Hi-5 Journal

I must begin by saying I'm so sorry for being so delinquent in writing. Please know that it was not because I didn't care or that I'm forgetting about our fans. I am amazed at the passion that is found on this board and in the faces of fans when I meet them. Be assured, I value you all and the work you are putting in to elevate Hi-5 to the next level.

That being said, I would love to tell you about this past week. We flew to New York from Sydney on Monday. I think that was the longest Monday I have ever experienced. It lasted somewhere near 37 hours because we flew over the international date line. For those of you who wish there were more hours in a day, there's your solution.

The next few days were spent going through piles of mail, saying hello to friends, a fun interview on the WB morning news here in NYC, a couple of dinners with our publicist and themestar contact, and trying to get over the jet lag. By the way, Craig from ThemeSTAR is so impressed and so thankful for the work you guys are doing. So are we. On Tuesday night we all went down to Herald Square for a camera rehearsal. It was so exciting to get a peek at where we would be on Thursday morning. From that moment on the excitement really started to build. On Thursday morning we were all picked up at around 7am and brought to the start of the parade on 81st and Central Park West. We all waited in a big comfy bus as we awaited the nine o'clock start time. Sitting in the bus with Miss USA, Steve Irwin, aka The Crockadile Hunter, a professional football player, an Olympic gymnast, and Jose Feliciano was quite surreal. At about 8:30am we were called to the float to get ready. You could feel the excitement in the air as all the floats were coming to life. As Al Roker announced the beginning of the parade and huge gust of wind rushed by and we were off. Luckily, New York was unseasonably warm that morning and Shuan and I were actually hot in our jackets. Halfway down the route we had to take them off just to keep from overheating. I'd love to tell you we are tough as nails, but the truth is that is was in the mid 60's that morning.

The sea of faces along the streets and up in the buildings was amazing. It was one of the coolest times of my life as we made our way downtown. Every now and then I'd catch one of the other's eyes and I could tell we were all having an amazing time. As we neared Herald Square our adrenaline really started to pump. In a matter of minutes we were about to perform for 44 million people. Never in my life had I thought I would be at that point, and there I was. For NBC reasons we had to cut 48 seconds off the song which made doing it that much more challenging. We all felt wonderful though afterwards and couldn't help bouncing around like little kids. I haven't been that giddy in a long time. I know we're all so thankful to have had the chance to be a part of such an institution. We will never forget it.

We have the next few weeks off before we start the Move Your Body tour. I know we are all super excited to see our fans again. We all love the songs and segments they chose for the stage show and hope you will too. I really look forward to seeing some familiar faces as we travel, and hopefully some new ones too.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we will see you soon!

Curtis

Curtis on 11.26.2004 @ 02:50 PM EST

End of Week 2

Hey all!!
How's everything going? Did you all have a fun Halloween? Are there pictures posted of everyone's costume? I can't wait to check that out!! Well, it's Saturday here in Australia and it is our first day off! Whew...what a week!! We've been rehearsing all week and actually did our very first run through yesterday!! Wow! We've all been working really hard on the show and everything is going great. We had some kids watch our run-through yesterday and they had a great time!! They were all fans of the Australian cast, but that didn't stop them from enjoying the show at all:) This one little girl was asking for Kellie(from the Australian cast) the whole time, and she even liked the show. Kellie and the rest of the gang were around though, so the little girl got to meet Kellie after all, it was really sweet.
Well, I have to say the show is looking really great. It's longer than we expected, so we're going to have to cut it a bit before we take it out on tour. It'll still be awesome though!! I promise you that.
We also filmed some commercials for the tour while we were here, and so look out for those. Mark Avery from Themestar met with us over dinner the other night and filled us in on what was going on with the tour. They're working really hard on getting more dates for the tour. Believe me, they've contacted many venues. I think it may help a little bit if you phoned your local big theatre venue and expressed your interest in HI-5. The people booking at some of these places may not have kids, or may not know what our show is about and that's why they're not confirming any dates. You fans are so awesome...and we'd love to see all of you!! And you're all soooooo very good at getting the word out!! So make some calls and let's see what happens:) Hopefully we'll be Hi-5ing you all very soon.
Hmmmmm, what else. I guess that's it for now. We're spending the day with Cicc tomorrow, so we're all looking forward to that. I'll send him your love!!
Alrighty, I'm off...sending you MY love!! Take care and I'll talk to you soon!!

Love love,
Kimee
ps...bare with me on emails....it's been crazy here...I'll get to them asap...trust me...

Kimee on 11.06.2004 @ 01:06 AM EST