The Grooviest Troop in Town

A few weeks ago, our Brownie troop earned their Art To Wear badge by learning to tie dye and painting kerchiefs to wear in our annual parade. Here are some pics from the fun day:

Happy Birthday Tom!

Whew! We pulled it off somehow! I managed to plan two big surprises for Tom's 40th birthday.


First, his college buddies, Ken, Jay and David came in from out of town to surprise him for the weekend. We met up with them for lunch and Tom was genuinely really surprised. His parents, the girls and I left him there to hang out and have a few brews while we went home and got set up for the next surprise - a big party! He showed up to a backyard full of guests. Again, he was totally blown away.

Now that's a BIG remote! Thanks Maryjo and Greg! Now surely he can't lose that!

Cool Red Sox jacket from Frank and Helen and a Marcia Duggan original cutting board. Great gifts!


52 hamburgers, 17 hot dogs and most of a keg of beer were consumed. Now that's a party! Today we celebrated again (his actual birthday) with lobster and the rest of the keg. Can anyone say time for bed (and a diet)?
The morning after with the out of towners - Jay, Katie, Dave and Ken
Our lobster feast!
Watch the video below for the surprise at the house. At the end Kylie (with her mouth full of food)was asking me if we can tell him the truth now. It was really hard for her to keep the secret. She didn't like lying to Daddy!!!!

Happy Birthday Honey! Love you!

Surprise!

Second Star to the Right

Another busy weekend for us! Tom got a last minute phone call from Martha's Vineyard High School this week saying they needed a prom photographer. So amongst all his other events for the weekend, he now had a prom. . .on an island that in order to get to, he would have to take his Jeep on a boat and stay overnight. And he invited me along.

So Saturday morning after Kylie's ballet recital practice and all Tom's sports events (which ended up getting all canceled anyway because of rain!), and we dropped the girls off with my very gracious, friend Amy, we hopped on a ferry to Martha's Vineyard. We had just enough time to find our hotel, change clothes and get to the prom site. We had a wonderful meal right on the water in Menemsha at the Beach Plum Inn before the prom couples arrived.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast and hopped back on the ferry. The girls were at church when we got back, Amy dropped them at the house and we quick fed them lunch and dressed for the recital.

Below is the video for the recital (shhhh!). It starts out with Kylie in the back row - a little bit difficult to see. She is the shortest, so easy to spot. Then they move and she's in front and you should be able to tell who she is. This is a class of mostly kindergarteners, so they are all a year older than Kylie (we had to choose it for scheduling reasons). The recital was Peter Pan and they always do such a great job. I wish I could have recorded some of the play itself, but my memory card only holds so much. Kylie's group are the little Tinkerbells who performed when Tink was sad/mad the Peter Pan wanted to bring Wendy back to Neverland with them. The second video is their curtain call at the end of the show.

Second Star to the Right

The Curtain Call

The Final Cheer

Kylie had her last cheerleading performance of the season yesterday. This wasn't competition, but Xtreme Cheer's Grand Finale for the families and friends of the cheerleaders with a banquet following. Tom was there taking team, individual and action shots. I'll post it when the images go live from it. He said he and his photographer Eric shot over 1000 that they have to go through and edit.

It was a busy day for all. Tom had three sports leagues yesterday morning all going on at the same time, one of which was Kylie's soccer league. She played in the cold drizzle and we were all freezing. It's hard to believe two weeks ago we were out there, hot and melting in the sun.

At the same time as soccer, Melanie was at drama. Soccer got moved from afternoons to mornings this year, so now we are trying to coordinate being in two places at once every Saturday. Luckily our neighbor is in the drama class with her and can at least get them there. The play they are putting on this time is The Three Little Pigs - but a silly version. The wolf (played by Melanie!) isn't too scary. Poor thing has bad allergies and has a hard time huffing and puffing to blow down their stuff. Her performance for this play is June 14. She has a ton of lines to memorize, but seems to already know most of them.

After the cheerleading performance tonight, Xtreme Cheer hosted a potluck banquet. It was fun to eat and talk with some of the other cheer parents and let the girls socialize with their friends. Melanie has several friends who cheer and even though she doesn't do it herself, she has made some new cheerleading friends from just being there twice each week for Kylie's practices. Tom wasn't able to stay for the banquet, because he still wasn't done working for the day. He had to go to the Opening Day parade for the town's Little League to photograph some parade shots and hand out envelopes to the coaches. It was at night this year because yesterday was also first communion day which around here takes at least half of the second grade kids out of all activities. Everything seems to happen on one day!

Below is Kylie's performance video. It's the last time she will perform with this team. Next year several of the girls are moving into the next age level. Of the seven girls, three will still be on Mini Silver with Kylie. Kylie will miss the older girls as she had really bonded with them. I have to say, cheerleading has been such a great activity for her to boost her confidence and make new friends. The practices start up again in the Fall and the competitions will be next Winter. I am closer for this video than the others, but I think Kylie's concentration was a little poorer this time. She was tired and hungry (it was 5:30 before they performed), so I'm not sure she was at her tip top performance level. Lately she has been really overtired everynight and has low energy... hopefully just a growth spurt or something. After church we will have a quiet day today to catch up on our rest.

The Grand Finale