Now that its over!....

Its been a couple of weeks since the festival finished and I can still remember it all. I wish it was still on!! These are some of the words that Stella and I think of when we are remembering all the great things we did and saw at Out Of The Box 2012


FUN!  HAPPY!
SCAAAARRRRY!   INCREDIBLE!
amazing!
laughter,! friends! Colour, music! costumes!
Getting Lost!
Interesting! Dinosaurs! blogging, Loving
BRILLIANT
Talented, clever! exhausting! The Best thing EVER!
Lucky, inspiring

We cant wait till next year!!

DINOSAURS, BABIES, IMAGINAUTS and a teary farewell to Out Of The Box!

FRIDAY AT THE DINOSAUR PETTING ZOO!!

 I didnt know at all what it was going to be like at the Dinosaur Petting Zoo! I sat right down the front next to my best kindy friend Sophie and our mummies and Stella had to sit a bit further back. There were lots and lots of school kids all around us. A man called Scott came out on stage to start the show and he was so cool, he knew everything about dinosaurs and he was very funny! And guess what, when they bought out the first baby dinosaurs and asked if any kids wanted to pat them, I was the 1st kid to get upon on stage and ACTUALLY TOUCH A DINOSAUR!!!!!!

I thought it had to be real even though Scott said they were all puppets, coz it felt so real. I was a bit confused when he told me to pat behind its ears because it didnt even look like it had ears!! It was very cute and it loved me patting it because it kind of rubbed its head against me like a kitten!.... 

 Next after I sat down, Scott called out the other dinosaurs one by one. The next dinosuaur had four legs, but its front  2 legs didnt touch the ground the way a kangaroos front legs dont touch the ground most of the time. It had really big beautiful eyes and was pretty friendy. Then there was a kind of big one that came stomping out when it wasnt even its turn!

There were two ladies whose job it was to look after the dinosaurs and make sure they behaved themselves. The last dinosaur was ginormous and very very scary!!  Scott got one of the girls in the audience to come out and feed some guts to the dinosaur but I was worried it might actually eat her instead!!! 

The big dinosaur kept getting out of control and thrashing around and leaping towards the audience and there were kids screaming and lots of them were even crying they were so scared! 

Then Scott realised that the dinosaur had a sore tooth and thats why he was so incredibly cranky! So he pulled the tooth out while some kids gave the dinosaur a massage to relax and distract it. It felt much better after that!

I just loved the dinosaur petting zoo because it was just such a MIRACLE to see dinosaurs in the middle of Brisbane! It was funny because you could kind of see two black legs sticking out underneath the dinosaur but I forgot about that and really believed it was completely real!! I really loved how at the very end one of the show one of the boys in the audience put his head in the dinosaurs mouth!!! it was AMAZING and he was SO BRAVE!!!

This is a picture of the cute baby dinosaur!

                SATURDAY WITH STELLA! 

On Saturday Mummy took Stella and I really early to see "This Baby Life". I thought it was really beautiful watching the babies in the audience seeing their first ever show. The actors just made lovely sounds and moved around in a really interesting and graceful way. Sometimes they even copied what the babies were doing. Even though Stella isnt really a baby anymore (actually she thinks shes bigger than me, which is pretty funny!) and Im definitely not a baby, we still enjoyed the show.

 Next we went to "We Built this City" which was this amazing place where there were like hundreds and thousands of boxes in humungous piles and these builders blew whistles and told us to help them make a whole city out of the boxes. It was like playing with blocks and building towers at home, except everything was so much bigger and higher! 

 It was the mummy and daddy's job to do whatever the kids told them to, and to put the boxes up high when we couldnt reach. We had such a great time and we made a house with really high walls and then it got bigger and bigger with more and more and more rooms until we joined up with a house that 2 boys were building behind us! 

Stella mainly just liked running through the tunnels we built and mummy kept getting worried that she could lose her!! 
At the end, the builders told us all to pretend we were a really big strong wind and we had to blow all the buildings down...That was really fun too!! 


Next we had lunch and went back to the car to get our teddy bears for the next show which was called "Bear with Me"

We all sat on the ground with our teddy bears around boxes which we used like a stage for the bears to dance and do stuff on. There was a picture of a bear up on a big screen and then 2 men came out called Tyrone and Leslie and they talked about teddy bears and sang lots of lovely songs about bears as well. I really liked how they made us 'walk the bears up the mountain'.Bruno and Charlie Bear had a lovely time. I also really liked how we tucked the teddy bears into bed while we sang them a bedtime song! After that show we went home, and mummy and Stella were pretty tired but I wasnt!

"HELLO SPACEBOY" AND THE LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL (SOB SOB!!)

Amy the Imaganaut, Lord Shadow and Max 

On Sunday I went to see "Hello Spaceboy" with my special friends Fletcher and Sophie. It was the best show of the whole festival!!!(As well as "Me and My Shadow") I absolutely loved it and thought that the acting was brilliant , especially the man who played Lord Shadow.

He was my absolute favourite. He was a real baddie at first but Amy the Imaginaut told us that sometimes people do mean things because they're really scared. So once Amy and Max showed him he didnt have to be scared of bad dreams, he stopped being such a meanie! I really liked the Imaginauts costume and the way she moved and danced. It was a fantastic story and it showed us that with our imagination we can have brilliant adventures!

Sophie, Fletcher and I   

After the show I took my friends into the Sticky Maze which we all really loved. We got lost from our Mummies on purpose and when we found them again they had lost MY mummy because she had gone looking for us kids! 

Anyway after we all found each other again, we went to the Underage Stage where we watched "The Spiky Band" who were great! 

There were kids and grown ups making rock 'n'roll together and a huge echidna came out and had a big dance. There were lots of other kids dressed up as emus, koalas, cockatoos and even a caterpiller!

When Mummy told me it was time to go home, I got really sad. I didnt want to go because it was the very last day of the festival and i didnt want it to ever ever finish. I felt like crying because I was very sad. But now when im writing my blog, it makes me remember everything again and that makes me happy.  I felt so lucky being asked to blog for the festival and getting to go to so many shows. Thank you Out of the Box, I cant wait till next year!!!!!!! xxxxxxxxxx

Me shouting to the whole of Brisbane how much I LOVE Out Of The Box!!!

Hanging out at the Festival!

I went to the festival today and the 1st play I went to was called "Me and My Shadow". It was about a girl who started playing with her shadow .I really loved how the characters kept liking each other then not liking each other and then liking each other AGAIN! I think at the end they realised that playing with a friend was SO much better than being alone, even though sometimes its hard to share, or when people have different ideas from you about how the game should go that can be really frustrating! Mummy said it reminded her a bit of me and Stella when we play together and sometimes I get annoyed because Stella doesnt do what I want her to! Most of the time though we have such a good time playing and making up stuff and having fun together, and I always miss her when shes not with me. (Sometimes I even talk to her when she's not there because Im so used to her being with me!)
It was so cool how the shadow man played with little lights and even picked the lights up and it didnt burn his hand. The man and the lady were very good actors and very funny, especially when they were copying each other. It was amazing how their shadows kept changing sizes sometimes she was the humungous one and he was tiny and then it was the other way around. 


After that show we went down to the Sticky maze! You could stick anything you wanted on the sticky walls, and it took us ages to get out because we kept going the wrong way and ending up in dead ends! 


Next we went and saw "The Race for the Chinese Zodiac",. I really loved it, especially how the man pretended to be all the different animals. I laughed lots when he was being a pig, and the snake too. I found out that I was born in the year of the Pig. Mummy told me that I was actually born in theryear of the GOLDEN PIG, Which only happens every 600 years!!! so thats pretty lucky and special I think! 

We learnt about some special Chinese instruments and they made really wonderful music. 

We also did lots of wandering around and saw a TALL tent of TAll Tales where there was heaps of great stuff happening! 

We saw some VERY interesting people, some had their faces painted and one lady had the most beautiful and amazing dress!

On the way to the carpark we stopped at the underage stage and saw 3 Bollywood dancers. I loved it because I never saw people dancing like that in my life!

I wanted to stay longer but Mummy said I couldnt because we had to pick up Stella from hanging out with Pop. We are going the next 3 days though so I shouldnt complain one tinsey tiny bit!

THE OPENING NIGHT PARTY!!!!

Last night I went to the opening night party for "Out of The Box". Ive never been to an opening night before and I was very excited! Very VERY excited actually!
The first thing I did was get my face painted by a lovely lady dressed like a clown. She painted two rainbows on my cheeks. 

It was very crowded and after a while we got a bit hungry so we lined up and got some yummy burgers. When we were eating, we saw some Aboriginal dancers wearing traditional costumes. There were little kids dancing as well as adults which I really liked. After they danced, a lady called Christine Johnston came onto the stage and sang some very interesting songs. Some of the songs were really bird  calls and they were pretty funny! I especially liked the Bower bird call! 
She also had some kids on stage with her playing musical instruments and there was an egg that hatched off stage and a little chick  (who was really a cute little toddler !) came out of the egg. I think that was probably a trick though because i dont think they could have really had a baby in the egg for that long!
After that we went up to the Lyric Theatre to see the final Dress rehearsal of "The Flying Orchestra" I got a cushion from the cloak room so I could see a little better.
I thought the show was more than brilliant! I was really wondering how they could make the aeroplane fly up in the sky on stage, it looked really real. The musicians were fantastic and very funny and the puppets were excellent. I really liked it when they threw the huge balls into the audience. Mummy loved how they showed a baby being born just with shadows and puppets. At the end of the show I walked down the front  to get a better look at the stage. I wanted to climb up onto the stage but Mummy wouldnt let me!!

 I loved seeing my first show of the festival, it was meant to be a rehearsal but I definitely didn't see them make any mistakes!I was very tired when I got home, but my dreams were full of pictures from the whole night. Today at kindy I took a copy of the book of "The Flying Orchestra" and my teacher read it to everyone and I got to tell them about the show. I cant wait till tomorrow because instead of going to kindy im going to see "Me and My Shadow " and the show about the Chinese Zodiac. Stella has to stay with Nona tomorrow but she is going to get to see the Dinosaurs with me on friday and also 3 shows on saturday so she's not going to miss out!

tomorrow it begins!!

I cant believe that it is tomorrow night that Mummy and I are going to our first "Out of The Box" event!!
 I am so excited!!!
It is the opening night tomorrow and Mummy and I can get all dressed up, and go along to join in the celebrations and also to see "The Flying Orchestra". Because it is night time and we have to leave Stella with Daddy after he finishes work, we will drive in to Southbank. During the week though we might catch the bus or the train which will be so fun. Sometimes if I am going to Southbank from my Nona's place , we go in a citycat across the river which I really love. 
On Thursday we are going to pack a picnicx lunch to take with us so in between our shows we can find a lovely place to sit on the grass and munch our food and watch the passing parade!

Im not sure if Stella completely understands what "Out Of The Box" is all about, but I know she's going to LOVE it once she's there! Ive loved looking at the other Blogs,and I hope i get to meet the other bloggers at the festival! See you there!!!!

All Better Now!

                    Last week I was very very sick! 

I had to go to the hospital emergency place TWICE in one day, and the doctors said I had viral meningitus which is a very big word and not a very nice thing to have! I hate being sick, but one good thing is at least I got better before the festival started!!! Stella got sick too but lucky for her she didnt have to go to hospital and have big needles..
Anyway, Im all better now and I cant believe that "Out Of The Box" starts in 1 week! 

Planning our Out of The Box Adventure!

Me dressed as Willy Wonka!

Hello everyone, Ruby here! 
Me and Stella and Mummy are getting so excited about how close it is to the week of the festival! Daddy is so jealous that he's not coming because he has to work, but I think he might tag along on the Saturday which would be fantastic! it could be a whole family expedition!
We have got our tickets all organised, and though we arn't going to the festival EVERY day we are going on a lot of days!
On Tuesday night we go to the opening night (just Mummy and I, Stella has to stay home with daddy coz she's too little to stay up that late!), and we'll get to see the final dress rehearsal of "The Flying Orchestra" which will be BRILLIANT! 
On Thursday we are going to "Me and My Shadow" and then "The Race to the Chinese Zodiac" and then one of the cool workshops, (We cant decide yet!)
On Saturday we are going to "This(Baby) Life" (that ones really for Stella!) and "Bear with Me" and "We Built this City".  Stella and I are going to be taking our favourite Teddy bears to "Bear with Me". Im taking Bruno, and Stella's taking Charlie-bear, they're very excited too because they've never been to a play before!
Sunday is the last day of the festival and Im going with my friend Sophie (and our mummies) to see "Hello Spaceboy!". After that we'll go and see some of the cool free activities like 'The Sticky Maze' and 'The Odditorium'.  I REALLY REALLY want to go to the Dinosaur Petting Zoo too so Im going to have to pretty please mummy for that one!!!!!!
So it going to be a really fun adventure week and I cant wait! I hope it doesn't rain, but that wont stop us anyway!
Oh yeah also, I ended up dressing up as Willy Wonka for our kindy dress up day because "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" was the BEST book and he was a cool and crazy character...Theres a photo at the top of me in my costume! 
Talk to you all again soon,
love Ruby ...and Stella xxx

having pictures in your mind and other reasons to stop Lord Shadow!

Mummy told me about "Hello Spaceboy" and how we're going to see him at Out Of The Box in his big adventure to stop LORD SHADOW from stealing kids imaginations..... If I was helping Spaceboy I would try to steal the baddies powers so he couldnt get our brains out...well the really cool and amazing part of our brains anyway!

 I wouldn't want someone to steal my imagination because I need it to help me have ideas for games, and especially when Stella and I are playing make believe and pretending to be dinosaurs or superheroes or mummies or escaped prisoners or fairies or anything else!


Also my imagination helps me to love books even more because when Mummy or Daddy are reading to me I can see pictures in my head of the people and places in the story. 


Like last night we read in "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" about how Charlie Bucket found a golden ticket to go to Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory and I could  actually see  him and Grandpa Joe jumping up and down with excitement!.... and I could even really SMELL the chocolate with my imagination too!
This week at Kindy I have to dress up as a character from my favourite book but I just cant decide......Im going to have to use my imagination I guess! 

30 sleeps to go!!

Hi everyone!! Only 30 sleeps till the 'Out of the Box" festival starts! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just cant wait to see how they are going to make the orchestra fly! And also how are they going to have a bus on stage, or the beach, or how they're going to make angels?

I cant wait to see "Me and My Shadow" because Mummy showed me the ad on the computer and it looks so funny and tricky!

Also we're going to get to build a city out of boxes which will be sooooo cool, Im going to try to make a GINORMOUS house!!!!!
Ive been practicing making lots of cubbies at home with my little sister Stella. I use anything, mattresses, boogie boards, sheets, boxes, tables and lots of pillows!! Stella's only a little girl so she sometimes knocks the cubbies over!

At kindy Ive been making a big bird watching tent with my friends out of  2 big boxes that my teacher got from Bunnings. We also cut out some small windows to watch the birds. And we saw some crows, 2 parrots and some pigeons and they didnt even know we were watching them because we were so quiet and 'cos we were IN the box!! We stuck lots of leaves and twigs on them so we could CAMOUFLAGE our box and the birds wont guess what we're up to. It was so cool, but it collapsed one night because it rained so much that it got soggy and fell apart!

Next we made a cubby in a tree, and we made some brick stairs to climb up. And we even hung the scramble net from the trees under the cubby so everyone could pretend to sleep in there like a humongous hammock!!! So Im getting lots of good ideas for "We Built This City" !!!!

Anyway its mothers day so Stella and I have to go and get ready for our family lunch. Nona and Pop, and Nanny Sue and Poor OL' are coming over and Mummy, Stella and I are going to do a puppet show, and maybe a dance too and sing a made up song. Maybe when im big I can be in "Out of The Box" !!