Winter Formal 2023

A highlight of January is always Winter Formal!  Both my girls decided to attend with girlfriends this year and both had a wonderful time.  I love all the formal things!  The friend groups, the dresses, the shoes, the hair-- so here is an over-abundance of pictures from this fun night!  

Three things were notably different this year:

1.  It was raining!  We've never had a rainy formal!  Thank goodness the venue was inside this year.  We were all a bit thrown for our pictures, though, thus the porch pics and umbrellas.  The rain may have dampened the carefully-crafted curls, but it did not dampen anyone's spirits!  The report was that this was the best formal yet.

2.  The girls both left around 2:00 to head to separate friends' houses to get ready.  So, no pictures of them together.  And I had make a tough choice of which picture session I'd attend.

3.  The venue was quite unique!  Not someone's yard or barn or watermelon shipping dock like in years past, but the fancy glass showroom of our local Audi dealership! 

Delia's friend group is rather fluid and her lunch table has way more girlfriends, but these 5 are kind of the core.  They are her very best BFFs-- Natalie, Ava, Tessa and Kate.

They all did each others' hair!  Doesn't it look great?

There were lots of silly poses with this group, I'll just include this one, which they called "The Boy Band".

And a few off Delia's phone to give you a peek inside Formal.  The food was great, the DJ was great, the dancing was a blast, everyone looked gorgeous; it was a fabulous night.

And here is Ella's side of Formal.  This was different for me!  I actually didn't even see Ella till she got home much later.  I'm thankful for friends that took and shared these pretty pictures of her group.

The getting ready with friends is always one of Ella's favorite parts of Formal.

This one's a framer for the dorm room!  Love it! Friends Ruth, Madison, Marina, and Maya.

Getting creative with the poses! ;)

And a sweet story to end with.  The boy in the middle is Nick, a freshman who is an awesome kid and a big part of the girls' Drama Family.  He had a sad breakup with his girlfriend right before Formal, so his Drama Big Sisters had him join their group for pictures and to sit at their table!  You know how much I love the Drama Kids, right?!

2023 Off to a Strong Start

We're a few weeks into January and can say 2023 is a pretty good year so far!

This Christmas Break had the perfect mix of relaxation, productivity, and fun-- with plenty of days to read/watch movies and stay in comfy clothes, festively celebrated holidays, a coastal getaway, scholarship applications completed, a first driving lesson, and fun times with friends filling our days.  

Coming home from our coastal getaway and jumping into a funeral knocked Dave down a bit.  He found himself with a bug, so unfortunately we had to back out on two sets of plans-- a 50th birthday party for a dear friend and our "Party Like a Pastor" NYE plans with the church staff.  Since New Years Day was a Sunday this year, we kept it pretty lowkey and just played board games the four of us after church, Dave even went to bed early.  A fun new find was this San Francisco version of our favorite Ticket to Ride!  Here you traverse the city, using special ferry cards to cross the Bay and pick up souvenirs (like a Ghirardelli ice cream sundae or a bowl of clam chowder or a Giants cap) for extra points along the way!  If you like playing Trains, we recommend this fun twist, which is also way shorter and way less intense.

New Years Day was church again and ham and Jackbox games and a movie.  Ivy's favorite kind of day!

Being officially 15 and a half, Delia got behind the wheel for her first church parking lot driving lesson!  Exciting and a little nerve-wracking!  There was a good amount of dramatic braking and oversteering, but Dave is a great, calm, patient teacher and we trust God holds us all in his hands through this not-necessarily-our-favorite stage of parenting. ;)

Ella's cashed in her Christmas present from Ben right away before life got crazy-- lift tickets and rentals for a day of skiing!  We've had some dramatic weather the past few weeks so the snow was amazing in the mountains, she told us.  Ben comes from a family of skiers and snowboarders and it's one of his favorite things; I love that he wants to teach Ella and share this with her.  (And I love that it means we don't have to, 'cuz flying down those scary mountains is not for me!)

Back to school has gone pretty seamlessly!  Both girls started new classes with new teachers this semester and have been enjoying them.  It helps that the first week back is a fun dress up week for Homecoming.  One day they had to dress as something that starts with the same letter as their name.  Above: Ruth the Runner and Ella they Eye of Sauron. (Delia the Dinosaur not pictured.)

Another day was famous groups and duos.  Delia and her friends went as High School Musical (she's Sharpay).  Ella and her friends went as The Wizard of Oz (you can hopefully guess who she is!).

One night we were woken up at 3:45 by the terrifying Emergency Alert going off on all our phones.  A tornado was moving through our town!!  People who have lived here 70 years said they'd never experienced such a thing!  Being Midwesterners and pros at Tornado Warnings, we quickly gathered our crew into our safest, window-free room, the bathroom, and spent a half hour holding each other in the bathtub.  Ivy was shaking with fear from the thunder and lights flickering, Delia kept asking if we were going to die.  It was certainly interesting!  To calm the panicky teenagers down after the craziness subsided, we did something we haven't done in years-- squish everyone into the bed!  Losing the sleep on a school night was kinda killer, but the family bonding was pretty awesome. :)  

We've known all along that once that calendar flipped to 2023, with a new Robotics Build Season, a new play, Delia driving, and Ella having allll the Senior things, it was time to buckle up!  We're just gonna hold on tight and try to enjoy every moment of this wild ride!

A Double Murder this Christmas!

It is no secret that my kids just love to act.  It blesses my heart that they have both found their people in high school.  Friend groups who share a similar love for dressing up, exercising their creativity, and being goofy just for fun!  One Christmas Break goal was for both girls to host another Murder Mystery Party.  Delia did this when she turned 14, but has since added lots of new friends to her group and Ella has never done it with her friends.  

Delia's party was a Christmas themed murder.  These 8 Drama kids went ALL out with their costumes and characters, creating a hilarious night!  Though the emotionless, cheese-serving butler, narcissistic pop diva, split-personality, oddball writer, cutthroat business investor, angelic former child-star, and sweet, Southern cook certainly drew suspicions...t'was Santa who was the killer, by the Christmas tree with the industrial strength tinsel!  (Funny fact about Santa: she's wearing her GRANDMA's shorts with the Ho Ho Ho on the bottom!  We were dying!) Delia loved playing the part of Yule Groan, a cheesy, Christmas-joke-telling comedian who had a whole notebook of groan-worthy jokes she had researched ahead of time to drop into conversation.  This kit only had 8 characters, so Ella expertly played the part of narrator/host.

A few nights later Ella hosted her friends. revisiting the Murder on the Train.  Admittedly the murder storyline in this particular one was kind of a bust, but the group still had a ton of fun adlibbing, accusing, and playing up the drama.  I'd expect nothing less from this seasoned group of senior actors!  This night's funniest memory: the widow of the victim pulling out her deceased husband's picture to weep over.  It was a picture of a ripped, ab-revealing Chris Helmsworth!  

Just have to post a closeup of Ella and Delia's costumes for the second party-- probably some of their most fun!  Delia was Houdunni, the illusionist who can make your problems (like a dead body perhaps?) disappear! And Ella was the hilarious Indiana Jones-like archeologist who has acrophobia, arachnophobia, ophiophobia, and host of other phobias.  Watching these parties unfold is like watching a play, or better yet, an improv performance.  As you can image, it is great fun to be a spectator, delighting in our kids' imaginations, quick wits, and awesome groups of friends!