Murder at the Roller Rink

One of Delia's Christmas presents this year was a new Murder/Mystery party kit.  It's getting to be a Christmas Break tradition to host one of these parties for our dramatic performer friends!  This year's theme was 80's with the crime being "Murder at the Roller Rink."  Delia is SO into this, she created a google doc for all her friends to list their top 3 choices of characters to play.  She then published a cast list.  The 80's costumes had us shrieking as each guest walked in the door and the parts were played to perfection.

Ella was goth girl "Lash Black". She nailed the look and the "I'm just here" aloof indifference in all her answers.  Delia was possibly the funniest character, "Brock Mussles", the intellectually-challenged jock.  She was pretty pumped about chopping up her old PE shirt and pairing it with short shorts and tall socks for her 80's dumb jock costume.  I was the host, a former cop who does security for the roller rink.

The suspects brought their A Game with their costumes, accents, adlibs...and appetizers!  It was a fun feast!  We didn't buy any decorations, just dug deep in the old tubs to bring out things like VHS and cassette tapes, scrunchies, mesh gloves, Mall Madness, and Nintendo controllers. 

Someone in this crazy crew strangled Kevin with a leg warmer in the Lost and Found closet at the Roller Rink!  Was it the jock who knew Keven knew he was throwing games?  Was it the vice principal who was caught on video tape dancing and was being blackmailed?  Was it the bad-girl rocker who gave antagonistic and elusive answers to all the questions?  Was it the goody-two-shoes sticking up for and kissing up to the blackmailed vice principal? Was it the cheerleader whose story didn't quite add up?  Or was it the roller derby girl who was threatened by Kevin's roller skating skills???

The 3 popular girls.  Natalie is wearing her mom's old cheerleading costume!  Tessa was cracking us up with her huge ego and bragging about her one perfect shoulder.  Raina perfected her valley girl giggle.

The bros.  Kate as Gnarl, the surfer dude, was excellent!  Her curly mullet wig and abs shirt under her Hawaiian shirt won her "Best Costume".

Examining the evidence.

Mug shots of the suspects.

The murderer was, like, totally, the roller derby girl!!

Here is something that delights me about Delia's friend group-- all these gals come from 3 families!  It's the suspicious sisters pic!  So fun to have Ella, Anika, and Laura home from college and joining in the fun! (Sophia, someone we all met just last night, is a brand new Korean exchange student living with Tessa and Anika.  She did awesome at acting her band geek part.)

And the post murder dance party.  Of course.  The case closed around 8:30, leaving hours for karaoke and dancing!  It's been said before, but how wonderful that Delia's group likes to have fun the exact same way she does-- with elaborate, thematic planning, dressing up, improv comedy, and performing!  To just go for it and act so completely goofy and ALL IN, shows such security and comfort with one another, I just love these girls.

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.

The Gift of Togetherness

Two holidays with Ella home.  My heart is happy!  November/December are becoming my favorites because it means the whole family under one roof twice in two months!

Ella has been having an awesome, but extremely tiring, first semester.  She intentionally packed it with some of her hardest classes to get them done with so the future, when she is doing things like preparing for the MCAT or applying to med school, will be a little lighter.  She comes home for rest and respite and we are happy to feed her allllll the homecooked meals and put nothing on the agenda except cuddling by the fire and reading for fun all day.

Our cozy Thanksgiving at home had church plus all our favorite foods plus several rounds of Ransom Notes, a new favorite game, plus Wicked plus a night of her Mount Hermon summer staff friends coming over for dinner and games.

(One of the things Delia learned in her Home Ec class this semester was how to properly set a formal table, so she was assigned that task.)

Our November temporary tattoos reminded us that indeed "the Lord is good, his love endures forever, his faithfulness continues to all generations."

Over Thanksgiving break we set up the Christmas decorations.

(Find FOMO Llama, peeping the stable action from just outside of it-- the Nativity tradition that continues when the teenagers set up this piece of décor!)

Sinterklaas visits a little early too. 

Just a few weeks later, after we've endured exams, and sickness, and teaching wild preschoolers during Christmas, and the Advent preaching schedule, Ella returns!  This year, we kicked off her 3 week stay at home with a nostalgic outing to the Christmas-y Bass Pro Shop.

On Christmas Eve, I cook the evening's dinner and bake the treats for Christmas Day church all day and then we open our presents.  Homemade gifts were especially appreciated this year!  Ella made a painting of the bridge where Dave proposed.  Delia made me a hilarious video.  Delia also made Ella this apron in her Home Ec class (along with the trademark funny Delia card to go along with it) and I wrote out 60 favorite family recipes for Ella so that she can have a taste of home in her apartment next year... and wherever her future kitchen may be. After seeing an original Audubon Birds of America plate at The Huntington, Dave gave me the whole book of every bird plate Audubon made and Ella painted my favorite birds to use as bookmarks in the book.

Grandma and Grandpa sent something cuddly for Delia's dorm bed next year (she won't have Ivy ;).

The girls each got Polaroid cameras too, as well as tons of dorm necessities and luxuries (like towels, an alarm clock, and storage shelves as well as fancy tea holders, a blender, rollerblades and cute iced coffee drinkware.)  Thank you to our generous gift-sending family! Karen even had a box of Portos (our favorite restaurant by campus) sent for us to make at home!  So our Christmas Eve dinner included our favorite potato balls.  Yum!

After a season of discernment, prayer, and conversations with our financial advisor, we were ready to give Delia our blessing to commit to her dream school.  We did this at Christmas with the gift of a school sweatshirt I had ordered from the bookshop.  Everyone was crying over this weighty and happy news. 

Christmas Day included church, our annual staff serving of treats after the service, some yummy homemade butternut squash soup and focaccia bread for lunch, and a nighttime trip the court with all the lights.

We girls have had coffee shop dates, watched a movie every night, read several books, and taken a group nap every day.  Time to rest: check!  Our family has shared countless laughs while playing games, and Ella has also gone climbing, gotten together with her Robotics team, and had a Christmas party with her high school friends.  Delia's been busy planning the annual Murder/Mystery party she'll host this break: Murder at the Roller Rink (80s themed!).  Time to have fun and connect with dear ones: check!  

And we still have a week (two for Ella) of Christmas Break left!  

Familiar Territory

Things have since fallen into place, but back in early fall we felt it would be a good idea for Delia to have a solid Plan B for her college-choice journey.  We thought the small school Dave graduated from in Chicago had many qualities that would make it a good fit for Delia (family nearby! an awesome, but accessible theater program! a cost that was about half of other schools she was considering!).  Dave and Delia planned a long Chicago weekend centered around visiting this college, with tons of family time as the amazing perk.

They toured.  The son of one of our high school classmates was the tour guide!  The tour did not really impress Delia.  This school is much smaller.  Also, after looking at schools in CA, which are always full of students hanging outside, hammocking, skateboarding, sitting by firepits, having coffee at picnic tables, etc., she felt this campus was pretty dead.  You can see no other people in the pictures because no other students seemed to be around!  Now, maybe because it was cold or because they go home for the weekend, but her socializing was limited to the gal she stayed with and that gal's friends.

But, that part was awesome for Delia!  She connected and stayed with Anika, an old family friend of ours-- actually the daughter of old college friends of Dave's!  Anika was a gracious host, taking her to play practice, choir class, and out for ice cream, introducing her to the daughters of Dave's college friends (so fun, right?!) and other psychology majors.  The school Delia will end up at has a world-class Christian psychology program, ranked one of the best year after year.  It was funny for Delia to hear the kids at this school say their professors make them watch online lectures from her Plan A school!

Watching Anika's play practice was a highlight.  She won't do drama at her school, because that's reserved for cinema and theater majors.  This school was preparing for an impressive performance and Delia's interest was definitely peaked!  

She left her overnight visit feeling affirmed that, if possible, her Plan A was where she really wanted to be, but if for some reason that couldn't work out, she could be happy here.  It's worth noting that Delia has since applied to this school and been totally ghosted!  They told her they were "putting her application on pause" back in November and then never got back.  There seemed to be enough signs that this was maybe not the place the Lord has for her. 

Even if the college visit didn't blow her away, the time with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunties, Uncle Kyle, and cousins was spectacular!  They ate delicious meals together and played games.  They watched her Shrek performance.

They visited nostalgic places like Grau Mill and Oakbrook Mall.

She loved staying in Auntie Karen's beautiful new (to us) guest suite and giving her furry cousins lots of love.

And she came home raving about this one special meal in the local Mexican restaurant with Karen and Kyle that was one of her best ever.

They even had time for an outing to the Shedd Aquarium!  The beluga whales and dolphins were Delia's favorites.  Our Monterey Bay Aquarium doesn't have those. ;)

From the start, Delia has had her heart set on the school Ella goes to.  It's hard to imagine anything else when you see it through your sister's experience.  And Ella has been having the experience of a lifetime.  The goal was always to make that dream happen for her. But, not knowing if she'd get into the famous psychology program (she did, no problem), not knowing what her scholarship offer would look like (she was surprised and offered a top-tier academic scholarship!), and not knowing how we were going to pay for it (we've since found a solution we feel peace with) were unknowns a few months ago.  Delia was glad to have made this visit.  First, just for the great quality time with dear family, but second, because it affirmed where she thought she was being called.  Anika absolutely loves her school, as do many other kids of friends who go there.  That's the cool thing about picking a college!  There is the right place for everyone and, though figuring that out comes with some stress, the feeling of really seeing yourself in a certain place and dreaming about what life will look like there is SO exciting!  We're thankful both our girls have found that-- and that they even found it at a place where they can be together!