Justin’s butterfly habitat

I am telling you that we have had about every kind of animal you can feasibly have.

This was our butterfly experiment.  We had a lot of trouble getting the larvae, but once we did, we followed the instructions and it didn’t take too long before they were forming cocoons, and then hatching.  After watching them fly around for several days, I talked Justin into letting them fly free and loose.  It really took quite a bit of effort to get them out of their habitat.

The life cycle of a butterfly is pretty short...so if you are looking for a quick, easy pet that won't hang around forever, the butterfly just might be for you. 

Good job Justin on raising 4 butterflies and letting them fly free!!

Children of Eden

Last week, Jennifer performed in her last production with Christian Family Theatre. They performed a musical by Steven Schwartz called Children of Eden.  It was a deep story about parent/child relationships and the choices that children make using the stories in Genesis as the backdrop.  It started with Adam and Eve and went through to Noah’s family. 

The cast did a great job. I am always amazed as I sit and watch these “kids” do what they love to do.  They put so many hours into practicing and learning and then finally its “showtime”.  I usually always go to all performances, even though I have to pay for a ticket for each one.  But, I find that I enjoy each performance more than the one before.  It is live theater, so each one has its own special things that happen in it that make it unique. But truth be told, I just can’t imagine my daughter performing on stage for people that have paid to see them, and me not being there. 


There were 4 performances at the Art Place this year. During the Friday night performance, we had tornadoes in the area and the tornado siren ended up going off. We could hear the siren above the music when it would turn our direction. The kids just kept dancing and singing, as they should. Until finally, they had to halt everything and move everyone into the halls for about 20 minutes.  The rain pelted down into the bathrooms in the green room area so that had to be mopped up before we could restart.  That was a first time for that. 

We knew that the last performance was going to be emotional for us.  And it was.  Jennifer has been with most of these kids for 5 years and spent a lot of time together studying acting but also doing bible study and praying together.  These kids are really an awesome group of kids.  I worked the green room during the last week and came away from there with such an appreciation for these kids and their parents.  I had been a little worried when Jennifer moved from the Alpha group to the Omega group (because those kids are (gasp!) teenagers!!   But they are wonderful kids with good hearts. They are not embarrassed to talk about Jesus and what he is doing in their lives. They are not embarrassed to show affection for their parents AT ALL! And I even saw a big sister caring and taking care of her younger brother which touched my heart. They are quick to show love and forgiveness and quick to pray for each other.  One night something happened and Mrs. Kay came and got the first aid kit, so they started asking what was wrong. They didn’t tell them that one of their leaders was having some trouble but one of the parents said “I don’t know what’s going on, but why don’t we pray?” And she said they prayed for about 20 minutes!  Everything turned out fine thankfully but what a sweet time of prayer that must have been.  Most of them are home schooled so they get to do a lot of things together that we don’t, but we cherish the time we got with them (the kids and the adults).

So, the last performance was going wonderfully.  At intermission, I noticed Mrs. Kay was crying.  I asked her why and she told me that all 37 kids were back stage crying – like bawling.  Now, THAT has never happened before either.  When I asked her why, she just said their emotions are raw, and they understand what this play was about and how much it meant and they were grieving for a few kids that dropped out and they were going to be missing their friends that were leaving (2 were graduating and 2 were leaving) and they were exhausted….and just everything together.  I was afraid that Jennifer might have started it all getting upset about it being her last play, but she said that it was the BOYS who started it.  She loves the fact that the boys in this group aren’t afraid to show their emotions.  We actually had to delay starting back up because the kids had to “get it together” to go back in and give it their all.  And they did. There were a few kids singing and dancing and smiling with tears coming down their cheeks when the music rolled.  But for the most part, everyone was “back in character”.  And the play went on like it should…until the very last song.  Then the girl that is graduating started crying some.  Jennifer did awesome and never cried (even while watching the director cry through the whole last song!) . Jennifer kept it together during curtain call, took her bow, backed up and started crying.  And of course, when she started…so did I.  We really are going to miss these people-even the long nights and practices! We went to IHOP after the last performance and had a great time chilling out and eating together.

In the first act, Jennifer was a storyteller with one solo part within a trio of girls. 


Here is a pic of Jennifer with her lav on:



This is Jennifer with Allison, a new friend that she met this year.  They are both really sweet girls and we live near each other so we got to carpool most nights this year, which was a big help.  And the wild thing is that her Dad and I went to school together from the 6th-12th grade.  Dutch and his wife got married around the same time as Dale and I and Allison (which is Jennifer’s middle name) and Jennifer were born about the same time. And our sons were born about the same time as well.  I even had Allison’s grandfather as a professor in college. What a sweet family and I hope we have some time together in the future.  Allison and Jennifer were the wives of Shem and Ham in the second act. So, they were in all the same scenes and it was so sweet to see them holding hands as if they were sisters-in-law during the play. Who would have thought when we were going to school together 25 years ago that our daughters would have been holding hands on stage in the same play many years later.
This is Jennifer and Luke aka Shem (Jennifer’s husband).  They acted like they had been married a while. LOL.. They argued with each other more than the other “couple”. Luke is a great actor who is in many plays, and has even been interested in attending Pebblebrook.

This is an ex-CFT friend (Brooke) who came to the show:

Sa-Sa came to see Jennifer perform.

And our neighbor Gabby came too.

Of course, Mom came too but she came to the last show and I forgot to get a picture of them in all the emotion. But, I think she got some of Jennifer with her flowers.  It was a super busy weekend with a lot of things going on, so several people that normally come couldn't come.  But we appreciate all those that did. The kids did a wonderful job!!

It's official!!

We signed the contract for Jennifer to go to Pebblebrook's Performing Arts Program starting this Fall!! 

Now she has started telling her friends...and I don't have to keep it a secret anymore.



P.S. She is Soooo excited!! And counting down the days until orientation next month!!

Mountasia

I bought a coupon a while back for unlimited play time at Mountasia including unlimited putt-putt, bumper boats and go-carts.  We had been meaning to get there but never did. It expired right before Spring Break, and that last week was crazy busy and COLD!!!  So, I went to the manager and got him to extend it through Spring Break.  Mom was going to take the kids while we were gone, but they never got there either. 

So, the day after we returned from the cruise, we took the kids and Blake over there for a day full of fun!!  They all played several rounds of putt-putt.....

and waited in line FOREVER for the bumper boats......

and rode the go-carts. This was Blake's first time driving himself, but he did great.   And I am so glad that Jennifer's fear of them is gone.  Yeah!!! Each positive experience helps her to gain more confidence. 

Jennifer ended up getting sunburned and Dale and I just relaxed while they played...and played.

I am glad I got the great deal...and even gladder that we finally got to use it!!

Norwegian Sun

About a month ago, we booked a last minute cruise with our cruising friends. We decided to do an adults only cruise this time. Since Jennifer was in crunch this week and had to be at the theatre every day, she couldn’t go. So, we joined the Hills and the Koehlers for a 7 day cruise aboard the Norwegian Sun.
This was our first time cruising Norwegian and it was a smaller ship than we normally go on.  Dale kept calling it a dinghy mostly to aggravate Dana who was worried that there wouldn’t be enough activities and things to keep Dale busy.  He thought I would get bored, but we both did fine.  I mean seriously, if you give me sunshine and a good book to read, I am really happy.

The ship itself was pretty nice. It was not the best ship for kids as there really wasn’t a whole lot of things to do. There were golf cages and batting cages that had been transformed into a ping pong area, along with a basketball court, and of course, pools and hottubs. 

One of the things that made Norwegian appeal to us is the fact that they do freestyle dining and are much more casual and laid back.  We were all so stressed and tired going into the cruise that we really just wanted to chill out. Nobody even brought any formal clothes this cruise. And we didn’t plan any excursions AT ALL before we left.  We really didn’t even know if we were going to get off the ship in any of the ports, although we ended up getting off at each stop-if only to walk in and go shopping for a while. 

Everyone did enjoy the freestyle concept of not having to get dressed up every night for dinner.  And you could go eat anytime you want.  We enjoyed breakfast each morning sitting outside at the Great Outdoors.  Lunch was either the dining room or the buffet.  And dinners consisted mostly of the dining room.  There were several paid restaurants and we went to the Brazilian steakhouse where they served all you could eat meat of various kinds.  We started with a salad bar and then they brought out huge skewers of meat- pork, lamb, chicken, beef, etc.  Everyone agreed that the sirloin was the most delicious and we got more of that.  It was worth the surcharge but we all left stuffed. 



This was our pre-dinner hangout place that overlooked the ocean



Green means MORE MEAT...red means STOP!!!

And of course, there was the chocolate buffet.....

This cruise went to Cozumel, Mexico first. There we got off and shopped around.  Then we went Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala.  This was our first time at this stop.  They welcomed us by having Miss Guatemala greet us as we got off the ship. They also had a band come play for several hours in the heat while we disembarked.  We walked over and got a tour from a local guy there who took us around the island. It is very poor  and we had quite the beggars here. A few kids came up and asked for a dollar. It was really sad.  The tour wasn’t the best because our guide didn’t speak much English.  But it was okay.  I t was really hot in his air-conditioned van and we were all sticky and yucky. We shopped a little here too and they bombarded us when the van stopped.  There was a strong military presence here as well. Some of the men had sawed off shotguns with hands ready at all times.  We were docked at a very industrial port which was the first time for that. It was interesting to watch them load and unload the containers that go on the semi-trucks. But the people were friendly and really want ships to continue coming there. 



I was trying to take a picture of the straw hut in the background & this lady jumped in front of my camera

 Our next stop was Belize where we had stopped before but didn’t get off the ship last time.  It is very shallow at Belize so the ship has to anchor about 20 minutes away from the island and you have to tender in.  This time we got off the ship and went to the island.  We again just walked around the port area and shopped. 

Our last stop was in Key West, FL.  I had been there before but Dale had not.  This was probably everyone’s favorite port stop. It was clean and they spoke English and there wasn’t poverty all around.  It is a quaint little island with a lot of character.  We walked all around the island looking for a couple of different things. We went to the southernmost point of the US and snapped a photo. We then headed for key lime pie on a stick. This was what the highlight of our visit was there. It was really yummy!!

On sea days, we just hung out and relaxed. We laid in the sun one day and found this great quiet spot on the top deck where the air conditioning would blow out on you while you were sun bathing, which was nice.  We all took plenty of naps and read our books.  We watched some movies.

I went to most of the shows, which were very enjoyable. It was nice to have some new shows that I hadn’t seen before.  The highlight for all of us was the night we skipped dinner to go eat appetizers in the sports bar. After that, we all went to the hypnotist’s second show where Tina volunteered to be one of the people on stage.  His first show was really good but we were skeptical if that could really happen. He started talking and Tina was the first one under this hypnosis.  He sent some back to their seats if they weren't hypnotized.  He did all kinds of funny things with them, but it was funny just to watch them fall asleep at his command and wake up at his command.  He had one guy believe he was Garth Brooks, and was singing to the crowd. Tina and 2 other girls had to get up and dance and shake their butts every time a certain song came on.  It was totally hilarious!! He told them at one point that they couldn’t see him and were seeing ghosts and they were scared. He told them the person next to them smelled REALLY good and they were right up into their necks smelling each other. Then he told them that the person was stinky and then he told them that they were realizing that it was them. They were all smelling themselves. Then he told them to take a shower and they were all showering up there.  At one point, he told them that they were going to believe that they hadn’t been hypnotized and that they had each paid $30,000 extra to be hypnotized. That they were all very mad at him.  He brought them up and they were all mad and letting him have it for not being hypnotized until he shook their hand or touched their shoulder when they all woke up and realized what they had done. It was absolutely amazing to watch and made a believer out of all of us.  We went to several seminars of his to learn more after that.  I promised not to blog the videos, but take my word for it...it was one of the funniest things any of us had ever seen!! (love ya Tina!!)

I know this stuff isn’t blog worthy to you readers but it will help me remember some details later that I would forget otherwise.  Going down, we rode with the Hills but we all stayed at Orlando’s Crown Plaza hotel on a friends and family rate. We went to eat dinner in Orlando across the street at Tony Roma’s and then went all over town looking for a Walgreens when it was right across the street.  Coming home, we rode with the Koehlers as the Hills had to go straight to Columbia for Jackie’s doc appt at Duke on Monday. As always, we had a great time with our friends and spouses and missed our kids like crazy, but enjoyed the time together.