24 hours in Chicago

Back in November, I spent a week touring through the Midwest with my colleague Jason. We went from Ohio, through Indiana, rural Illinois, and ended in Chicago. We hit over 10 clients and potential users during our trip, and also had some time to spend doing a few fun things (almost all in Chicago). First up, let me show you the inside of the lobby of the fantastic Palmer House in Chicago, where we stayed our lat night. How cool is this?!

We were supposed to meet with someone Jason knows who works at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and she got us free tickets to tour the facility. Really, really cool!

When we arrived, it was cloudy, rainy, and gross. When we left, however, the rain had stopped and we were treated to this view of downtown Chicago. Stunning!

The view behind us of the planetarium wasn't too bad either, with the setting sun.

Did I mention that it was really windy?

 

The next day, I was able to spend some time at the Lincoln Park Zoo while my colleague fixed an issue with a client (I really wasn't needed for that!). I'm going to post my favorite shots from there on the photography blog soon (as some of them were just stunning), but here is a favorite of the Chicago skyline from Lincoln Park.

But I can't mention going to a zoo without showing some adorable animal(s)! Here is a video I took of the sea lions. Too cute! I love watching these guys swim.

(not) Blogging and "Math Day"

So I had all of these grand plans to blog every night over this holiday break...and now it turns out that it's once again been 10 days since I posted everything! I'm not overly far behind, luckily, but I would like to try to get this year done over the next week. I *think* I can make that...luckily I only have outstanding photos of my own to edit from one event (and I can still post some things from my phone about it), so at least photo editing isn't holding me up! It's mostly that at night I've been editing photos (I've had a couple more shoots recently than I normally do this time of year, which is not a bad thing!), and when I'm not editing photos at night, I've been cross stitching.

Blogging just hasn't been a big priority for me, but I'm really trying to keep it up. I've already had tons of friends who have commended me for keeping this up for 8 years...I guess that is an accomplishment?! I know many others may not be super into this blog, and the minutiae of what we do, but I continue to find it helpful to go back and look at things (particularly to remember when we did something), so I'm going to try to get my blogging bug back and get back into it! Luckily I'm not traveling too much in the first couple of months of the year, so maybe that will help too. Now if I can just find the energy to transfer the hundreds of photos off of my phone that need to make it here to the computer in order to make their way up there...

Anyway, one thing that I did with Natalie at school back in November: Math Day! The parents were all invited to the room to watch the kids rotate through stations and do some of their favorite math games. It was a lot of fun to do this with the kids! Just hearing Natalie explain how to do these, and getting to participate, was enjoyable.

 

December craziness

I hate going a week in between posts, but I have been so exhausted lately that I have not had any energy to start uploading photos and writing a decent post. I had mostly caught up, but December has been busy so I've got more posts now, from both November and December. That's better than being nearly 3 months behind as I was over the summer though, right?

The craziness right now is not actually work related - I've been home since Thanksgiving, with no plans to travel for work until the third week in January! This is definitely my longest time without traveling in years - 8 weeks!! It's been so nice to be home, and also a good thing, as there's been so much personal stuff going on. Hosting Thanksgiving, Natalie's birthday (which was fantastic), Christmas to prepare for, and now The Nutcracker! Natalie is in 5 performances this weekend, and we've been in stage rehearsals since Sunday afternoon. It's a crazy week, but this year is going much better than last year ; turns out in that post I didn't really talk about how draining the rehearsals were, and how much we moms had to figure out as we went. This year has been totally different - everything is run really well, and the fact that Natalie is in the first act means we get to leave rehearsals when they're done, and not have to wait the rest of the evening. I'm definitely feeling less stressed than I was last year!

Plus, how can you be upset about being there when your child looks this adorable?

So, it's been nice that rehearsals have gone so well. I think my being the "role coordinator" for the Little Mice has helped too - I know what's going on, and have been able to help the other moms out too. They didn't have this position in previous years, and we complimented the producer (who has also done a fantastic job) on adding it in.

Today I get to put on my other "mom" hat as Room Mom for Natalie's class and go over to her school to run her classroom's winter party (which I planned!). Then tonight there's no Nutcracker rehearsal (a night off before performances start tomorrow, yay!), so instead I get to put together teacher gifts and make cheesecake for my company's holiday party tomorrow.

Can I just say how much I'm looking forward to having a few days off next week?! Here's hoping that the new toys Santa brings will entertain the kids sufficiently that I can finally relax :)

Parent Observation Week Nov 2015: Natalie

I previously posted photos and videos from when I observed Henry's jazzy hip hop class; now it's time to post photos from Natalie's classes! Yep, I say classes, because she's in 4 classes this year! However, I could only watch 3 of them (regular classes), as her fourth class (Showkids) is one of the performing groups and they have a lot to do - don't want the kids to get distracted by the presence of the parents!

First up, I watched Natalie in her Musical Theater class. This was a lot of fun to watch! They do some dancing, some singing, and a lot of theater/drama exercises. I wasn't a drama kid myself, but I'm aware of these types of exercises. The girls are still a bit self conscious to really throw themselves fully into them (at least with parents watching!), but they did a great job and had a lot of fun. I didn't get a lot of great photos, but I really liked this one!

 Next up, I watched two classes back to back, which she has every Wednesday night. First is Ballet III. Watching these girls through their class was so wonderful! They work really hard, pay a lot of attention, and are becoming such wonderful little ballerinas.

 

 (Natalie is facing backwards in the middle of this photo)

 

 Then we left one studio, had a brief break (as she does every week between classes), and went into a different studio for Jazz II. This starts with a lot of stretching

 Look how flexible she's getting!

 

And with fewer girls in the room, a little more one on one attention.

Then lots of across the floor exercises - look how well she and her friend Lily did in this one!

November activities

I did quite a few activities with Natalie in November (mostly on the weekends), even with all of my work travel (I have some fun photos from that coming up!). The first event was the Jazz & Co fall performance - we go to this every year, and every year I enjoy it more and more. This year was extra fun for me since they asked me to be the photographer for the dress rehearsal! So I got to enjoy the show twice - once from a photographer's point of view, and once as a regular audience member...and that second time was with Natalie and her friends!

Natalie was excited after the performance to see her intern (from her Jazz class), who is in the second company of Jazz & Co. She did a great job!

Later that weekend, we headed up to our friend Beth's house for her daughter Ellie's 5th birthday party. As a surprise, our friend Beta and her family came up (from NC) for the party too! I found out about it a couple of days before, and didn't tell Natalie - she was SO excited to see her good friend Zabby at the party. Look at these girls!
 
Henry was excited by the space theme of the party. Here he is showing off his rocket ship craft, wearing Ellie's NASA helmet.

The following weekend we headed out to Purcellville for another roller skating birthday party! This was good preparation for Natalie's party, which we just had at the same roller skating rink this past weekend. Pics of that to come!Here's Natalie with her friends Carson (middle; the birthday girl!) and Sara.

Love this photo of Sara and Natalie!

My friend Lydia (Carson's mom) caught this photo of me just as I went down, to avoid tripping over Natalie's friend Bridgette (who is laughing with me, in the pink shirt). Oops!

Finally, one other thing of note is that Natalie joined me at my aerial yoga class! She was amazing, and was able to do almost everything that we did. I was so proud of her!

Today is this beautiful girl's birthday...can't wait to post all about her birthday fun!

Parent Observation Week Nov 2015: Henry

In November, our dance school holds Parent Observation week. This year, that meant the chance to watch the kids in 4 different classes! One of those is Henry's; this semester he's in "Jazzy Hip Hop". The class is small (only 3 kids), so he's getting to learn a lot in nearly one-on-one instruction from his teacher and assistant. It was a lot of fun to get to watch him dance; he was a little distracted by my (and Natalie's) presence, but not overly much.

 

 At one point they kids were allowed to free style dance, which let Henry show off his break dancing moves for us.

 There was a lot of across-the-floor exercises. Here's Henry working on one type of step.

 Then some work on pivot steps, which are a part of his dance.

 

And working with his intern!

Finally, here are Henry and his class mates practicing their recital dance. Can't wait to see it on stage!