Rock wall climbing fun

Continuing the Henry posts - he got to try something new, that started off scary but ended up being quite fun! His friend Garrett had his recent birthday party at a rock wall climbing location in Sterling; Henry was nervous to do it, but excited to go to the party.

He was good through getting into the gear.

 And good through the initial climb.

But that's when things went a bit south.

We moved to another wall, and another instructor came over to help. Henry made it a bit higher, then froze again.

Then we tried a wall on the other side of the space, that had a slight forward slant, making it easier for him to climb. He learned a valuable lesson in what the tether rope is for:

And then, after a few tears and frustrations, he got over his fear and finally made it all the way to the top!


I was so proud of him. New experiences are not always the easiest, and yet he did push through and kept trying over and over. Now he wants to go back and do it again! 

Henry's 7th birthday

Henry's birthday fell over spring break this year, which is the biggest reason why I scheduled his birthday party to be a couple of weeks prior to his actual birthday. We didn't have any plans to go away over spring break this year, so that meant we needed to figure out what to do with the kids. I worked from home Monday, Evan worked from home Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Henry's birthday, I took the day off to spend it with the kids.

I threw a few options at Henry for things we could do, and what did he choose? The National Zoo! We hadn't been in a couple of years, and therefore had let our membership lapse. I joined back up so that we could get our freebies/discounts, and off we went.

We started at the "back" of the zoo, at the children's zoo, with Henry's favorite animal!

 It then began to rain, so we walked down a path I'd never gone before, to the Amazonia building. It was actually quite cool! Lots of neat animals, fish, etc...and birds flying about.

 The rain ended, and we went to the sea lion exhibit. I knew it had been open for a while, but we had yet to see them. The sea lions were feeling quite playful, right near the glass!

 Next to the sea lions were the elephants. They were just on the other side of the fence, and the zookeepers were there answering questions for us, and feeding them some treats.

Elephant tracks!

 We then went to the Asia trail - my zoom lens came in quite handy to find this leopard! She was at least a good 40-50 feet away from us.

 Then it was panda time! Unfortunately, the red pandas weren't out, but we were able to see the giant pandas, all 3 of them.

Apparently this frozen yam popsicle was quite tasty :) 

 Then it was lunch time, and souvenir time. A nice rest for us after all the walking and it getting warmer! You'll see the kids' souvenir choices below.

Our last stop of the day was at the big cats. And wow, did we ever get see them! Apparently it was just before feeding time, and this tiger was ready to be fed - pacing around, staring at the door, ready to eat. Once again, the zoom lens came in handy!

 The lions, on the other hand, were quite sleepy.

 And here we are, complete with souvenirs!

An awesome, awesome day with the kids. After getting home, we picked up Evan and headed down to my parents' house for Henry's birthday dinner!

Henry's big gift was from the family: us, Carrie, and all 4 grandparents. Finally, he got a large Lego set that he'd been wanting! (photo by Evan)

The kids then stayed with my parents for the rest of spring break; I picked them up on Sunday after getting to spend the entire weekend by myself! Evan was in Boston visiting his brother from Friday-Sunday, so I had the house to myself both Friday and Saturday nights. It was a really fantastic way to spend Easter weekend: Evan got time with his family, the kids had grandparent time, and I didn't have to deal with any Easter activities at all. Ideal!

Happy 7th birthday, Henry!

Companies in Concert Spring 2017

Natalie's next-to-last dance performance of the year was the spring Companies in Concert show, at Franklin Park, during the first weekend of April. There were actually 6 distinct performances from Friday-Sunday; Natalie was in the afternoon show on Saturday & Sunday. Saturday I signed up to help out backstage (mostly keeping the girls quiet!), which let me take some iPhone photos of them before and during the show.

First up: Showkids II dancing "One Call Away" by Charlie Puth.

I did take photos during the dress rehearsal on Thursday (despite being at the tail end of a 5 day sickness, and feeling absolutely awful, but better than I had on Wednesday when I couldn't move!). Here are my favorites of these girls.

 Showkids I: danced a jazz piece to "Kick it Into Gear"

Then, of course, is the joint Showkids dance - "Satellite" by Andrew McMahon; the same dance they did at WCDE and that gives me goosebumps every time I watch it. I took a cell phone video while I was taking photos at the rehearsal (you can hear my camera clicking, sorry about that!), and thought I'd share it here.


This is my favorite pose and photograph that I captured. I cropped it at this unique size, and am going to have a special print made - it isn't going to be cheap, but is so worth having!

Natalie and her friends did so wonderfully, and had such a blast dancing in their show.

 On Sunday, family and friends came to watch Natalie dance. My sister and parents were there (and brought flowers for Natalie!).

 And my friend Kathy came with her daughter Katie to watch too!

 

A couple weeks later, Natalie auditioned again for Showkids for next year, and was placed into Showkids I! There are a number of  new dancers (including some of her friends who weren't in the company before) joining the performance company who will be in Showkids II. Natalie also auditioned for the new Loudoun Ballet Performing Arts Company (LBPAC) and was invited to be a junior ballet apprentice, along with her friends who also auditioned. The girls are so excited for all of their new opportunities as they enter 4th grade!

OneFamily video taping

One of the things we have grown to love the most about the Loudoun School of Ballet is their commitment to dance. Not just teaching our students, but getting them involved further in the dance community, outside of the school.

This year, that was really shown by the studio's involvement in the Untapped dance movement's 2017 video taping, called OneFamily. Approximately 30 dance studios from around the country were chosen to be a part of the video (I don't know how many applied, but I am assuming more than that!). Each studio choreographed their own dance to the same song, and then the video production team went around the country, filming at each studio. The Loudoun School of Ballet was the first studio to be filmed!

Natalie was a late addition to the students who would be taped; I originally didn't sign her up because Evan wasn't working, and it seemed like $35 we didn't need to spend. When he did get a job, I was able to get her signed up at nearly the very last moment. Since all of her good friends were going to be in the movie, I was really happy this wasn't something Natalie had to miss.

One of the coolest parts of the taping was that, while we couldn't be there to watch it, we could watch it stream live on Facebook! I took some screen shots of the taping while it was taping, and then went back and rewatched it again later, when I could see Natalie.

First up: the girls getting ready! Natalie is in the group standing off to the side; the film makers were giving them some last minute instructions.

 Here's a shot from at the end - Natalie is in the middle row, with her leg up, using an older dance to support her. There's a better shot of this below :)

 And here she is just after that moment, being lifted up into the air, hand high! She was very excited to be one of the 4 girls chosen to be lifted from her age group.

 See, close up! That's her closest to us in the video.

 A big group hug when the taping was over!

 And here are two screen shots where you can see Natalie without the Facebook live comments/feed.

Tapings at all of the studios have finished, and the video is going to be released in just a couple of months. We can't wait to see it! It will be released in a few movie theaters, I believe, but we aren't sure where yet. I'm willing to download it so that we have it - I think it's going to be incredibly moving, and I can't wait to see how our studio, and all of the studios, are represented in this film about how dance binds us together.

Henry's 7th birthday party

Due to spring break, Easter weekend, and my being out of town, we had to have Henry's birthday party a couple of weeks before his actual birthday. We also had to schedule around Natalie's spring dance show, so Sunday morning in early April did the trick.

Henry had an awesome time - he loves Pump It Up!

And as you'll see from the videos below, we adults had a pretty good time too. Here's Aunt Carrie taking the giant leap after him...

Grandma & Grandpa shooting at each other...

Me sliding with the kids...

Evan taking the giant leap...

And then even Grandpa took a turn sliding!

The kids all had a blast. Even though Pump It Up can be crazy, and loud, they do know how to host a good party.

After all of the jumping and bouncing fun, we moved to the party room to sing and have cupcakes. 

And this was just the start of Henry's birthday fun...we had more celebrating to do on his actual birthday!

Career Day at FDES

This year, I signed up to be a speaker at Career Day at Natalie's school. They had said that I would be speaking to 3rd-5th grade, but because she is in 3rd grade, I ended up just rotating through the five 3rd grade classrooms...frankly, that was enough! The kids were great - it was a lot of fun to talk to each class, and hear the different questions that they had.

I had put on my form that I was in "scientific sales", which not all of the teachers knew the meaning for. Once I explained, and I focused mostly on what our clients do, the kids had lots of questions about rats, animal behavior, the brain, etc. Really fun to talk to them!

The schedule was set so that I could have lunch with Natalie. I brought lunch with me and ate with her and her friends in the cafeteria!

I had a lovey time talking to the kids; I hope that they got something out of career day! As a special surprise, a few days later Natalie came home with this from her classroom.

Inside were letters from her and a few of her classmates. Her teacher had them each write a letter to the parent of their choice. I teared up reading these!

Love my kids' school, and everything that they get to do, and we get to do with them!

Calla's last snow day: March 2017

Much to the kids' dismay, we had quite the mild winter this year. All winter they kept asking us "When is it going to snow?" By March, it just seemed like we were out of luck. In fact, I even returned the snow boots I had bought for Henry (who had yet to wear them), and the snowbibs I had bought for both of them. And then what happened on March 15? A snow day! School was closed, Evan and I both worked from home, and we all got to enjoy one snow day together.

And I say all because not only do the kids enjoy the snow, but it had always been one of Calla's favorite things as well. She patiently waited through the morning until we could all go outside that afternoon.

 It was COLD so it was time to bundle up!

 

As you can see in the video, the snow was pretty moderate - just a few inches. But again, since we hadn't gotten ANY snow at all, they were excited to have even that little bit to play in.

You can also see their put-together snow outfits. Natalie had no waterproof pants, so we doubled up on spandex exercise pants. Henry had big heavy sweatpants that we put thermal pants underneath. Natalie had her winter boots, and I had just bought Henry rain boots, so we made it work. As you hear in the video, they weren't exactly waterproof, but they worked better than sneakers would have! And since we had great winter coats, hats, and gloves, the kids did alright.

We walked outside of our neighborhood and up to the building next door. In their courtyard we found a snowman that the employees there had apparently made.

 And what about Calla - remember I said she likes the snow? We did take her out with us for a while, and she had a great time wandering about in the snow.

All of that fun in the snow wore the old girl out. She spent a good chunk of the afternoon curled up on the couch afterwards.

Calla died the next day. So I take comfort in the fact that she had one last time in the snow, which was always something she loved (since her first winter with us in NYC, in 2004).

Now excuse me while I go wipe these tears away.