Pictures!

Ok, sorry it took awhile, but here are some pictures! There's one of Harrison and his friends, six from this past saturday's first swim meet of the season, a couple from Jacob and Michela's 4th grade play at school (they're in separate classes, but their two classes do a lot together and they did the play together), and two from the end of the year band/strings music concert, which was last Wednesday.

We've been busy with end of the year activities - it's always a crazy time of year for us and this year we're leaving two days after the craziness ends for our 3 week trip, so that's making me even busier (plus I have to get Harrison's sleepaway camp stuff ready b/c he leaves the next day after we get back from our trip for 2 weeks of Jewish Community Center sleepaway camp!)

School is almost over (just today plus two more days!) and last week was a busy week of last projects, tests, etc. This week should be light in that respect. Today there's a big 8th graders vs. teachers annual softball game and picnic and all the kids get to go. Tomorrow Harrison's grade goes to Wild Rivers, a big waterpark, and then wed they get to hang out and sign yearbooks. Wed. Jacob and Michela's grade goes bowling and then to a park for pizza and fun.

Last week was picture week at the dance studio, so that was hectic because Jacob and Michela take 2-3 classes each day they dance, so I had to help them change into their different costumes, etc. Plus Michela needed a bun almost every day and make up. Harrison went to swim team every day, but unfortunately Jacob and Michela won't really be able to go until after our trip, although they did swim in the meet on Saturday.

This week is dress rehearsals and dance shows, so we're at the big performing arts theater at UCI every day. The shows start on Wed and there are 7 of them. Marlon's parents and my sister and brother in law are coming in for the dance shows (and my mom lives local) so that will be fun and the kids are so excited they will have so many people watching them. Plus most of our friends dance at our studio, so all those parents are in the audience!! Michela is in 7 numbers over the course of 4 of the shows. Jacob is in 18 numbers over the course of all 7 shows because his competition numbers do their dances more than one time! Fun, fun, fun! (and, when you think about costumes, tickets, pictures, flowers, etc., in addition to fun, fun, fun, think money, money, money!)

We did get to have a fairly mellow weekend this past weekend. Harrison enjoyed the last school dance of the year Fri night followed by hanging out with his friends at In and Out Burgers. After dance, Jacob, Michela, Marlon and I just ate dinner and watched TV! We had the swim meet Saturday morning, then Harrison went with his girlfriend's parents to see her dance in her dance shows (two shows with dinner in between) and then they invited him to go again sunday and he wanted to go, so he went again! Michela went to a musical theater show with some friends on Sat while Jacob was at dance pictures and then Jacob and I met them (the four girls and three other moms) at the pool and the kids swam for hours while we moms hung out and talked and polished off a couple of bottles of wine (!) with some yummy appetizers (we also got pizza for the kids.) Marlon was happy to have the time alone at home to work since he's frantically trying to get stuff done before we go away. Jacob and Michela spent the night at one of the friends' houses and stayed til 4 on sunday, I got a lot done around here and Marlon worked, and then, when all the kids got back home, we went out to dinner as a family for Father's Day.

Enjoy the pictures!!!!

Harrison and his best buddies. (He's on the far left.) They've been best friends since Kindergarten and now they're in 6th grade! The one next to him, Brent, is moving to Seattle in a couple of weeks and Harrison's pretty bummed about that. The one on the far right, Brandon, moved to a different school this year, so they don't see each other at school anymore, but they still hang out as much as they can and they will be together again in 3 years in high school. The other three still go to our school and they all hang out together. The day I took this picture I took all of them to the pool and then for pizza and to see the Indiana Jones movie. I jokingly told them that they used to talk about Bob the Builder in Kindergarten and now they talk about GIRLS! They're all really nice kids and Harrison is lucky to have such a great group of friends!

Harrison hanging around at the meet.

Couldn't resist taking a picture of Marlon in his floppy swim team hat.

Jacob and Michela just hanging around. That's me in the background at the scorer's table. I was the "sorter," which means I put the cards in the order of fastest to slowest swimmer for each race. Then I pass them on to the next person who enters them into the computer and prints out the labels and then they get passed to the next person who sticks them on the ribbons. It's quite a system. I worked the whole meet and Marlon worked as timer for half. We have to work 6 meet jobs over the course of the summer and we might only be at 2 or 3 meets because of our schedule this year, so I wanted to get some jobs out of the way. I like sorter b/c I can see everything in the pool b/c we're up higher and it's in the shade!

Jacob and Michela on the diving blocks right before one of their races. They just happened to be next to each other. Convenient for a picture! This first meet was the boy/girl meet where the boys and girls are mixed together in the heats. usually they are separate. For this first meet, there's no other team, just our team, and it's to set their times for the season.

Harrison stepping up to the diving blocks for one of his events.

Harrison coming in to the end for his freestyle. I think he got second place.

Jacob in his 4th grade musical play "Gold Dust or Bust." The 4th graders spent a lot of time studying the Gold Rush as part of their CA history curriculum in social studies. They put on this wonderful musical on friday, which was fabulous even though they only worked on it in class for about a half hour a day for a week and a half. Jacob had a lot of lines as Samuel Clemens and did a great job.

Michela chose not to audition for a part in the play. Instead, she chose to be part of the "crew", so she got to tell everyone what to do. :) The crew designed the "sets" (one of them is seen in this picture) and they told everyone where to stand, etc. She thought it would be fun to do something different rather than perform, but at the end of the performance she told me she would have rather been *in* the show. Oh well, now she knows for next time!

Michela getting ready to play the viola at the end of year band/strings concert

Jacob getting reading to play his violin at the end of year band/strings concert. Harrison played trombone in the same concert, but I didn't get any pictures of him. He sits in the very back because of his instrument (that's just where the trombones are) so I couldn't see him to get a picture. But I had pictures of him playing trombone recently at the temple band concert!