Andrew & Heather Visit!

Just over a week after Karen and Theoren left, Andrew and Heather arrived to spend Thanksgiving week with us! We had another wonderful visit full of fun times and new memories.

Their weekend started with a round of laser tag at the laser tag place.  We had the entire arena to ourselves and had the best time running around, screaming, and shooting each other!  Ella was quite the sniper and killed us all.  We considered our round at Laser Quest to be just a warm up, though, and continued the competition at church.  Here we played in the pitch black sanctuary until late at night.

The next day was Thanksgiving and it was full of all the good food, long walks, family games and leftovers that make this day a favorite holiday.   We had many blessings to count at this year's table with the addition of Uncle Andrew to our family and the host of wonderful new beginnings my sister is embarking on this year.

Our Black Friday was spent giving our brains, instead of our wallets, a work out as we returned to The Tech.  Now, yes, we had just been there less than 2 weeks before, but this is the sort of place where every experience is different so it was just as fun to explore it with new family members!  The highlights of the day were abundant!  One was watching Heather get FULLY into the VR.  She was giving us quite a funny show moving her whole body around in the world only she could see!

Or having Andrew guide us through the Body Worlds exhibit with his unique surgeon eyes and experience.  It was fascinating to hear him describe how he operates and what some of the challenges and details of orthopedic surgery are!

Or watching each girl team up with their aunt/uncle for a multi-step experiment that had them injecting new DNA into petri dishes of E coli to form colorful mold spores visible under microscopes. 

Or trying to best each other in another attempt at the egg drop experiment.  No mushy, cushy "love mobile" for me this time-- and it did actually work!

Or the best highlight-- seeing the IMAX Panda movie in The Tech's state-of-the-art theater!  You can probably guess how one panda-loving member of our group felt about this! :)

After The Tech, we strolled around a cute Christmas festival happening right outside the museum.  

The next day, we patronized my favorite shop in town for some Small Business Saturday shopping.  This was just lovely, as we had an excuse to buy from and support my business-owing friend, and enjoy free mimosas and Gouda cheese samples while we did it!

Heather and I were realizing that we haven't been together for Thanksgiving since our college years!  What a treat to share this feast, this holiday, and this long weekend with them!  Every time we get to know Andrew better, we like him more and more.  Heather and Andrew are an AMAZING aunt and uncle, indulging my girls in countless games and conversations.  We were so blessed to host them this season!

Karen & Theoren Visit!

We've been very blessed this November to have lots of family visitors!  It's such a gift when our loved ones take the time and money that is required to fly out and spend a little time with us and taste a bit of our lives.  Through the years and the many many visits we've enjoyed, we always relish the challenge of finding the perfect outings for our guests, mixed with the perfect amount of time to chill at home and reconnect.  Here is a glimpse at some of the fun times we shared with Karen and Theoren...

They arrived on a Friday, when the girls and I were still in school.  Dave, his sister and nephew shared a fun day in Sacramento together, then met up with us at night for some In & Out!  (The girls were in Dress Rehearsal Week, so they were very busy with play practices, even while our family was here.)

After burgers, fries and shakes, we raced around the go-kart track!

On Saturday we tried a new destination, one I was hoping our tech savvy nephew would especially enjoy: The Tech Museum in San Jose!  It was super cool and we're excited to be members and continue exploring it all year!  The Tech is full of hands-on exhibits that teach you many things about science and technology.  It ended up being perfect for a group full of middle schoolers-- definitely recommend if you're in this same stage of life as us!  Above, Delia models with one of the real plasticised human bodies in the "Body Worlds Decoded" exhibit.  

The kids built LEGO creatures and then scanned them on the computer and were able to animate them!

Ella and Theoren tried the virtual reality exhibit.

We all enjoyed a lab project that had us extracting usable ink from fungus and mold samples.  We were then able to make actual art with it!

In the space exhibit, everyone took a turn trying to hit targets in the rocket booster simulator.

We tried out just about every major earthquake that has hit our globe in the earthquake simulator.  So interesting to FEEL and compare and contrast the length, strength and intensity of the earthquakes of Haiti, San Francisco and Taiwan!

The kids built a social robot that was able to do all sorts of tricks!

We played around with fun screen and video technology.

And we spent a long time building egg drop machines.  Here your "egg" was a small computer sensor box that determined if you'd succeed or fail in keeping it safe after a 10 foot fall.  Above, Dave engineered something pretty cool.  He succeeded.  Below, Karen and I went the "Mother Bird" route and just packed and padded the crap out of ours.  We failed.

Our day at The Tech was SO fun...as you can tell from all my exclamation points in describing the exhibits! ;)

We weren't far from Apple Park at this place in Silicon Valley, so we quick stopped there on the way home.

After an entire Saturday spent learning, we enjoyed a Sunday of relaxing at home.  Theoren introduced us to Drawful, the hilarious and interactive drawing game you all play together on your own devices.  We played this for HOURS.

And we took a so funny stroll down memory lane when we pulled out the old high school Octoberfest videos to giggle and exclaim over!  Our kids may not have been as amused as their parents, but oh the memories!

Monday was a day off, but the girls still had 6 hours of play practice on this day, so we made the best of it and brought the family in for a dress rehearsal sneak peek!  This actually worked out so great, as Karen and Theoren were going to miss the performance.  Love that they could still enjoy the run through!

Even with the fun food, the go-karts, the fancy tech exhibits, and the dazzle of the play, the best part of the long weekend was just the time to catch up and reconnect.  I've said before how thankful I am that our siblings are literally our best friends.  What a joy to watch our kids find this same satisfying friendship with their cousins!

Alice Videos

Since the pictures don't capture the catchy-ness of the songs, or the fun of the choreography, here are a few short videos too.

(A Stage Mom friend took this one and sent it to us.  As professional of a production as the kids give us on stage, they are still goofy, energetic, wiggly middle schoolers.  Here's a peek at what's happening behind the curtain during intermission at dress rehearsal!)

Alice in Wonderland!

Here it is!  The big blog post chronicling what has taken over our lives these past 7 weeks!  Yes, we've rearranged our schedule, listened to the soundtrack 90 billion times, made sometimes as many as 4 trips to school each day, eaten dinner at wacky times, stayed up too late finishing homework, and even shed a few tears...but it was all absolutely, positively, categorically worth it!  For the pride my girls feel in putting together a legit performance and the life lessons they gained in working on this with a cast of 35 others, we feel so blessed to have been a part of it and would do it all again in a second.  We're hoping this is the start of a long happy career of participating in school drama productions for these little spot-light lovers!

So, while our extended family waits for the video (which our busy, frantic, juggling-15-hot-mics sound man warned me would be poor quality and take a long time to make) here are 100 pictures to tell the story. ;)

Getting ready!  Delia loved every single thing about being Small Alice...expect this scratchy wig!  We tried all different things to get it to be less torturous for my sensory girl, but in the end she just had to ACT like it didn't bother her.

 Ella was thrilled to get flippy 60's style hair and fancy cat eye makeup.

 The three lovely Cheshires that stayed on stage the entire time and hilariously narrated the whole story.

 The play opens with all the characters in a childlike version of themselves playing at a park.  Ella slept in her tree and "acted catlike" making aloof faces and grooming herself.

 Alice complains in song about how boring books are, falls asleep, chases the white rabbit, falls into Wonderland and then encounters the little door and its silly door knob.  Through the magic of special effects, Alice drinks some potion and out twirls Delia from behind the little door, making her Small Alice stage debut.

 Alice can't get through the door without the key, though, so she has to retrieve it from her Cheshire sister's outstretched arms.  After eating a cookie, Alice grows huge and then cries and cries and cries about how she'll never get in the door.  A little sip of potion and Tall Alice shrinks back down to Small Alice who swims in the ocean of her tears...

 And meets the Dodo Bird and his crew of lobsters!  They have a caucus race to dry off Alice.

 Eventually Small Alice meets the lovely flowers of the Golden Afternoon.

Though they look beautiful, they are super snooty and won't let Alice join their cool club.

 She feels sad.

 But, don't worry!  Here comes the caterpillar, "your wonder of wonders, your miracle of miracles, your happy happy day!"  She teaches Delia, uh Small Alice, a snappy tune that will make her forget all her problems.

 Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!

 Small Alice cheers up and Act One's curtain closes after this whole cast, show stopping song and dance number!

Act Two opens with Regular Sized Alice telling the Cheshires she has a cat at home too.  They ask if her cat can do the amazing things they can do.

And then it's off to an Un-birthday/Mad Tea Party!  We meet the Mad Hatter who cheats at a game, breaks the White Rabbit's clock and makes us all laugh.

 Alice then makes her way to the Royal Court where the cards are painting the roses red.  Ella, or Cheshire 1, is letting Alice know that the way to curry favor with the evil Queen of Hearts is to invite her to play croquet with upside down flamingos as mallets.  The Queen says she's over that game and would rather play Simon Says.

Simon says, "Meow!"

 After an intense game of Simon Says and a trial at the Royal Court, Alice is asked "WHO ARE YOU?!" to which she answers all the things she is not, all things she learned from meeting the various characters in Wonderland, and proclaims, "I'M ALICE!" which wakes her from a dream.

The play concludes and it's time for final bows-- all choreographed to the the play's show stopper, Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah.

On Closing Night, Ella was excited to make the thank you speech.  She was poised and articulate and did a great job.

This is the girls' amazing director, Mrs. M. and here is something I posed about her on social media: "The curtain is closed and you've seen the million pictures, but I need to share just one more thing: our gratitude for Mrs. M. and everyone who made this marvelous musical come together.  Some weeks my girls were at school for an additional 12 hours.  I'm so grateful that all that time was spent under the direction of someone who cared about their personal character as much as the characters they played.  Someone who taught them about being a leader, not just a lead.  Someone who reminded them that "for whom much has been given, much is required" and how the use of their gifts glorified God."  How great that the girls have yet another loving voice of truth speaking life lessons and shepherding their hearts!

Stage loving sisters!

 Proud, proud, proud parents!

And just a few of the many pictures with friends.  Above-- Ella with Megan, the high school co-director who is her mentor and hero (and who also stepped in at the last minute for a sick flower) and below-- Delia with her friend group.

And finally cast pictures, serious and dramatic!

Whew!  Sorry for the long post and thanks for enduring to the end.  Landing these parts and working so hard/giving so much to the success of this show will be core memories for my kids.