Philadelphia, Provo, and Programs

(Although not necessarily in that order).

We've had a busy couple of weeks. The week before Memorial Day was the last week of school for our school district, which meant that on Wednesday of that week (the 23rd), our schedule looked something like this:

2 p.m.: Evelyn's preschool program
5:30 p.m.: Evelyn's final dance recital (we had to be there at 5)
7 p.m.: Andrew's kindergarten program

Taken individually, we enjoyed each program (mostly). All together, they were fairly stressful.

Here are some pictures from Evelyn's preschool program. Some day I'll figure out how to edit video clips so I can include them. Evelyn's the one in pink, waiting patiently (as you can clearly see) for the program to begin.

I don't have any pictures of Evelyn's dance program, so you'll have to imagine the lovely video of her routine. I'm happy to say that most of the girls got most of the steps--and more or less within 30 seconds of each other. (An improvement over earlier performances). Her little group had two dances--during the first dance one little girl was on her hands and knees the whole time, for all the world looking as if she'd lost a contact on stage. (It was pretty funny).

The second dance number wasn't as impressive to me--mostly because the girls walked out and I went, "where's Evelyn?" It's a little alarming when your child (age 4) isn't where she's supposed to be. We needed to leave soon anyway, since Andrew's performance would be starting soon and he was starting to freak out (big surprise there), so I had Dan take Andrew to the car and I went to try and find Evelyn. I found her backstage, sobbing her heart out because her team had danced without her. For a minute or two, I saw red. I started composing all sorts of angry letters in my head to the woman in charge of the dance program--how can you lose a four year old?--until further conversation with Evelyn made it pretty clear that she was playing with one of her friends (a little girl from our ward) who was in a different dance class--in other words, she wasn't paying attention and she wasn't where she was supposed to be.

In any case, it was a variously unhappy/stressed group that showed up at Andrew's kindergarten performance. But they did a great job. Unfortunately, by this point the camera battery was dying on me, so we only have one actual picture of Andrew's program. He looks excited, doesn't he?

Other highlights from the last week of school: field day, a field trip to a nearby park, and meeting Andrew's first grade teacher . . .

They were both (I think) excited for summer, but it took Andrew all of half a day on Tuesday (the first official day of summer--I'm not counting Memorial Day) to announce that he was bored . . . .

Dan will have to give a separate recap of the weekend, because I'm not sure what all went down here (besides helping Bubby and Poppy put in a garden). I wasn't here. I flew to Philadelphia for the Rhetoric Society of America conference--I usually enjoy this conference because it tends to be a little smaller and less overwhelming than some national conventions, but it's big enough that I see a lot of people I went to grad school with. This one was no exception--it was particularly nice because one of my old professors was honored with the lifetime service award, so they set apart several tables at the luncheon for Penn State grads, and it was nice to feel like a part of a great tradition (even if I also feel ever so slightly fraudulent, since while the rest of my former grad school peers are worrying about publications and tenure and other job issues, my main focus right now is getting this baby here okay . . .)

I stayed with a good friend of mine, Catherine Pavia, whom I met at my first academic conference in grad school, via a mutual friend (Cristie Charles). It's always nice to catch up with her, since Catherine is, like me, an LDS mom who's trying to stay home with her kids but still keep her toe in the academic world. It's nice to not feel quite so alone when I go to these kinds of conferences. Aside from the conference, we did a fair amount of walking around Philadelphia--we walked down to see the liberty bell and Independence Hall; we walked through a big indoor market area downtown, and Sunday afternoon we walked to the art museum. It ended up being farther than we'd anticipated, and climbing the "Rocky" stairs in the 85 degree heat and humidity wasn't much fun at the end of that walk, but I do enjoy a nice art museum (esp. with air conditioning). Unfortunately, my body punished me for all the walking by giving me a killer back-ache (note to self, don't do hours of walking/standing when 6 months pregnant).

We survived the first week of summer vacation--and the last week of evening swim lessons at the local pool. Both Evelyn and Andrew passed their respective classes, but I was particularly proud of Andrew, who now qualifies for the Red Cross Level 4 class. He worked really hard this time around and he's finally able to swim some distance on his own!

This past weekend saw us heading up north again for family stuff. We celebrated my niece's birthday Saturday morning, and then the cousins all headed outside to play in the sprinklers/hose each other down with some fun water toys grandma provided.

You'd never guess these girls were related, would you? Of my mom's 10 grandchildren, all but 2 have dark brown hair (one is blond, one is brownish-red).

My brother was a good sport about the water stuff, letting the kids chase him and spray him. (I think Dan was hiding upstairs playing with his iPad by this point in the day). I think Jared is still pretty much a kid at heart--but the kids all loved it.

That afternoon, we headed up to see Sarah and the crew before Sarah headed off to work. The kids had a full day of cousins (and no naps) and were pretty exhausted by the time we got them back to my mom's house. It was fun to see everyone, especially since I'm not sure how many more times we'll make the trek this summer!

In other, completely unrelated news, I've been teaching myself how to crochet. (Patterns are a wonderful thing). I'm finally feeling reasonably confident--at least, enough to tackle some cute amigurumi animals. (There's a penguin too, but he wasn't done in time for the photo shoot). 

 

And no, of course I'm not nesting, why would you think that . . . ? :)