End of school chaos

End of the school year for some reason I will never understand we cram two or three performances per child during the month of May. This is all well and good if you have one child but when you have three children in elementary school you are going back and forth to the school and watching many many performances. 

We started this end of the year run with interpretive dancing. I would like to say that I am all for arts in the schools, I think that they are great but I have never gotten interpretive dance and I don't think I will ever will. We did three dances in two days, all at different times.  Laine's dance this year was about magnets and electrons. 

Eve's class did a dance about The Secret Garden, I was impressed that they crafted the dance before they had finished the book.

 James' class did a dance about the water cycle and every time I took picture of him he seemed to notice the camera and would wipe the smile off of his face. He also walked around like a duck (?) maybe for half the show. Wasn't sure what that was about.

 The day after the dances we got to go to James' first grade program. They wrote and performed an opera called 'The Flowers and the Hungry Snakes.' James was a snake and he loved it! It was a cute little program complete with subtitles.

 A few weeks later we went to see Laine in her American Revolution production. She was one of the students and so proud that she got to be on stage the whole time. She was fabulous though.

A few days after that Laine had he first band concert. It was tough to get a picture of her with the music stand in the way, but they did pretty well. 

I think that wraps up our whirlwind end of school programs. I have heard rumor that there is one more program but it hasn't been confirmed yet...we shall see. And maybe next year I will hope that they spread these things out a little more. Maybe through one of them in March or January. 

Happy birthday Miss Laine

 We celebrated Laine's 11th birthday yesterday and this preteen age is so uncharted yet so familiar too. But Laine is navigating it with style and such grace, I couldn't be prouder. She is so friendly and a great big sister. I love watching her develop and grow into a young women. Her love for peace signs and mustaches is well known. And if you add them to the color green to either of those things she is even happier.

She celebrated yesterday by taking her two friends to a movie and lunch. There was a twinge of sadness when I dropped her off at the movies but such happiness when I heard her giggling around the corner. What a wonderful young lady she is.

So happy birthday our Laine, thanks for being you.

Race for the Cure-Pirate Style

It was Race for the Cure time again last Saturday, my kids love this even if James cried when we told him he was old enough to do the full 5K this year. We usually do this with the rest of the Bellamy Clan but due to injuries and work we were on our own this year. 

We got the kids up early in the morning and the boys took to the pirate theme again this year, staging a sword fight in the hallway between "Jake" and "Capt. Hook". 

Despite the traffic (sorry public transit it is cheaper to drive my family downtown and pay for parking than drive them to a park and ride and pay for Trax) we made it in plenty of time to snap a few pictures. A nice man offered to take a picture for us....um poor Matty didn't make the cut. 

From there we split into two groups, the girls and boys. The girls moved at a slightly faster pace than the boys did so we took off. And paused at each mile sign to mark our progress. 

See how sunny it is right here...a quarter of a mile later the girls and I were battling an impromtu hail storm that killed my pirate hat..alas. We battled through though, and the boys who were a little under a mile behind us missed the hail all together. 

We cheered when we saw this sign, it was an exciting moment....more exciting than the finish sign which we did not pose by. 

While we waited for the boys we walked around the festivities. I love the random pink thinks that you can find around this race. 

We were able to get one family picture when everyone finished, There was even one when everyone was smiling and looking at the camera. It made me proud. 

I love doing this race every year. There is something about the sense of community that you can find among those united in a greater cause. It doesn't matter where you stand on political issues, what your religion is, or how much money that you have, for one brief moment everyone is united in the cause of that touches so many of us. I can't think of a greater lesson to pass on to my children. To teach them that together so much good can be done even of it is one step at a time. 

Comic Con

I'm not sure when being a geek became cool but I guess it is now.  I remember growing up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my parents, but trying not to let friends know. It was too "geeky" so you just didn't talk about it. In high school I ran into a few more people that liked science fiction but I still felt that my geekiness was something to hide.

Then along came the new series of Doctor Who. I loved that show (despite my dislike of the original series) and thanks to the Internet I was able to find people who also enjoyed Doctor Who. I did declare my love of the show to a few more people than I had in my youth and I might have even converted one or two students into Whovians. 

When Christian and I first started talking, I remember debating back and forth with myself on when to first mention that I was a geek. It came up early and to my relief we had many a conversation about Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, and many other sci-fi books and series.  Over time we have showed the kids the shows and let them follow in our footsteps and it is funny to find out that being a geek is now something that is embraced. Like I said, not sure how but it is there now. 

One thing Christian and I have talked about doing for years is head down to the San Diego Comic Con and just enjoy being with others who appreciate the same shows and stories that we do. We were so excited when we saw Salt Lake was hosting a Comic Con of their own but heartbroken when we realized I was going to be out of town the same weekend. We were happy to hear it was a success and very happy when we found out we may not have to wait until September to enjoy Comic Con.

For Valentine's Day I presented my husband with two tickets to the Fan Xperience- yup that is how we celebrate love a bunch of people dressed in costume walking around with light sabers- it is beautiful. 

We got to the Salt Place early on Saturday morning but still stood in line for over an hour to see our first panel- Nathan Fillion. When they announced that he was coming on April Fool's Day I was so worried it was a joke, but show up he did. I tried to take a selfie of the two of us waiting, um I am really bad at taking selfies.

The wait was worth it and it was fun to hear Mr. Fillion share stories from some of our favorite series. I resisted the urge to shout out that he "really is ruggedly handsome" but I might have sent this picture and that observation to a few friends. 

Next up was Karen Gillian, the Who fan girl in me was super excited. I loved Amy Pond so this was going to be good. We moved up closer but for some reason I couldn't get a better picture than what was on the screen. 

To round out our geeky side we went to a panel with Brandon Sanderson and Brandon Mull where my two year long quest to find out when the next Alcatraz verses the Evil Liberians would be out was answered, looks like a one year wait.

After that we decided to walk around the floor a bit. We found some fun things like this giant balloon statue.

And the legos. James builds some impressive sets but these were awesome. I just wonder who has room to store all these things. 

We also found a mini Tardis. They had a larger Tardis there as well but I got my picture with two of those in London and Wales so I didn't feel the need to wait in line for a picture with the Tardis this time. 

We also found Olaf, and snapped this picture for the kids. 

We thought of sticking around for one more panel (Patrick Stewart) but thought we should get home to the kids. 

All in all it was a great day. As Christian said we were "among our people" and it was just fabulous. So we will be back and maybe next year we will wear our Jedi robes!