Delia's First Dance Recital!

A couple weeks ago, as Dave was en route to the ER with what appeared to be a second broken arm, I must confess that one worry weighing heavily on me was, "What will this mean for Delia's dance recital?!?"  Her ballet class has been a big part of her year, and she's been working hard to learn the routine and showing great improvement.  And we've been learning what a BIG DEAL recitals are when each week we were sent home with more and more specific instructions about the costume...the tights...the hair...the tickets...the dress rehearsal.  We all had a lot invested in this!

Well, good news!  As previously posted, Delia was able to dance!  Because she does ballet, this was not a high-impact dance.  And because she's in this adorable little beginner group, there was not any pressure to look perfect.  In many ways, the position her arm is locked into in her cast is the perfect bend for ballet! :)

The recital was at our local college's performing arts center and the show was sold out!  Delia spent the day bouncing back and forth between complete terror over forgetting her steps and being in front of all those people and total ecstasy over looking beautiful in her costume and fancy hairdo and dancing on a huge stage.  It was an emotional day!

We were not allowed to take pictures during the night time performance, so these are all of the afternoon dress rehearsal.

 Above shows the curtain call practice.  Delia said her favorite part of the night was getting to come out from behind the curtain and take this big bow.  Then, after each line had received their recognition at the night's performance, a huge dance party broke out on stage!  So fun to see a relieved Delia boogieing down with all the other little costumed performers!

 This show was legit!  There were 36 dance numbers, some performed by the Competitive Team, which could have been professional!  The variety was really exciting.  Delia was only one of three ballet numbers.  There was tap, hip-hop, lyrical, jazz, contemporary, tumbling and cheer.  Dave and I said we were surprised by how much we really enjoyed watching the show.  Look at these backstage dressing rooms!  Delia felt like a rock star getting ready here with her "best ballet friend" Rylee.

Some roses and big hugs for our little ballerina!  We are super proud of Delia for many, many reasons.  She's persevered in her dance class this year.  She stepped up to dance in this show, even when she was nervous about her arm.  She conquered some big time jitters last night to perform in front of the huge crowd.  And she did it all with a smile and the declaration that she's doing all this because some day she's going to be a "for real" dancer!

Life is Good

A glimpse at a few of the things that have made me happy lately:

1.  Delia is going to dance in her recital!  She's been learning the routine since January and we bought the fancy dress and show tickets.  We were totally bummed when we thought broken arm #2 would be a literal show-stopper.  But, she's been going to practices and her teacher has been great about modifying the routine to keep her safer (read: no leaps!).  She got to practice her costume, hair and make-up for a studio photo on Saturday.  She dances in 3 days.

2.  Speaking of the infamous arm, we once again hung up each of the abundant cards Delia received. Some of them continue to tickle my funny bone as I walk by her bedroom door each day!

3.  My yard is abloom!  We've been having fun arranging clippings in vases for the mantle.

4.  'Nuff said.

5.  My cousin Anna is marrying her perfect man.  Derek proposed on Saturday and we did actual out-loud cheering and jumping when we found out!

6.  Packages from the Netherlands from Auntie Karen and Uncle Chris!

7.  Artichoke season!

8.  Our favorite youngest nephew, Miles, turned 5 this week.  This 5 year old has had quite the year and has taught me all about strength and courage!  I can't see this smile without smiling back at it, so instant happiness.

9.  Our preschool director stumbled on a great sale at the teacher store and came to school with bags of new toys.  My co-worker Lisa and I were all too happy to take a stroll (skip?) down memory lane and show the kids how the Skip-Its work!   I love my job.

10.  Our Tuesday got off to a strange start.  I experienced my first school lock-down and police sweep.  It all happened in the hour before the students arrived, but it sure threw us staff into confusion.  It ended up being a false alarm, but I am extra appreciative now of a thorough police force!!  Ella will tell you she is happy that the result of the crazy day, with several students arriving late or not at all, was no homework!

Anna, Derek, and Luke :)

One great thing about traveling through Southern California is that we have a whole list of good friends we could stop and see.  We had some time restraints, so we decided to limit it somewhat and see Lloyd and Heidi and their family on the way down and Derek and Anna on the way back up.  Anna found a perfect local coffee shop for us to meet, right off the highway and close to her home.  We feasted on pancakes and omelets while we caught up on life, vacation sightings, and broken bones and heard about the plans for Derek's big 4-0 and the perfect new copy-writing job Anna will be starting next week.

Seeing Anna and Derek was a highlight of our week and would have been great enough.  But, we got an extra special treat on this stop when our server saw us admiring the signed Mark Hamill picture on our wall and informed us that he is a regular at this diner.  In fact, it was in the EXACT large, round booth in the back we were sitting in where he met with his peeps to discuss and plan the new Star Wars VII!!  She then informed Delia that he sat in the spot she was in!  I'll never forget her face when she learned that her bottom was occupying the same space Luke Skywalker's had been! :)

This was a big trip for us!  It was a lot of traveling, a lot of walking, and we crammed a lot in!  But, whatever bumps in the road we experienced were definitely worth seeing some of our favorite people and getting to experience the cool stuff (Life on a real military base!  Five Shamus right up close!  Lego Movie set!  Koalas eating!  Mama hippo teaching her baby to swim!  Glimpse at our Pacific Fleet!  Luke Sykwalker's booth!) we did this week!

San Diego Smorgasbord

This was a great trip, but one of those where you don't really feel very rested or relaxed at the end of it.  Because our first 3 days had us walking and seeing so much, we wanted this last day to feel more easy-going.  As mentioned, our City Go Cards gave us 44 different SD attractions to visit and, after hitting the 3 big parks, we ended our vacation by picking a bunch of smaller things to check out. 

First up was a harbor cruise around the San Diego Bay.  Since we had some time before it departed and we were right here, we made a quick trip to the USS Midway, a former Navy aircraft carrier, now serving as an interactive museum.  We could have spent hours here, but only had 1 before our cruise left, so we took the "accelerated tour".

Ella especially loved the self-guided listening tour and gleaned all sorts of interesting information from her headset.  We went through the bottom levels pretty quickly because it was close-quarters and both and Ella and I were starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

On the flight deck we got to actually sit in some fighter planes and helicopters!  The most interesting thing we learned here was that there are more brain surgeons in the world than people who can land planes on this tennis-court-sized landing strip.

Our cruise around the South San Diego Bay was awesome!  Our tour guide was a former Navy sailor, so he was very knowledgeable about the long line of Navy ships that dock here and make up our Pacific Fleet.  After our time at Camp Pendleton, then on the Midway, then this tour of the fleet, a million questions were sparked in Ella.  I spent about an hour in the hotel pool that night discussing and explaining our country's military system and war history with a curious Ella.

The best part of the cruise was how peaceful it was!  It was so nice to just sit at our table in the sunshine on the upper deck and take it all in.

We also got a little creative with our passes on day 4.  Our Go Cards let us into a small science museum that we weren't super interested in.  However, visiting the museum included tickets to this awesome IMAX theater showing an hour long movie about humpback whales.  It was the girls' first IMAX and they were pretty amazed.  So, our passes added one more cool thing to our list and gave us another activity to just sit and take it easy!

I felt like we could not visit San Diego without at least stopping at the beach, so we next checked out La Jolla.  We explored The Cove, which is more wildlife than sand and surfers.  We even saw some seals really close up!  The town of La Jolla was neat to see too.  With some Starbucks in hand, we strolled through a couple art galleries, including one of my favorite artists, photographer Peter Lik.

After the fierce pace we set the first few days of vacation, this last one was just perfect.  We felt like we made the most of our passes and took it a little easier, while still seeing some really good stuff.

So long, SoCal!

San Diego Zoo

Oh man, what fun we had at the San Diego Zoo on day 3!  Though it was super crowded here too, we had several times where our timing was just right to experience some unforgettable moments with the animals.

We LOVE koalas!  The koala bears were what Delia I were most excited to see on this entire vacation.  We went to their habitat first and found that they were just being fed their eucalyptus leaf breakfast.  This made them all awake and active-- a rare sight to see!  We even saw a zookeeper carrying one around like a cuddly little baby!

Next it was off to the panda bears, which this particular zoo is famous for.  We visited them 3 times throughout the day, but the first time through was the best.  There are 2 bears and, again, we got to see them eating and climbing.  The next few visits showed us the funny ways they sleep hanging out of trees or planking on stumps.

Delia enjoyed the pandas so much, this was the vacation souvenir she insisted on!

Another amazing animal sighting came at the hippo pond.  Here a mama hippo hangs with her 16 day old hippo baby!  Have you ever seen anything so cute?  We were told that the majority of the time, she hides her baby in a bushy section of the enclosure.  But, when we walked up, they were out sunning on the beach.  THEN they climbed into the water where the mama gave her baby a long swimming lesson right in front of us!  This was a highlight of the whole trip for us!

We also enjoyed a few rides that came with our passes-- a Skytram over the top of the zoo and a double-decker bus tour.

Besides seeing cool animals, there were plenty of places to play and learn stuff too.

Walking around the San Diego Zoo is like walking around a huge botanical garden.  We learned on our bus tour that the landscaping is world-class and meticulously cared for.  The sum of all the exotic plants in the zoo is actually more valuable than the sum of all the animals that live here!

Throughout this trip, Dave kept an eye on his pedometer app.  With all the walking we did, we were never surprised at the end of each day to see our step totals in the 15,000 range.  After this zoo day, though, which was the most walking, we were shocked to see our total in miles: OVER TWENTY FIVE!! It did not feel like we walked 25 miles and never once did the girls complain.  But, it sure made these Footsie Wootsie massage chairs we each tried feel pretty awesome.  A Footsie Wootsie is still just a quarter and it will always make me think of Ericlee and Dorina! :)