In Between the Holidays

A few random pictures and memories that happened between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years:

Delia and her beloved cast of Shrek went to Sacramento to see the musical Anastasia.  She has the best time with this bunch and is especially soaking up every moment this senior year with bestie, Kate.

Delia and I went to see our good friend Megan as Jo March in her community theater production of Little Women.  Megan was awesome and it was a fun date night with Delia.

The Swing Dance Club Ella leads had lots of fun events-- like a dance at the fancy ballroom and a Christmas Party.  Actually, tonight Ella is bringing her skills to her high school friend group and leading some dancing for a big crowd in Ruth's barn!

Ella and her friends have an annual tradition to take a break from studying to go see the lights on the super-ritzy Naples Island.

The week before exams, our high school had a fun dress up week.  The always favorite "Anything But a Backpack" Day had Delia raiding the prop closet for options.  She found the child catcher's net from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  She had access to the closet because she's been spending several days a week working with the middle schoolers on their upcoming production of Annie.  She's choreographing 2 dances and one day even led practice on her own!  She feels excited and honored to be given so much responsibility and is delighting in getting to know and encourage the enthusiastic middle school bunch.  

Delia spent a Saturday taking her ACT, something she was quite nervous about.  Scores have already been received and while they are not outstanding enough to earn her any new scholarships, she did do better than she thought she would-- and better than I did on mine! ;)  After her morning of grueling brain calisthenics, we went out for lunch and then Formal dress shopping.  Purple is the winner this year!  Stay tuned for Formal pics next weekend!

We had some spectacular skies.  Credit to late-40s hormones that have me awake at 5am each morning and able to see pretty sunrises.  

We celebrated Dave's post-Christmas birthday with a special dinner out, courtesy once again of generous gift cards!

And I completed my "Book a Week" (with a little grace built in) reading goal for 2024.  I did find myself picking shorter books to stay on track, so 2025's reading goal will 20,250 pages, making it less about the number of books completed.  Top 5 books for me this year: The Labors of Hercules Beal, Project Hail Mary, The Women, Last Summer on State Street, and The Small and the Mighty.