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!

Sensorio

The ocean never disappoints, but the hilight of this trip was the night we spent enjoying the fully immersive art installation spread across the Paso Robles hills, Sensorio by Bruce Munro.  It was so special, it needs its own post!  Bruce Munro, the artist, wove almost 60,000 fiber optic, solar powered, stemmed spheres across a 15 acre field to create Sensorio.  It looked like glowing wildflowers and it was breathtaking.  

Experiencing Sensorio in December meant we didn't have to wait long for it to get dark!  It was actually pretty cool watching the sky get darker and the lights get brighter from 5:00 to 6:00.  

One part of the art installation are the Light Towers, made from stacks of wine bottles stuffed with changing-color fiber optic light strands.  While walking though them, you enjoy the funky, soothing music of Ladysmith Black Mabazzo.   This was Ella's favorite part of the experience.

There are about a mile of trails you can walk all through the light-dotted hills.  Delia said, "This is the kind of hiking I don't mind!"

Of course the pictures just can't quite capture it.  This was such a unique thing to see!  I'm so glad we had the opportunity.

Vitamin Sea

At the start of this Christmas Break, we sure enjoyed the blessing of having multiple pastors on staff again!  Dave does not have to preach the Old Years or New Years service this year and found himself with a rare lighter week.  He was pretty excited for a change of scenery so we planned this little Central Coast getaway.  Surf pounding, wildlife encounters, and the fresh salty sea air is always therapeutic, so even though this trip was short, it was recharging!

We stayed in a central location and hit a wide variety of stops in San Simeon, Cambria, Paso Robles, SLO, Morro Bay and Los Osos.  First stop was the Elephant Seal Rookery at Piedras Blancas.  This is one of only two places on our state's coast where tens of thousands of elephant seals stop on their migration each year.  Isn't that instinct amazing?  Why this beach and not the one next door?  Right now it's the season for the humongous bulls to come and claim their territory, fighting each other for dominance before the females start arriving in a few weeks.  This was hilarious and fascinating to watch.  What a strange creation the elephant seal is!  It looks, sounds, and moves so odd!

Mostly the seals just lay on the beach looking dead, but every few minutes there was movement and battle and great bellowing!  Delia made this funny video when we couldn't stop giggling about the jiggly way they flop around or the sign warning us "Caution! They're faster than you think".  

Our second day of getaway was 100% rain all day.  So my plans for hiking and tidepooling were kinda shot.  We bundled up in raincoats and braved a few scenic stops at Montano de Oro State Park...

But, mostly this day was spent in San Luis Obispo, where we roamed through the cute boutiques and cafes, browsed bookshops, and toured the iconic mission.

Dave does not have to preach any of the sermons this weekend, but he did have a funeral come up, so on our last day he was feeling the call to head back and get to work.  It was also his birthday!  The rain cleared, making this day our warmest and sunniest.  A wonderful breakfast at the darling, local cafe and a few hours at the beach watching otters, seals and sand pipers playing finished off our little Vitamin Sea Vacation!  A birthday that has otters in it is always a good birthday. :)