Book 10

I finished book 10 this morning:

This one gutted me. Two major characters had tragic deaths, and I did not see either one coming. There is one book left in the series, and I am both excited and terrified to read it. I will truly miss this family when I finish that last book.
 

Last Competition

We celebrated Issa's last dance competition this weekend:

She started with jazz, which is one heck of a way to start:

They all come off exhausted from this dance, but I love the energy:

Then she had tap. This isn't the best picture, but it captures the moment she and Bailey make eye contact and smile so big:

These friendships show up onstage as well as off.

And she ended the day with her solo:

Her final moment on a competitive stage:

The competition honored seniors and gave them each a key chain:

And I spent most of the day teary, which I did not expect, and I'm blaming this woman:

Stephanie built more than a studio; she built a family. I had wrapped my head around the fact that this was Issa's last competition, but I forgot that it was also mine. When I walked in and started getting hugs from all the mom's, it hit me, and I'm still teary typing this two days later. 

The high school team stayed backstage to watch Issa's solo, and after they hugged her those sweet girls came off stage and hugged me. All of us (but Issa) were in tears. Issa was actually the last one out, and she was just beaming.

I have loved watching Issa on stage--especially this year when she is truly having fun. I was ready to close that chapter with her.

What I am still processing is that I am closing a chapter with each of these sweet families, though. We will still show up to support our friends, but it will be different. It has been one of my greatest joys to watch these girls grow on and off stage, and I will miss closing their chapters with them. Thank goodness we still have recital.

 

Small Rituals

 We got a new coffee pot last week. We loved out old one. It didn't have a traditional pot, which meant the coffee stayed warm forever. It was great until the lever broke and coffee would just randomly start flowing. It was a lot to handle before you had your coffee. When that became a somewhat regular occurrence, we ordered a replacement.

This one has the traditional pot again. I didn't realize how much I missed the small ritual of pouring coffee in the morning. Something about that motion just feels homey and comforting. It has made me realize all of the other small things I do everyday to keep my ship sailing.

May and June are always a blur, and I've made a commitment to soak in all of the moments this year, and I'm settling into the small rituals to keep me grounded.

Perfection

We received Issa's final senior dance photos last night, and they are the absolute best:

She is so happy in all of them:

And she is so authentically herself:

And I finally got a real smile in pointe shoes:

We spent a bit chunk of time planning her graduation yesterday, and I can honestly say I'm not at all sad. I am loving celebrating these milestones, closing this chapter while opening the next one. I'm so very proud of where she is, and I am absolutely loving who she is becoming. 
 

An Absolutely Perfect Date

 Brad and I had an incredible night out Saturday. I had worked an event all day, and I was so ready to make zero decisions and just enjoy some time out, and our evening did not disappoint.

We drove to a nearby little town and ate on the patio overlooking the river. We found this fun little pub with a ton of options for Brad and a great wine list. The weather was perfect and the food was great!

After dinner, we walked by the river and saw a double-crested cormorant wading in the water. He was beautiful!

We ended the evening with a strings concert in an old mill. The acoustics were incredible, and the music was gorgeous.

We are not in love this little town, and we have found a campground that we can walk to all these places from! We are already looking for the next night we can get away!

Book 9

I finished book 9 this week:

 The Poldark plot if thickening as we are following the second generation into their adult adventures. I have two books left in the series, and I am going to miss this family so much.

An Eclipse Party

We were able to watch the solar eclipse on Monday!

Evan was at school, and his teacher supplied the class with eclipse glasses and took them outside.

I put our eclipse glasses from last time somewhere super safe. Thankfully, I married Mr. Wizard:

Our little pinhole box worked perfectly:

We hit about 84% totality. All of us noticed how much darker and cooler it got, but the thing we keep talking about is the quiet. No birds. No insects. Evan said even the teenagers got quiet.

It was such a wondrous thing, and I'm so grateful we were all able to experience it.
 

A Wild Ride of a Conference

I spent the end of last week at an accreditation conference for work, and it was one wild ride. I flew into Orlando on Wednesday for a Thursday start, and I barely made. The weather did not cooperate, my flight cancelled and then uncancelled. At a low point I was landing at 1am instead of 3:30pm. I had four different flights at one point. It was wild, but I made it! In all of the chaos, I managed to leave my brick in the wall of the airport. I realized I could Door Dash a brick, but I had to call to see what kind of phone I had and what kind of brick I needed. By the time I landed at 9pm I just didn't have the brain capacity. He asked me to send a picture of the cord:

Bless him. That's the end that goes in the phone. Not helpful. I sent him the right picture:

And I had the right brick in 20 minutes. The actual conference was amazing! So many of these people I have "known" online for years, and it was great to miss in person. I had three presentations, and the book I have a chapter in launched:

I'm not going to lie, it was pretty cool to see my name solo in print in an actual book. And it was fun to present:

I also got to have dinner with Becca while I was in town, which was awesome! I don't often get a lot of time with just her, so it was great to catch up over a very long, very good meal.

Thankfully, the flight home was smooth and I got in on time, and my saint of a husband picked me up at 10:45pm. 

I'm already looking forward to next year's conference and reconnecting with these colleagues.
 

Last week, we used the end of spring break to travel to the Biltmore! Aunt Carol joined us, and we had a wonderful time!

We have never been there close to Easter, and I found all of the flowers and bunnies delightful:

They also had giant eggs tucked throughout the house, which I got way too excited about!

And the Arts Council also had painted eggs throughout the gardens:

We also stopped by to see the baby goats. These babies were only a day old, and I was in love.

The main purpose of our visit, though, was to see the Chihuly glass exhibit:

The more traditional museum pieces were gorgeous, but this ceiling was my favorite:

They are all individual pieces. This huge main exhibit was also impressive; it took up a whole room:

This was also the trip that we learned Carol loves sprinkles:

And Evan still loves cheese burgers:

It was great to get some time away. The kids had their own room, and they loved the sibling time. I think we are all soaking in these memories this semester.

 

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful time celebrating yesterday. We went to Nana's where the kids found their bunny baskets:

For the first time, we did the egg hunt in Nana's back yard, and they were really tricky:

We actually lost an egg for a while:

Carol and Shannon knew where all 17 were, but we could count those places, thought we had gotten them all, and still only had 16 eggs:

Shannon literally shook the bushes one more time before dinner and it fell out!

We had traveled last week, we decided to decorate eggs after the plastic hunt and a waffle bar:

It was a fun afternoon activity:

Nana made an Easter bonnet egg:

Brad and Evan made engineering marvels:

I am still insanely proud of my Easter Bunny egg:

Issa made butterflies:

And Aunt Carol made pair:

Aunt Shannon made a very pretty lace and sparkles egg:

After eggs we walked the river walk, and then we enjoyed an early traditional ham Easter dinner. It was a gloriously simple day, and we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously!
 

Books 7 and 8

I finished book seven on Friday; I also started it on Friday! It was that good. I can't say much more about it, though, because it is currently unpublished. Kaitlin wrote it, and I am so incredibly proud of her. It's been a long time since I have read an entire book in one day, and I'm thrilled to be one of her early readers.

I finished book eight this morning:

I'm still working my way through the Poldark series, and I'm still enjoying it. This one took a weird twist in the last few chapters, so I'm anxious to start the next one and see where it goes!
 

A Huge Weekend with Only One Bad Picture

We had a very busy weekend!

Saturday, we spent most of the day at Meredith with Issa. It was her admitted student visit, and we got to see more things and get a lot more very specific information. She was most excited to take the self-guided tour of all of the residence halls. She was grateful to get to check out the storage in the rooms, the laundry rooms, and the kitchens. This is the only picture I took all weekend:

 She is compiling her graduation wish list, and she wanted to be sure she knew what was already there. 

She is still so confident in her decision, and she has decided there really is no bad option when it comes to residence halls, so we'll take it!

Saturday night, Mom, Shannon, and I went to see the musical Mrs. Doubtfire. It was cute, but the highlight was dinner before. We tried a new tapas place, and it was delicious. The menu is fusion, and the atmosphere was bright and not at all crowded. We will be back!

Sunday afternoon, all we girls went to see a debut ballet, The Little Mermaid. The score was composed specifically for the ballet, and we had a live orchestra and soprano. It was absolutely the best ballet I've ever seen! It was both classic and modern, and it was danced absolutely beautifully.

We met the boys afterwards for dinner at Radius, and I was in bed by 9:00. It was a perfect weekend!