My Only Sunshine

iPhone Thursday - The 4th, Madonna, and PJ painting

I live in the city.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not urban, but I do live in a large suburb that is right on the edge of a very large chunk of urban sprawl.  I love being a city dweller.  I have never ever wanted to live in the country, or even close to the country.  Middle of nowhere is not my thing.  Having said that, I love that the neighborhood we moved to a year ago sometimes has a very small town feel.  Even though we have all the benefits of living in the city we also have a very close friendly community holding us tight.  As an example, for the 4th of July we had a neighborhood association sponsored parade and party.

Here are the Girlies and the cousin sitting on the side of the street just east of our house.  All of their patriotic red, white, and blue looks good against the green grass doesn't it?

 

This is what our parade looked like.  Pretty red cars, flags, and kids on bikes with streamers.  As my SIL says, it's all very Mayberry and I love it.

 

The other day Bitty asked me who Madonna is.  That was after she had come up with the pink and black outfit.  My kids are such rockstars.

 

The Girlies are helping me paint Bug's room.  It is taking forever due to all of the built in woodwork, which is black.  The ceiling, doors, and windows are all black as well.

 

Did I mention the walls were gray?

 

The painting is hard work.  It's made fun by doing all the work in our PJs.

Marks Paper Company

Want to learn more about this project?  Want to read my review of the lovely paper you see?  Go take a look at Craft Critique. 

Summer Workshops

For the last two weeks the Girlies have been going to the summer workshop offered by their dance school.  I love summer workshop for them because they get to experience a smaller group of dancers in their class with a wider range of age, race, and skill level.  I also like it because they get a more intensive course of study that really pushes them to learn and grow so quickly.  I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that they love it too.

Most days at summer workshop include an hour of ballet, an hour of some other dance/craft/dance history, and then an hour of ballet rehearsal.  This year the girls were able to take ballet from 3 different instructors as well as jazz, lyrical jazz, character, pantomime, african, and stretch. In the past they have also gotten instruction in hip hop, hula, and modern.  At the end of the summer session the school puts on a performance at the studio in which each level of girls gets to perform.

 

This year Bug was the oldest in her dance level by two years, with Bit being the second oldest.  This presented Bug with some challenges because she is used to being on the younger end in her dance classes, not the older end.  In the beginning she was embarassed to be "with the babies" but she quickly realized it was fun having so many younger dancers look up to her.  She also realized that having more dance experience than the rest of the class let her skills really shine.

 

This is Bug in fifth position during the final performance.

 

Here's Bug doing ron de jambe a terre.

 

Here's Bug doing a releve' in fifth position at the start of her "solo".  Being the oldest she got to do some things the other kids didn't get to do.  She was very excited about that.

 

Here's Bitty in fifth position.  She had a small spotlight role as well.  It was all very exciting.

 

The day after the performance was a fun day at the dance studio. The girls had a second visit from the very wonderful Ms. Katrisha who teaches African dance and they had a talent show and the dance olympics.  By the time the day was over they could hardly move they were so tired.

 

I have many more pictures of the dance performance, of the lovely little ones and the fantastic big girls.  I'll save those for tomorrow.

Disturbed

Last night was the Summer Workshop final show and it was fantastic.  Stay tuned for more.

iPhone Thursday - Tonight we dance

Wainy got dressed up on Father's Day and went with us to the movies.  The Girlies took their Daddy to see Imagine That with Eddie Murphy and Yara Shahidi.  It was a wonderfully sweet movie and that little girl is amazing.  The sound track is filled with Beatles songs which made me very happy.  It was a very good Daddy/Daughter movie.

 

I heard a funny noise coming from under the sofa yesterday.  When I went to look I found Bella.  She laid like this, belly up, under the sofa for a good ten minutes yesterday.  Cats are funny.

Are you wondering yet what Wainy the rabbit and Bella the cat have to do with dancing?  The title is a warning.  Tonight is the ballet summer workshop performance and my girls will be dancing in both shows.  Bug and Bit both tell me they have "solos" because they are older than the other kids in the class.  There will be many pictures, and maybe video, so watch out.

Make a Wish

When you were a kid were there things you would do for luck?  Did you ever have certain things that would require a wish be made?  Most people I know make a wish when they blow out their birthday candles but was there anything else?  I always made a wish when my mother would pick a stray eyelash off my face.  She would hold it up between her finger and thumb and I would make a wish and then she would say, "Finger or thumb?" and I would guess which digit the eyelash would stick to.  If I get it right when she pulled her fingers apart then I would get my wish.  I do this with my kids too.  What about you?

Today

As seen in The Simple Woman's Daybook

For Today...

Outside my window... heat, we are reported to be at 100 degrees or more today and I don't have air conditioning again.

I am thinking... about how lovely my house is, even when it is hot, when my family is here and sleeping quietly all around me.

I am thankful for... the most wonderful daughters in the world.

From the kitchen... homemade Salted Butter Caramel Icecream if I can get my air conditioning fixed.  If not, we'll be eating out.

I am wearing... my Calgary t-shirt, I'm thinking cool.

I am reading... Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child and Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson.

I am hoping... to get my air conditioner fixed today.

I am creating... a new mini album using paper from Mark's Paper Company.  You can take a look at Craft Critique in July to see how it turns out.

Around the house... hot hot hot, the rabbits are hot, the cats are hot, the kids are lucky because they aren't here (dance intensive keeps going this week but ends on Friday).

One of my favorite things... my Girlies working hard in dance and showing how much they have learned.

A few plans for the rest of the week... minutes and agenda for the ballet board meeting, hair flowers for the summer dance show, and the beating of the a/c guys if they don't show up.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you...

I Faces - Let's Hear it for the Boys!

This week I    Faces is following up Father's Day with a boys only week for photos.  That's makes things pretty easy for me.  It isn't too hard to find good pictures of some of my favorite guys, they are so photogenic.

You've seen my Nephew, D, around here before.  He's playing T-ball this summer and boy is he good.

 

My Buster, in Colorado, isn't life Grand?

iPhone Thursday - Busy Week

My iPhone has nearly no photos since the last iPhone Thursday.  I have been so busy this week I can hardly keep up.

Denver Trip Photos, Day 3 and 4 - Natural History Museum and Estes Park

Before we left for our trip to Denver Bug made one request.  She wanted to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  You see, she had done her homework.  Bug found out that Denver had a T-Rex bone which is something not many museums have, and she wanted to see it.  Not only that, but we got to see a cast of the T-rex from the AMNH for a second time.  You can never get too many dinosaurs.

The museum was great.  They have one of the very best gem and mineral exhibits I have ever seen.  The girls were thrilled to see all of the aquamarine, which is the state rock of Colorado and the worlds largest uncut rhodochrosite.  We also got to go to the planetarium to see Cosmic Collisions voiced by Robert Redford.  There isn't much in this world more fun than going to the planetarium with brilliant children who have boundless energy and curiosity.

 

After a day of nature indoors we spent a day with some natural nature?  Hmm, you'll see what I mean.

We drove from Denver out to Estes Park via Boulder.  It was a lovely drive through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  As we started to get into the mountains we pulled off the highway to have a look and to take the Girlies' picture in front of the Estes Park sign.  We got a wonderful surprise while pulled over to the side of the road.

Chipmunks!  They were everywhere.  Big ones, little ones, tiny little baby ones.  We shouldn't have fed them, but they were very hard to resist, as were the Girlies.

 

The cute little critters would come right up to Bitty and clap their tiny hands together.  She named them all, and there were more than I could count.

 

 

Given half a chance, Bitty would have invited them all into the car.

 

 

After a lovely lunch in Estes Park and some yarn shopping we headed for Rocky Mountain National Park.  The peaks in this park top out at 12,000'.  At those altitudes they were having snow.  Being from Texas, being snowed on in June (really being snowed on at all) is very novel.

 

 

 

 

Look, pretty little snow angels.

 

 

This is one of my very favorite pictures from the trip.  Isn't my Buster so handsome in his natural habitat...  Rocks?

Earlier I told you how Bitty fell in love with the chipmunks.  Well Bug loves wildlife too but she was more captivated by these guys -

 

She took that picture.  The Elk were amazing in RMNP.  We weren't even 50 yeards from them.  We could see all the funny fuzz on their antlers right up close.

 

 

 

Bug took this picture too.  I got the impression that this particular elk felt the same way about Bug that Bug felt about her.  They watched each other for a very long time.

 

 

That's pretty much it for my pictures of the trip to Colorado.  We had a wonderful time and I am always amazed at what good travelers my daughters are.  They think they want to go to Paris next.  We'll have to wait and see on that one.