Season of Hope

The December dance performance is a highlight of the school year, but with Covid, there was no guarantee it would happen. But luckily, it did! Ballroom, Orchesis, National Honors Society in Dance, and the Technical classes all choreographed numbers and shared them with us in two different concerts. I went to both and took different kids to each. Tyler is missing because he was at Front Sight. It was so fun to watch Ivory dance. She has really grown a lot in her ballroom skills. She hasn't grown to be clear, but amazingly, she isn't the smallest girl on the team. 

I'll try to tell you where to look for her in the videos.  I also got some fun stills in each dance. The first night, Robyn, Pearl, and I attended.

The first dance was the combined Ballroom Team and Orchesis number called Like Birds of a Feather. This is the one they started the year with at the opening assembly and danced later during homecoming. They had different red dresses, but other than that, it was the same dance. Ivory comes out on the left. She is the first girl in red and she proceeds to cross the entire stage and ends up on the far right. After Orchesis dances, she comes back out on the left in the back. Good luck. (Oh, and huge apologies for the screamer in the audience. Nothing I can do about that.)

The second dance was Night at the Disco. Three couples start on stage. She is not one of them, but she quickly joins and she is on the far right. Keep an eye on her because she will move around.

Up next is Heartbeat. This was a really fun Cha-cha. Ivory starts one in from the right. Then later she is one in from the left. See if you can follow her. She does end up on the far left and goes off camera. I guess I shouldn't have zoomed in quite so much.

Next is my favorite dance, Lunar Eclipse. Ivory looks so pretty and I love this Tango. There are two couples in front at the beginning. Ivory is on the left. She moves around, but I think she is pretty easy to follow. Enjoy this one.

The last dance is Dreaming of Good Days to Come. This is the dance they did for competition. It is hard to keep track of Ivory in this dance. She starts off in the back, one in from the left. Halfway through, she ends up more towards the front on the far left. Good luck. You can't see her for a lot of it, but don't worry, you can always watch the other dancers. :)

At the end, ballroom bowed first and then walked to the back while other groups came out and bowed. Ivory was immediately talking to Gabriel, her partner. Sometimes you can even see her talking to her partner during a dance. Little chatterbox.

A lot of Ivory's friends came to support her the first night. She has a great group of friends.

Later, the ballroom coach sent along some photos she had taken during dress rehearsal. These are fun because they are a little more professional and Ivory has her long ponytail instead of a bun. 

Oh, this one is Orchesis, but I thought it looked so cool. They did an amazing job and I really enjoyed their numbers this year. 

Also, you can't see Ivory at all in this picture but I love the flared flowing sleeves of the girls. Spectacular.

One more of Ives. We had a great time at the concert. June and Daisy came the second night. It is always great to support your sister, but so fun when you get to watch a lot of cool dances.

Blind Self Portrait

Robyn has been doing some interesting projects for her school art class. I believe this project was for school, but I'm not exactly sure. 

Robyn was interested in the idea of disabilities and art. She obviously relies a lot on sight, but what if she was blind. How would that change things for her? She decided to paint a self portrait while blindfolded.

She got all her stuff situated. She also kept June nearby to help her get the right colors.

She time lapsed a video of her picture. I like it because you can see where some parts of her face went in, but they were later covered up. A reminder that you can only see the videos in web view. You can't see them in the phone version. You can't see them at all in the blog book. Sorry kids.

Such an interesting idea. A bit messy in the process, but that is fine.

I can tell it is a face...maybe not Robyn's.

Peace, my fans. Robyn is so creative.

She happens to take a lot of selfies on her phone, which is the ultimate self portrait now days. Check out this beautiful girl. 

October Chatbook 2020

Wrapping up two months in a row. October was a little busier. We ended up with a lot of pictures from our phones. Like I've said before, I love seeing what made people think, "I'd better get a picture of that..."

Naturally the voodoo doll is on the list. Gabriel and Ivory started  her, but I finished it off with hat and wings. I think she looks great. 

Pickleball has been a fun pastime. I'm not very good, but it is fun to play. We even got our own rackets. Those things are pricey. It is like they know we all needed a new hobby during Covid. Rude.

I like to peel the kids when they get a sunburn. But when you burn your scalp, it peels in weird chunks and you have to pull the dead skin all the way down the hair shaft. Then the skin has cool little holes in it. Yes, I know I'm weird.

Robyn made a sandwich on a croissant and thought it looked professional. She is lucky I didn't eat her sandwich while she was taking a picture.

Pearl did some cool word art. I think you can tell what the word is. I like the pool noodle in the middle and all the candy that makes up the N.

Ivory and I went shopping at the mall. They had pumpkin arches. They were super cool. 

More art from Pearl. She worked really hard on this one getting the shading right. I think it looks fantastic.

My mouse died. I like a mouse much more than a track pad on a laptop. Tyler tried giving me some old ones we had on hand, but they were not being used for a reason. So I bought myself a new mouse. Great investment in my opinion.

We saw a limo truck. You don't see one of those every day.

This picture makes me smile. Tyler was working on dry firing with the guys. Watch out foes that try to take on these guys.

I was in the mood for a black forest cake. So I made one. It actually looked pretty good, and it was tasty as well. Real cream is always the best.

These two got new glasses. I try not to take my sight for granted. I think it would be terrible to have to wear glasses all the time, but better glasses than blurry vision. Also, if someone told me that by marrying Tyler, all my kids would wear glasses, I would totally do it again. They are still beautiful and intelligent. Glasses doesn't change any of that.

Nova looks a little raptor-ish in this picture. I think she is just yawning, not attacking.

Ooh, pretty hair. June did this fun traveling braid. It looks so good on Ivory.

Pearl likes to take pictures of food. This night was fruit pizzas with homemade granola crust. They were pretty good but I think I cooked the granola just a tad too long.

Daisy found one more smile at the store. She seems pretty happy about it.

We had a few very cold days in October. They came out of nowhere so not all sprinklers had been turned off. The grass at school was frozen. It looked so pretty. I believe the sprinklers had been on earlier. Other grass not far away didn't have any ice at all. 

October is our month for a scary movie. We carried on the tradition with Camie and Nate. We went to their new house and watched Countdown. It was so fun. They made us dinner and we had a great time. Please forgive the first picture. My phone has this terrible automatic filter I call "Baby Face" because it tries to take away all wrinkles, but then people just look strange.

In October I signed up for Stitch Fix. They sent me a box of stuff tailored for me. I loved it all! Jeans fit perfectly and a soft sweater. I didn't really need the earrings, but it is cheaper overall if you keep them. So I did. I love fun new clothes.

Lots more cranes this month. Looks like Tyler got up to at least 359.

Daisy got some Dominos in a game set. Pearl had a lot of fun setting up courses and knocking them down. Sadly, there weren't a ton of dominoes. But even short falling dominoes are cool.

Snake! Looks like a good sized one too. 

Tyler finished the fence. This really could have been a post of its own. He has been working on it for two years. Most of it was done, but he never finished the gate. But now...(duh duh DUH) it is finished.

Nova is a creature of comfort. She will try to find any additional cushioning to lie on. Using my crosstitch bag is dangerous, but she thinks it is worth the risk. For the record, I didn't take that picture. I would have been moving the dog...

Most of the girls like to have their hair long. We don't have many haircuts around here. Ivory's is crazy long right now. But it looks like Daisy might have enough for two people.

Nova is dedicated to fetching. She runs headfirst into walls and tables with no regard to herself to retrieve a ball. She jumps and twists on really good days. She can really take off. Here is a great picture of her leaping to get a ball. Pretty awesome.

I'm not even sure who took this picture, but it is cool. That is Tyler using one of his rifles with a pretty hefty scope. He looks so assured...and manly.

Oh, apparently I have a lot of Nova pictures. They just aren't grouped together. Nova likes tug of war. She won't give up easily. Ivory probably lost this round.

We've been doing dinners with the J's on the last Sunday of the month. They cook for us and then we cook for them. It has been really fun. We brought a drink last time. It had so many things in it, I gave an assignment to each person. Here is Robyn adding the cranberry juice. It was quite zingy. It was a great meal and everyone was in a food coma after. All the kids crashed on the couch. It was nice to be with family.

It seems odd that as it gets colder, Nova seems to shed more. Doesn't she need to keep that winter coat? This is what the tub looks like after she gets a bath.

When cars break down, Tyler is always trying to give lessons to the girls to help them learn a thing or too. The girls will wait until it gets dark and then they'll say that they can't fix cars at night. Guess what? That doesn't stop Tyler.

In October we started playing games with Grandma Dargan over Zoom. It has been really fun. Some games work better than others. As long as we have an overhead camera, Sagrada has worked really well, but we also like Skull King and Wise and Otherwise.

Our last photo for October is June adulting. Now that she is 18, we give her assignments that we used to do for her. For instance, her new phone wasn't working right, so she took it to get it fixed, without any parents. She took a selfie, not to prove that she can adult, but mainly because the problem was with her camera. But I like the reminder that June can be amazingly responsible.

Phew...that was a lot of random photos. Good job making it through. That's October in the books.