Spring Breaking (out of) Alcatraz!

Kyle is here for the week!  And the timing is perfect because we are off school for Spring Break!  We've been doing lots of fun stuff with Kyle, mostly close to home, but our one big outing was to Alcatraz and I'm excited to post about that first.  Kyle has never been and neither have the girls, and Dave and I haven't visited the island since we first came to California 17 years ago, so this was an excursion we were all looking forward to!

 As you wait for your ferry to launch, there is a pier with all sorts of interesting info about Alcatraz, including this model.

The 10 minute boat ride across the bay was the thing Delia was most excited about.  It was really fun with amazing views and just enough wind and rocking motion to make it exciting! :)

 Pulling into Alcatraz.

 After a brisk hike up a very steep hill and several flights of tiring concrete steps, you start your tour in the cold, stall-less shower room.  Delia said this would have been the worst part of being a prisoner in Alcatraz!

 We were given our headsets and the audio tour commenced!  The tour is really neat!  It's narrated by both former inmates and guards at Alcatraz.  It's full of interesting details and sound effects that make it feel like you're living in their story.  Ella and Delia's tour was about 5 seconds ahead of ours, so I kept giggling when their heads would turn to look at something at the exact same time, or they'd start walking in sync to the next stop.  Then a few seconds later, we'd be instructed to do it!

We saw the tiny cells (above) and heard the escape attempt stories (below).  

We got to enter a cell and feel the coziness/claustrophobia.

 We saw all different parts of the cell block, including the dark isolation cells, the gun towers, the dining hall, the library, the guards' offices, and the place where you can talk to visitors (above).

A portion of the tour is outside, so we also got to check out the warden's house, the lighthouse (above), and the exercise yard (below).

The views of the city are unbelievable!  This is what Kyle and I found most fascinating about Alcatraz-- the contrast between living the most awful, isolated, cold life possible and the luxury of the city's and nature's beauty just beyond your fingertips.  If they turned Alcatraz into high end condos, they could get people to pay millions of dollars in rent to live in them, yet to be sentenced there as a prisoner in 1930-1960 was the worst and sucked your life away.

 I found the gardens and wildflowers SO gorgeous!  Probably because their backdrop was barbed wire fences and buildings with barred windows, again, such a strange juxtaposition!

Dave got artistic with some pictures-- above is the ruins of the officers' social hall and below is a cool, old, cracked window in the laundry room the prisoners were required to work in.

The girls were the perfect age to enjoy this!  It's a good amount of walking and climbing and the audio tour requires a bit of attention.  We're glad we didn't attempt it sooner, but they did love it! 

  All that learning was tiring, though, so a peaceful ferry ride back to the city...

and a warm bowl of clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl from the flagship Boudin's on Fisherman's Wharf was the best way to end our big outing day with Uncle Kyle!

Girls' Camp-- Yet ANOTHER Busy Weekend!

If you see any of us walking around looking a little wiped and out of it, it's because we're coming off busy weekend number 3 at our church camp for girls!  March kinda slammed into us with Science Camp, play performance weekend, and church camp all back to back.  

I was once again happy to attend camp with my girls as a counselor and got to lead Ella's 8th grade cabin full of sweet friends.  I totally hit the cabin jackpot with this lovely group of girls.  Their goal was to get the award for cleanest cabin; they loved to sleep and had no problem getting quiet at light's off; and when the rest of the camp was loosing their minds, running around screaming on Saturday night, my girls were in their jammies playing a board game in their room!  Sleep is not great at girls' camp and the schedule is very busy, so I'm tired, but it's certainly not from any stress or drama these ladies gave me!

The highlight of camp (Ella's last one, incidentally!) was working up the courage to ride the giant swing-- an honor only the 8th graders get.  Ella does not love heights or roller coasters.  To be buckled in, hoisted over 20 feet in the air, then suddenly dropped and left dangling, swinging back and forth, did not sound fun at all to her.  But, she did not want to leave camp with any regrets, so she bravely gave it a try.  And she liked it enough to even do it a second time!  The second time, I got brave enough to try it with her.   When people ask what the best part of camp was, both of us will tell you conquering the giant swing was!

Another special honor saved for the 8th graders is the choreographed dance each older girl cabin prepares to perform for the whole camp.  My girls danced to "Good Time" by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen.  They spent all their free time working together on this and it turned out really cute.

The theme this year was "Saddle Up Cowgirl", so we all got to dress up in Western gear.  On Saturday night we enjoyed some line dancing and then a talent show of 18 acts by the girls.  Delia was one of them-- she sang a solo!  I just love hearing the girls cheer each other on, wildly applauding each act and jumping in to sing along.

Group shots-- above, whole camp, below, our church group.

Even though Ella is officially done with this girls' ministry after this year, I'm still in it for 2 more years with Delia's class.  I'll switch to being her counselor next year, if she'll have me.  But, I don't expect Delia and her energetic friends will be using free time to calmly play board games or trying to get "cleanest" and "quietest" cabin awards! ;)

Annie Get Your Gun

For the 3rd time in less than a calendar year, Ella got to take the stage in a musical production!  This spring she was thrilled to land a part as Nellie Oakley, Annie Oakley's little sister, in our high school's performance of Annie Get Your Gun.  Now, this was a full length play-- with 9 scenes, 19 songs, about 35 cast members, and a million lines and lyrics to learn.  It had many long practices, sometimes going pretty late at night.  It was not without its share of stress and really hard work, but being on this side of performance weekend, we are all still on a high!  The play was PHENOMENAL, thanks to the many gifted people who worked tirelessly to help the kids on stage really shine.  People like our amazing director, fun choreographers, a group of stage moms who do the sets and costumes, and an insanely talented cast, including our lead, Megan, who I'm convinced has a future in acting or singing!

This play was two and a half hours long and Ella was not in all of it, so here are some pictures of just her scenes (which I think were some of the most fun!).

We meet the Oakley family in all their hillbilly glory.  They sing "Doin' What Comes Naturally".  We learn that Annie is a very talented marks-woman.

Annie inadvertently challenges Frank Butler to a shooting contest.  Awkward, since she actually really likes him!  He's got a fancy set up with assistants and props.  Annie has an old shotgun, a fertilizer bag, and her scruffy little siblings.  But, she wins the contest!

She is offered a job with Frank Butler in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, learning what show business is from the song "There's No Business Like Show Business".  She takes her little brother and sisters on the road with her, including train rides across the country.  In this scene Annie is singing the littles to sleep with the song "Moonshine Lullaby".  We joked that Ella has a special knack for sleeping convincingly on stage!

To win Frank's heart, Annie plans a very special display of shooting.  This was Ella's hardest job on stage-- pulling a VERY heavy horse, with Annie riding it, around the stage as Annie shot balloons off the heads of people in the audience.

The trick was a success, but unfortunately Annie's great skill makes Frank insecure, so he leaves her.

Lot of drama and romance in the second act, but in the exciting conclusion, Annie and Frank battle it out with the song "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" and then another shooting match in which they both choose to lose in order to win the other back.

The play was performed 3 nights and on 2 of the nights, the cast took their bows to standing ovations!!  This was a thrill for Ella!

Some pictures with friends on closing night.  Below is Megan, who played Annie, and who actually became a dear friend to Ella-- something so special since she is a high school senior!  Megan is an outstanding young lady, who shines brightly on stage and off.  She really made an effort to mentor the younger members of the cast and went out of her way to text me regularly, from telling me Ella got the part the day the cast list went up, to checking on her the morning after she got sick backstage one night, to repeatedly telling me how much she loved and admired Ella.  We just love Megan and wish her all the best in the future!

So, the curtain closes on yet another busy play season.  These are lifelong memories Ella is making and skills she's developing.  It's SO much work, but we're happy to invest in this passion of hers.  Next fall's high school play has already been announced-- it's Singin' In the Rain.  And you can bet Ella plans to be a part of it!

Delia Rocks Science Camp

A few weeks ago Delia enthusiastically participated in the 6th grade tradition of going to Science Camp for a week.  The camp our school kids go to is at our beloved Mount Hermon.  I love that it has a focus on God, the creator of all the fascinating nature-things the kids are immersed in all week.

Because the camp was in such a familiar place and because Delia is a girl who loves sleepovers and adventure, she was not nervous or homesick at all.  But, she kindly worried about us at home all week without her and wrote us one long letter to open and read each day of her absence.  These were the sweetest letters too!  One day she gave us all awards.  Another day she handpicked a Bible verse for each of us.  To be perfectly honest, it was Dress and Tech Week for Ella's big play, so life was busy and full of multiple trips to school each day, so it went fast and we hardly had time to even miss Delia!

 Off she goes, bright and early!

I sent Delia with an old camera and got some pretty fun pictures back!  She had a nice cabin with some close friends and some new friends.

They did lots of hiking, which Delia was a little apprehensive about, but said ended up being super fun.

 She conquered the rock wall.

She and the whole class endured rain every day.  Since every activity is outside, they carry on, rain or shine.  Ponchos and waterproof duck boots became some of the most essential items she packed.  And her duffel bag of soggy, wet clothes was a special kind of pungent when she returned!

Redwood trees, snakes, and 52 banana slugs sighted (and a couple kissed) were some of the highlights we heard about.

Delia had a wonderful week and came home exhausted, but full of fun stories about Night Hikes, skits performed, nice counselors and naturalists, goofy camp games, badges earned, and the opportunity to grow closer to God. She also returned just in time to see her sister's Friday and Saturday night performances, which I'll blog about next...

Blossom Beauties

With Ella graduating 8th grade this year (insert shocked face emoji if I wasn't at the home computer keyboard!), I thought it would be good timing to hire one of the many talented photographers we know to take really good quality pictures of the girls in the almond blossoms.  I'm happy with the results!  You will be seeing some of these again on a graduation announcement!