Mom was sitting next to Alex during the movie, and she is, well, kind of a jumpy movie watcher…the littlest surprise can make her jump in her seat!  Well, picture this:  mom is watching the movie while holding a glass of red wine.  Surprise!  And she spills red wine all over herself and on Alex’s jeans.  It was quite a sight to see!

This will be the day without end, as I write this on the plane home we have been on Saturday, March 25, 2006 for 34 and ½ hours.  We will be landing in Vancouver shortly; there we go through customs and then wait for our flight to Edmonton.  We should get home around 6:30 pm tonight.  By then it will have been a 43 ½ hour day.  When we get there we have to unpack and repack as we leave for Arizona tomorrow morning.

People that we met in Japan were surprised that none of us experienced any jet lag.  We’ll see how it goes this time around!

Well we’re home now, looking forward to a sleep in my own bed and then off to the airport!

‘Tll Arizona,

Friday, March 24, 2006

Reporting from Osaka:

Today was a travel and performance day, but we did manage to fit in a little site-seeing on the way to the train station.

We went by the Russian embassy, the Japan Government buildings, and the site of the Edo Castle, where although the castle is gone, there is a moat around the area where it used to be.  We stopped at the Tokyo tower, just looking to the top made me dizzy!

Now it is time to leave the world’s largest city.  Traffic can move a little slow at times, but I can’t believe how smoothly a city of this magnitude runs.  Especially with virtually no crime!  You feel totally safe anywhere in Japan.

Last night our guitars and the banjo were shipped to Osaka so we wouldn’t have to take them on the bullet train with us. The train has more leg room than a plane but less luggage space.  It was another new experience for us.  The train travels at about 350km per hour.  The cities and countryside speed by.

One of the things about bullet trains is that they stick to a very tight schedule.  You don’t have a lot of time to get off and on at some of the stops.   About 5 minutes before we were suppose to get off, Kenji made sure we were ready at the back of our car with all of our luggage.  Oh, except for Andrea’s purse; it got to see even more of Japan.  Yes, in the rush to get off Andrea left her purse behind.  It was a good thing her passport wasn’t in it!

It was Kenji to the rescue again!  He reported it lost at the station, and a few phone calls later we found out that the conductor found it on the train.  It will be sent to Kenji’s office.  So Andrea’s purse will take a different route home, it will get shipped to Alberta.

It was a short ride to the hotel, and what a hotel it is.  The lobby is incredible!  All of our accommodations have been amazing!  We had a short time to get to our rooms and get ready for a sound check. 

It was another great show and great food!  Did we mention the food yet?  At all these functions there has been food served.  It is prepared by amazing chefs.  After we are done performing each day, we get to fill our plates.  I think the food gets better at each celebration!  I’m sure we’ve all gained a few pounds, which considering we are filming a music video next week, is not such a good thing.

Unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to Mr. Kenji Makise, as he was taking the train back to Tokyo tonight.  We will miss him.  Tomorrow we must find our own way around (he did set up a tour for us before he left).

We were all very tired tonight, so after we packed up our instruments and gear it was time to call it a day.  Until tomorrow…

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Reporting from Tokyo:

Today was a relatively easy-going day.  We performed at the third Canada Beef Reception, and all went well.  We cooked our butts off as we were performing in a very sunny area of the room in front of a panoramic view of the bay, but had a great time.  That is one thing I have noticed: the rooms are much warmer here. 

After the reception, we went up to our hotel room to get ready to go site-seeing.  Mr. Wes Sawatzky (Managing Director at the Alberta-Japan Office) and two of his daughters, Emma and Julia, accompanied us to the Meiji Shrine.  We walked down an Oriental Bazaar and looked in all of the little shops.  I loved it!

We entered the shrine and it was really beautiful.  There were little stations with little drawers.  You drop 100 yen into a slot (a donation) and then you pick up a metal cylinder that has all of these sticks in it and shake it for a while.  Then, when you think you are ready, you tip it on the end with the little hole and pull out a stick.  Each stick has a number written on the end, in Japanese of course.  Then you look for the little drawer that corresponds with your number.  Each drawer has a stack of a single fortune within.  If you get a good fortune, then all is good, but if you get a bad fortune, you must tie it on a rack and leave it behind.  It is said that this reverses the fortune so that you have good luck instead of bad luck.  It is believed that the temple will then take care of your bad luck.

After visiting the temple, we went to the Sawatsky Family’s home for the evening.  We would like to thank Wes, Valerie, Emma, Julia, and Clara for inviting us into their home.  We had a great Japanese meal and visit with the family and other guests.

Now it’s off to bed!  Tomorrow we have our last performance in Osaka.

Talk to you soon!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Reporting from Tokyo:

We had another great breakfast this morning, a little western and a little Japanese.  There certainly hasn’t been a lack of food!

We then went for a sound check for our next performance.  It can be a very interesting experience when the sound technician speaks one language and the musician speaks another.  With lots of hand gestures and help once again, from Mr. Kenji Makise, we figured things out in a relatively short period of time.

We had another great performance; the audiences have been very receptive, especially since the majority doesn’t speak very much, if any, English.

The shuttle bus ride from the airport was almost as long as the flight.  Traffic in Tokyo is, well….I’ve never seen traffic jams like it.  We finally arrived at the Intercontinental Tokyo Bay around 7:30 PM.  The view from our window is amazing; we can see most of the Tokyo Bay, including a huge ferris wheel.

We went for another amazing meal, Korean Barbeque.  They had grills built into the tables.  Again it was all you could eat and drink, but this time it included ice cream!  One goes up to the buffet and fills his or her plate with all the food he or she wants to cook (pork, chicken, beef, squid, mussels, liver or maybe not liver) and then cooks it on the little grill.  We have all become very proficient with chopsticks.  We rolled out of the restaurant, found a cab and ended another fascinating day.

March 21, 2006

Reporting from Sapporo:

We were up early this morning to pack up.  After breakfast (which I have to mention, we sure don’t eat like this at home), we headed back to the Fukuoka Airport.

We were sad to be leaving such a beautiful city, but excited for the next adventure.  We arrived in Sapporo at around 1:35pm, and after lunch, we took a shuttle bus to a car rental place.  There, we rented a tiny little van and had to solve the puzzle of packing all of our gear into it, along with ourselves.  Many of the vehicles here are as tall as the ones back home, but a significant amount narrower.  We managed to pack, stuff and jam five full-sized suitcases, two small suitcases, a mandolin, two guitars and a banjo (in transportation cases which are much bigger than you average guitar case), and six shoulder-bags into the back of that tiny Toyota.  Not to mention the four of us (mom, Aleisha, Andrea, and myself) had to squish into the backseat.  Dad took the passenger’s seat and Kenji took the wheel.  Here is a picture, for your own personal amusement, of the four of us in the back seat.

So now I am just documenting our day so I can share it with you, but I think I had better “hit the hay.”  We have a big day tomorrow; a very tight schedule.  Once again it was another amazing day in Japan.  Thank you again to Mr. Kenji Makise for showing us around and taking such good care of us.  I’m not sure what we would do without him!

Please sign our Guestbook because we would love to hear any comments or messages that you may have.  Until tomorrow, goodnight!

Love Alex
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Sunday, March 19, 2006

First of all we would like to congratulate our good friend Emily Seal for her recent accomplishments down
in Tennesse at the North American Country Music Association International Competition.  We hope you had an awesome trip!  Congratulations as well to Joanne Janzen!

And now for our first day of the trip!

We were up bright and early on Satuday morning (4:30 am) after a night of restless sleep (we were soooo excited!).  We left for the Edmonton Airport a 5:30 am, driving through one of the biggest snowfalls we have
seen this year.

We had to wait an hour before the plane actually took off because the runways had to be cleared and the wings de-iced (its a good thing we had a 4-hour wait in
Vancouver.  When the plane finally did take off it seemed like only a half hour had gone by when we touched down in Vancouver! We had a three hour wait

until departure of our flight to Tokyo, Japan.  We ventrued our way through the airport (which took an
hour itself, and for the next two hours we did what all kids dread while on trips... homework.

The flight to Tokyo was 10 1/2 hours long.  Our excitement helped the first hour go by quite fast, and then we watch some of the in-flight movies.  We did some more homework, had a nap, and still the plane ride went on.  As we passed over Alaska, and the clouds disipated, we could see the ice packs, which was an experience in itself.

When we finally landed in Tokyo, we had to make our way to another gate for our flight to Fukuoka.  It wasn't a very long flight.  When we got through Immigrations and all that fun stuff, we were greeted by Mr. Kenji Makise (Commerical Officer, Alberta-Japan Office).  We took a taxi-van to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, as as we drove, it was hard to believe that everything outside the van window was real.

So now we are sitting in our hotel room, and it is still hard to register that we are actually in Japan!  It's a very surreal feeling, kind of dreamlike.  It's one of those things that you dream and think about for some time, but when you finally arrive, it doesn't quite sink
in.  I am really looking forward to tomorrow.  We are going to be doing some site-seeing and of course having our first performance!  So I had better get some sleep because Im sure I will need it!

Check back soon for our next journal entry!  And please feel free to sign our Guestbook because we would love to hear from you.

Love Aleisha
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