We are right in the middle of a "show weekend." To those unfamiliar to what that means in my home I'll fill you in--all 3 of my kids are involved in a local theatre company. There is no way that I can afford to pay tuition for all of them so they are all on scholarship in exchange for me helping out. For years we were involved in a small theatre company and a good friend, Julie, and I pretty much ran the show as far as box office, raffle, and concessions go. When they moved to this other theatre I offered to do pretty much the same thing I had always done and the transition has gone very well. Julie and I are happy to relinquish box office duties over to the other theatre staff but aside from that we still do a lot of it. So, that means--I bake a bazillion lemon bars and half a bazillion chocolate chip cookie bars for the concession stand, I also get prizes for the drawing, and sell tickets for the drawing before the show and during intermission. So, in addition to getting 3 kids ready for a performance, including dinner at about 4:30, I get there early and along with Julie help set up and then work, watch the show, duck out early to prep for intermission, and then work through intermission, watch the rest of the show, then pick up trash in the theatre, bag up trash and find some strong handsome boy (Jonathan) to take it out, and make sure everything is cleaned up in the concessions area. I added a new task to my responsibilities (at least for this weekend) and that is doing the lights during two of the shows. This is highly stressful for me because I live in fear of messing everything up but in reality it's not that hard. I have a script with carefully highlighted cues for everytime I am supposed to push "go." Thank you to Jonathan (that strong, handsome trash boy) for training me so well and making the cues so easy to follow. Last night was my first night and I got through with only 2 minor mess-ups. There is a lot to do physically on a show weekend but in addition to that, emotions run high--I get nervous for my kids sometimes depending on their part, I get excited, I am proud of them, and so on. By Sunday evening I will be wiped out physically and mentally...but exhausting as show weekends are I love them, I love being such a big part of something that my kids are so passionate about. In my last post I mentioned that we were taking the whole summer off from theatre...well, plans sometimes change and after re-thinking and talking to Ollie we've decided that the kids will be in the 2nd session of summer camp. The show they will be performing is "Honk! Jr.," a musical retelling of the story of the Ugly Duckling. It should be super cute from what I've heard and I'm glad we get to participate. So, we will only have a 2 month break but that's plenty enough.
On another note...Two Christmases ago we entered the iWorld--Ollie got an iPhone, I got an iPod Touch, and Hannah got an iPod Nano, and Grace got an iPod Shuffle. Then about a year ago, Hannah bought a used iPod Touch so she sold her Nano to Grace and Grace gave her shuffle to Joe. Today we are having another big iSwap--Hannah is buying a friend's iPod Touch (it's a step up from the one she bought last year, this one has speakers so she can play music without earbuds or docking station), she is selling her iPod Touch to Grace for $15 and Grace is selling her Nano to Joe for $5, and Joe is selling his Shuffle to me for $2. I decided that I wanted his Shuffle for the gym. The complicated thing in all of this is getting them all onto the computer, synced with iTunes but still transferring songs they've bought and stuff like that. Thankfully Ollie has agreed to oversee all of that fun. Now if only Ollie would only upgrade his iPhone so he can "sell" me his old one. That's an iSwap I want to be a part of.
I am in the middle of reading The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson--it's about a preacher back in the 60s who went into New York City and witnessed and ministered to gangs there. So far it's a great book and very inspiring to see the power of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this man's life and I've also been inspired by his willingness to be obedient even when it didn't make sense. It's a great book! I will say that I wouldn't recommend it for kids any younger than 16 or so, there is graphic explanations of a world that many kids don't even know exists yet. I have also recently read two books by Kristin Hannah--Magic Hour and Firefly Lane. Both were great books and I highly recommend them. Kristin Hannah is Jodi Picoultish without the twists at the end. The kids and I just finished listening to Savvy by Ingrid Law. It won a homeschool award and it's well deserved. I highly recommend it as an audio book, read aloud, or just a book for yourself or your child. Great story! I've got 4 more books on my bedside table that I'm eager to get to and I'm hoping for a lot of reading time this next week. We'll see...our activities are done but we have a lot of school I'd like to plow through since I'm hoping this will be our last week of school.
Stay tuned for lots of photos and videos (if I can get it working) of "Camp Rock: The Musical!"
We went on a fun weekend adventure with H and B as a celebration of Ollie's and B's May birthdays. First stop--Cuba. Well, a very small piece of Cuba. This tiny "park" that we are standing in front of is actually property of Cuba and is located in Ybor City. 
After visiting Cuba we went to dinner at The Columbia--the oldest restaurant in Florida. First thing they gave us was warm, crusty cuban bread. It was hard not to eat the whole thing right away but I wanted to save room for dinner. That didn't stop Joe though. He ate the whole piece plus a cuban sandwich for dinner and then shared guava cheesecake with Ollie. The food was amazing and then we got to see a show as well--Flamenco dancing. The pictures from the restaurant are terrible but I'm posting them anyway. Ollie is not as mad as he looks in the picture below. He was actually having a wonderful time. 
The Flamenco dancing was wonderful and so fun to watch. Impossible to photograph though. 
We stayed overnight in Tampa and then spent the day Sunday at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. This place was amazing. We got to see Ca d' Zan below--the mansion of John Ringling and his wife Mabel. It was beautiful and so ornate. I took some pictures but they are all blurry (couldn't use a flash) except the one below. That was taken from the balcony upstairs looking down into the living room. 
Below is the back of the house that faces the water. Just beautiful. 
After touring the house we had some lunch and then toured the Circus Museum, that was fascinating--so much to see. 
Then on to the art museum. Again there was no flash photography so no good pictures. This art collection was phenomenal and we had a really good docent who made many of the paintings come to life for us. We have been studying the Renaissance and so it was neat to see so many paintings from that time period. 
They also had a Hip Hop art exhibit and you were given an iPod with hip hop music on it to listen to as you toured this exhibit. It was okay if you like modern art and hip hop music. :0)
We almost missed the miniature circus on display but thankfully our tram driver told us about it. This was amazing. I took a few pictures but they just don't do it justice. The detail of this circus is remarkable. It took us at least an hour to see all of it and we were treated to some commentary by the man who created it. He happened to be visiting and giving a tour. 
We had a great weekend!
