This past week has been absolutely amazing. Everyday Birgit and I have come home completely exhausted…but it’s all part of the fun!!! It’s great coming home from a long day with the cast, eating dinner and sitting around talking with our host parents for a while! One day my host parents took Birgit and I up to a lookout point in the mountains for us to take pictures. The picture below is my host mom Judy, me, Birgit (my roommate from Switzerland) and my host dad Bob.

Our host families house is extremely cozy and makes both of us feel right at home. Here are some pictures of where we are staying!!

Our bedroom...

The dining, room, kitchen and living room...

At the opening session Sunday and the Monday morning kick-off the staff performed a few dances for us to get us pumped for staging. It was a phenomenal performance…one that made me extremely excited. I can’t believe that in a few weeks it will be us up on the stage!! Below is the staff performing a few Up With People dance numbers!!


The mountains here are so beautiful. Where we live in Boulder there is a formation that is known as the “Sleeping Indian.” The picture below is of the “Sleeping Indian.” Look towards the right of the mountains and you can see the head and than moving towards the left is the stomach and directly to the left of the telephone pole is the toes!!



My roommate Birgit took part in the Culture Jam on Wednesday night. She sang a Swiss-German song with another girl from Switzerland. They performed first in the show and did an absolutely amazing job. This is a picture of Birgit and Gwen performing!



Thursday night after staging we went to the Rockies game. Kirk who is a cast member from Denver was our "tour guide!!" He showed us how to get to the stadium, helped us get our rock pile tickets, explained to everyone the American food at baseball games and helped us get to he bus station! Ten cast members went to the game and out of the group, 6 of the cast members weren’t from the United States. They had never seen a baseball game before! They were all very excited. Not only did they enjoy the baseball game, but they also enjoyed eating Rockies dogs and snow cones. As you can see from the pictures below we all had a great time!!! A few of us even went to the batting cages that they have in the stadium.



Some will call staging (the four weeks that we spend in Colorado learning the show) “Up With People” boot camp and that’s exactly what it is! The cast has been going through intense dancing and musical training, as well as sitting in on education sessions to prepare us for our upcoming tour. We are currently working hard to prepare the numbers in the show for our dress rehearsal that we will be having at the end of staging in only a couple of weeks!!! The first dance that we learned as a cast is called “Keep the Beat.” It’s an extremely upbeat and fun song and dance. Two staff members performed the dance so that everyone could record it to practice at home. Below is a recording of the “Keep the Beat” dance being performed by Kaleigh and Cody who are two past cast members.



This weekend our host dad Bob is out of town. He is with a high school group white water rafting and doing a lot of outdoor adventure sports with them. Our host mom Judy is home with us and today we are having a day of relaxation resting up for the busy week ahead! This afternoon we are going out for Pizza and we are going to have a game night. A great way to begin the week ahead :)