Sleeping Beauty - Mommy, Sarah & John

Here's Bobbie as the Carabosse (aka evil witch) and Sarah making a cameo appearance as the title character in the excerpt from Sleeping Beauty in the spring recital.

Bobbie loves playing these crazy characters so much that I remarked that her stage name should be Smithfield or Hormel given her propensity to ham it up.

As you can see, it looks pretty good for the whole party until...


...the Carabosse takes revenge for being left off the invitation list.

Then things start going very badly for my family. Not only did my wife became possessed by an evil witch who then kills my oldest daughter but, the king takes it all out on my son, John, who is playing the page.

Tough night after all...

Or just watch the video below.

Spring Recital - Janine

The Spring ballet recital was this past Friday. Here's Janine at her big solo as the Cossack Doll in La Boutique Fantasque. She worked hard preparing for her big moment and it shows. Look for Sarah as the doll shop girl guiding Janine out at the end.

She is so grown up in that blue dress. It holds particular significance for me because I remember the girls who are just a few years older than Sarah wearing it for the Trepak (Russian Dance) in the Nutcracker. At the time I looked forward to the day when Sarah might wear that dress and have a solo. It was Janine instead. Sarah has danced many other parts, but none in that outfit.

Please pardon the sentimentality of a father of growing daughters, but no matter how you prepare yourself for it, they grow up so fast.

Biz the Grad

Usually we focus on our family fun here in Pittsburgh, but today we recognize cousin Elizabeth who graduated from Highlands Ranch High School this week. Not only that, but her team got second place in the 4x800 relay in the Colorado State High School Track Tournament.

This fall it's off to college.

Good job Biz! We are proud of you.

John starts to help out

Last Friday afternoon I started to mow the front lawn. When John heard the sound, he came outside and offered to help. While I welcome this offer, I have to be careful because the small front lawn is the only flat section. In fact about 90% of our lawn is rather steep.

It is more than I can handle most of the time, so we will have to wait until John grows before he can mow the entire lawn. I hope he is still interested then. Of course some long overdue mower maintenance might help too!

Spring on the deck

This past week we have officially opened the deck for the summer. John took this photo last Monday when he took charge and personally made dinner on the deck happen. I was most pleased at his initiative. While we removed the deck furniture from storage three weeks ago, John cleaned off the table and chairs, set the table and lit the citronella candles.

Then this Friday we had our new pastor and some friends over for Spanish tapas on the deck. Bobbie went all out. We had two kinds of olives, turkey meatballs in romesko sauce, pickled anchovies, three kinds of cheese, potato frittata, and grilled salmon with salsa roja y verde. Our friends brought a green salad, a fruit salad and some Spanish Rioja wine. Bobbie made flan for dessert.

As they say in small town newspapers, a good time was had by all.

Now that the deck is officially open, we hope to use it a lot depending on rain and heat.

Finally, sorry for the two week wait between posts. Somehow I reached the upper limit of free allowable memory on my photos. After some juggling, we are able to post again. Next step will be to actually PAY for expanded memory.