Cleveland Botanical Gardens

Friday Bobbie and the kids went up to Cleveland to the Botanical Gardens and the Museum. As you can see they had a great time.

Ballet Class Recital

The last of the ballet classes were last week, so Janine's class had an in-studio recital. There were two classes that performed Hansel and Gretel, as well as a third performance at the open-house Friday night.

Janine was the good fairy for all of the performances except one. Here she is at the run-through Wednesday evening. As you can see, she wants to go on pointe, but is not quite old enough yet.

Sarah was there on Friday evening in a more informal dance as you can tell from the costume. I love this photo of my oldest daughter in a Degas-like pose.

Iced Tea Stand

It was a sure sign of summer yesterday as the ever enterprising Janine set up a drink stand. She wanted to earn money for her share of summer drama camp.

At first she asked Bobbie if she could sell lemonade. After first saying no, Bobbie suggested iced tea. Then Janine recuited the neighbors and her brother to help. Because she was limited to the front of our house in the cul-de-sac, she walked out to the street to recruit people taking their dogs for a walk on the nature trail.

In the end she earned the money she needed and paid the neighbors to help.

Great job!

Piano Recital

John and Janine played in a piano recital yesterday. Here's John at rehearsal playing a familiar tune.

Everybody loves Baklava!

...or at least everybody in our family. We also like spanikopita, moussaka, and gyros.

Last night we went to the food festival at the Greek Orthodox church on the Northside. We have gone to the festival before, but usually on Friday or Saturday. This year we found out Thursday is the best night to go.

Here's everyone on the fence at the front of the church. Afterwards we took the long way back to the car through this historic neighborhood. It's called the Mexican War Streets and will be the subject of a future post.

Oh and here's the full sign...

Kid's Festival

This past weekend Sarah worked the Children's festival wearing a costume as Junie B. Jones. Now this drawing does not do justice to her costume, but I was strictly prohibited from taking her picture and posting it here. Like most character costumes, it was heavy and hot. Thankfully she wore it for only 45 minutes at a time and got to break for 15 between wearings. (Please note that the festival also had a person assigned to help her navigate her way and also provide security.)

However it was a good experience for her as she worked four days straight for six hours each day. By the end of the festival she was pretty tired.

So was John for that matter. He helped out at the face painting booth. While his job was not as physically demanding as Sarah's, he was pretty pooped by the end of the day yesterday as well.

More from Netherfield

Since John was featured in the last post, now it's Sarah's turn. Here she is with some of her friends outside, just before the ball.

Sarah is not happy about her dad taking her picture I guess.

Whatever the case, they all were lovely and danced quite well.

They not only danced until the end of the ball at 10 PM, but carried on the activity to the parking lot afterward. Several of the young ladies and men were tossing around a football in their full formal attire, sans gloves of course.

Ah, the energy of youth!

Netherfield Video

Finally, here are some videos of the Netherfield Ball. In the first one is John's friend Justin in his first dance at his first Netherfield Ball dances quite well with both of his sisters. Clearly there's a strong family dance component.

Traditionally, there are more girls than boys at these events, but this year was an exception. As one of our friends said to her three boys. "You are going for two reasons: one, pretty girls and two, tasty snacks." She was right on both counts. One of the dads and I ate deviled eggs and reminisced about how one doesn't see them much any more. They seem to have gone out of style along with large wood grain sided station wagons.

The second video is the only one I got of anyone in our family. Here, John ends up without a partner. I guess the new one went the other way. To complete the story, he found a new partner and got back on track. John did very well at this dance. Despite the surplus of boys, John had a partner for every dance and rarely sat down. Something I am proud as his dad.

Volleyball!

Last night Janine, John and I went to see one of our neighbors play in a key volleyball match at our local high school. Here's Kyle just about to score a kill. (That's my bald head in the stands just above Kyle's head.)

As you can see he is one of the tallest guys on the team. This is his senior year, so it is the last time he and his parents will be going to the away matches and tournaments. Hence it is a happy time tinged with some sentiment.

True to form, he is on a full Division I athletic scholarship in the fall. His father was a world-class runner in the 1970s, so the traditions (and genetics) are strong.

The difference between then and now is that Kyle's aunt in Australia can listen to the games live and cheer him on via text messages to his parents!

Netherfiield Ball - Practice

Last night was practice night for the Netherfield Ball. Everyone was able to familiarize themselves with the English Country Dances prior to donning costumes for tonight's ball.

Here some of the younger dancer are adding some flourishes. Expect the same tonight. However we will have a more crowded hall as we are expecting 100 dancers compared to last night's 75.

Click here for last year's fun.

Latest Project

This weekend I had the pleasure of constructing a table with John. He came to me earlier in the week and asked if he could have a table for his room.

Instead of rushing out and buying something, I told him we had the supplies in our garage to build a table.

For a work surface we used some of the left over birch plywood from the sheet I used to build a computer table for Bobbie. (Click here for the backstory.)

Here's John sanding the edge. After cutting it to size and a through sanding, we finished it with clear water borne polyurethane. That way we got a very nice finish that retains the light birch color.

Because we applied the finish, John had to wait for his table. That was a little tough at first, but as it took four hours between coats, we planned out exactly when we could put on the next one. I didn't need to keep track of the time, because John did it for me!

Finally we put on the legs yesterday afternoon. We carried it up the driveway though the front door and up the steps into John's room.

In keeping with John's interest in sound systems, we set up the table so he could look into the room and work the controls of his small mixer. Who knows? Later he could be recording live music!

Friends at the show

Several of our friends came to Saturday night's performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Here are the Thompsons with John and Janine.

Andrew, one of their ballet teachers, was also there. Their other ballet teacher and the accompanist came to the afternoon performance as well as some of the homeschooling families we know.

Overall they really appreciated the fact that friends came to the performances.

Finally here's equal time for Sarah as the White Stag.

Radio Follow up

The radio appearance for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is here. It's the site for the Saturday Light Brigade, a local show that runs on several public radio stations throughout Western Pennsylvania.

The audio quality is much better than in the earlier post. Nice to see they posted the photo of the host talking to John.

It was interesting how the host thought acting was a good thing to get homeschoolers around other kids. The guy was very nice, and interested to find out how much homeschooled kids did.

Like most people, once he realized that homeschooling allows the ultimate in flexibility, he was impressed.

John on-air

John was on the radio this morning. One of the public stations in town was doing a remote broadcast at the local Center for the Arts. The director of the production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe arranged for some of the cast to perform on-air (see below for video).

They all had a great time at the open house for the arts center, but they had to go back for a noon rehearsal.

This show is a family affair as all three of them are in it. John is the witch's dwarf assistant. Sarah has a dual role as the White Stag and Fenris Ulf. Janine also has a dual role as a fox and an member of the army.

More next week as the show times are all next weekend.

Skating show

After several snow cancellations and much practice, the skating show was Monday night. Here's Sarah with her friend Joey after the skate team's tribute to Michael Jackson number.

Click here because it all started back in November.

Everyone worked very hard to put on the best show possible despite a very trying month of February. As usual the costumes were creative and very well done.

But the ice was good and the crowd was warm. I think the Olympics helped maintain interest. Sarah would like to keep skating throughout the rest of the year. If she has her way we will probably be visiting the Neville Island complex regularly.