Long time, no post

As you might suspect, not much has been happening over the past six weeks. We are still in lockdown and Emily has been finding various ways of entertaining herself.

Looking more mature

She spent a few weeks doing camps with Abbie. They did a baking camp and a gardening camp, but then Emily started to prefer a less structured experience so they have mostly just been hanging out together. Sometimes they go for short bike rides in the morning before it gets too hot. They also play games together and Abbie has Emily help her with various projects like filming videos, etc. Emily has also been getting some of her summer work done, but the teachers assigned more this year than they had in past summers, meaning that there is still quite a bit left to do over the next month.

As for friends, Emily still has tons of FaceTime calls, some of which seem to go on for entire days! As usual, it is tough because so few of her friends are quarantining, so they may be at camps during the day and not able to chat other than at night and on the weekends. Emily also had me set her up with a penpal website called Students of the World. She started corresponding with girls from Canada, Austria, Russia, etc., but it quickly started to get overwhelming. Her typing is still a hunt and peck approach, so responding to even one person takes a long time if she doesn't have someone helping her.

With all of the hot weather that we have, I would have thought that Emily would be spending more time in the pool than she has been. I think that she got it in her head that she wants to stay out of the sun, so she has stopped going in the pool unless it is shaded, which doesn't happen until about 4pm every day. Even at that, I don't think that she is swimming more than once a week.

Although most days seem pretty uneventful, we do try to come up with sources of excitement from time to time. For the 4th of July, we planned a Mexican cookout that included fajitas and homemade salsas and guacamole. Then we bought Disney+ so that we could watch Hamilton together. Emily doesn't care much for fajitas, salsas, or guacamole, but she does love tortilla chips. :) This past weekend, we made a bunch of fruit syrups so that the girls could mix their own mocktails. Of course, anything sweet is right up her alley. Tomorrow, we are planning on homemade pasta and angel food cake in honor of Abbie's birthday. Emily helped me put together clues for a scavenger hunt for Abbie, so hopefully that will be fun, too.

As for school this fall, we have already told Emily's school that she will be on-line and we are fortunate that the school is offering that as an option for the families that need/want it. We have a parents' meeting next week so I suspect that we will get a lot more information about how classes will look, but Emily is definitely resigned to the fact that there is no safe in-person option at this point. To help with her workspace, she decided that she needed an actual desk for her room, so we have ordered one that will hopefully arrive at the end of August. I know that she is looking forward to getting a system set up for herself so that her papers can be more organized than they were this past spring!

Happy 10th Birthday, Emily!

It was not the plan to have Emily's 10th birthday during a pandemic. She had planned on a pool party with all of her friends, but . . . plans change. That said, I think that she had a good day today.

Emily's last day as a 9-year old

She was very excited about turning 10 and could barely get to sleep last night. I checked on her at 10pm and she was still awake. This was a shame because I was exhausted and Abbie and I were patiently waiting until she was asleep to set up her decorations and presents so that she would see them first thing in the morning.

Late-night set-up

As you can see, we finally got everything set up for her. It was a good thing because she was up before both of us this morning. Yes, definitely excited. :) In the morning, we also blew up a bunch of balloons with pieces of gold foil in them. You can see a small one in front of the presents. As I was trying to tie one, I lost my hold on it and it launched into the air, spraying gold foil all over. It made for a festive look. As for the remaining balloons, they made for some good games this morning and are still rolling around various parts of the house. Emily got some great presents this year - a snow cone machine with 10 different syrup flavors, animal puppets from Abbie, lots of books, LEGOs (of course), little glass bottles for making potions, art activities from Greg and Elizabeth, and an art book from Grandma P.

She spent most of the day playing LEGOs, but also made snow cones after lunch, and then got to work on her birthday cake. She decided that she wanted to make her own vanilla layer cake this year with buttercream frosting and unicorn decorations. We didn't have round cake pans, so we made do with rectangular, which resulted in a square unicorn head, but Emily didn't care. She was very pleased with how it turned out.

Four-layer Unicorn Cake

You can see that it has a mane, a candy cane horn, little pink eyes with lashes, a mouth, and little white ears. It turned out really well, actually, and the flavor was good. As you may notice, she is wearing the same shirt in the photo above as she was wearing the day before. That tends to happen in quarantine life. :) We did have a special event, though, that was exciting enough to convince Emily to change her clothes. Her dear friend, Ansel, whom she hasn't seen in person since March came over to bring her a birthday gift. We stood in the driveway with masks on and the girls were actually able to see each other and talk in person!

After 20 minutes together, her friend left, but then she called Emily on FaceTime as soon as she got home. It was fun because her friend ended up singing Happy Birthday with us, and then the girls watched a movie together. It was all very impromptu, but that is about as close as it gets to a "real" birthday party these days.

As you can see, Chad is holding the phone so that Emily's friend can see what is going on. Again, it seems sort of odd, but that is pandemic life. All in all, she turned 10 successfully. Now the only question is whether tomorrow will be too much of a letdown after all of the activity today. Hopefully, all of the LEGOs, arts and crafts, and books that Emily received will be enough to keep her busy for a few days!

Last Day of School!

Today was Emily's last official day of school. The year definitely ended with a whimper, rather than a bang. They had a very light workload this week and today was their last Zoom meeting, which was the end-of-year awards event. As it turns out, the awards were lame (newsflash - they are all advancing to the next grade and that actually counts as an award) and our WiFi failed partway through. Emily was pretty upset. I think that she had been looking forward to this as a special event and it was anything but special.

School Photo 2019-2020

What is special (to me anyway) is that this is the first year that the school has done individual school photos for the kids. We didn't have anything last year, but this year they started the (long overdue) tradition. It is actually interesting how they did it - rather than have a professional photographer come to the school, they made it an art project for the upper-level students. Although this doesn't result in the greatest finished product, I do appreciate the learning value, etc.

The awards event may not have included any newsflashes, but we do have one from the homefront. After seven years of commitment to becoming a baker (yes, that's right, this has been her goal since she was two), Emily has decided on a career change. She now has an interest in drawing and animation. She has been working really hard on her drawing lately and she is very serious about it. She'll say, "Today I need to work on drawing better jawlines." or "Today I need to work on drawing people from the side." She is desperate for one-on-one art lessons, so we will see what we can do.

These are a couple of her recent drawings. The first is a fairy princess and the second is a group of friends who fight monsters together. There is an entire backstory here. Saidy Dell (in the middle) is the shy one, and Lora Roks (on the right) is the more adventurous one (notice the ear and eyebrow piercings). The bird, Dead-beak, belongs to Lora, FYI. What Saidy doesn't know is that Lora and Jack Wolf are secretly dating. They don't want to tell Saidy because they don't want it to break up the group. LOL. As you can imagine, the story goes on, but this is just a taste.

Other than her drawing, Emily has been keeping herself busy with swimming, FaceTime calls, all sorts of projects in her room, and the occasional blanket fort in the living room! :)

Blanket Fort - notice that all of her animals were invited!

Looking ahead to the summer, we are not traveling and the kids are not signed up for summer camps, at least not outside the house. Rather, we have commissioned Abbie to design and run morning camps for Emily. The first camp, which will start in the 2nd week of June is called Basics of Baking and will involve all sorts of messes in my kitchen! I'll keep you posted on the rest.

On Lockdown!

Wow, what a month it has been since my last post! As I mentioned, we were skiing in Colorado and Emily and I got lots of time together on the bunny hill. She seemed to pick up right where she left off last year and had fun with it, I think.

Emily also picked up where she left off in terms of her obsession with building a snowman. She worked really hard at it this year, and actually ended up with a cute little product. It was incredibly difficult because the snow is so dry in Colorado, so it doesn't want to pack together at all.

Of course, we were super-careful during our entire trip, keeping away from other people, sanitizing all surfaces in our condo, and cooking in for our meals. Once we got back home, we started our official quarantine. Pretty quickly, Emily's school extended its Spring Break by a week and announced that they would move to online classes thereafter.

So far, Emily has been doing great with getting her work done online. She has been managing her own schedule every day and has been getting plenty of play time in between her work time. Her biggest annoyances are when her class does full-group Zoom meetings together. As you can imagine, kids tend to get a little goofy when they are all on a call together, which bugs her because it makes the lesson take more time than it should. She is also bummed about not being able to have friends to play with on the weekends. FaceTime calls have helped, but its just not the same as being able to ride bikes with friends, etc.

Of course, one of the big uncertainties in her life has been wondering whether the Easter Bunny would still be able to come during a pandemic. This morning, we learned the answer to that critical question - not even a pandemic can stop the Easter Bunny's magic!

She was pleased to find that he had put candy and little gifts in her basket and there were eggs hidden all over the house. Many of them were filled with money, which she always appreciates. Another special event today, we all got in the car together for the first time in a month and took a drive out to the country to see what we could see. We definitely saw some wildflowers, cows, and horses. It was a nice day to get some fresh air and treat ourselves to something a little different.

Trophy Festival

We are currently on Spring Break, and I will have updates on that soon, but I thought that I would do a quick post on Trophy Festival. This is the annual event for strings players in which they prepare and perform a piece for a judge that then provides them feedback on their playing. At the end, each player goes home with a trophy to acknowledge all the hard work that goes into the performance.

Waiting for her turn

Emily participated in this event two years ago, but did not participate last year because her teacher missed the deadline for registration. This year, she performed Andantino by Suzuki. I tried to get a video of it, but she refused to allow it. She told me that it would make her too nervous, so I was allowed to watch, but not record. Anyway, she did a very nice job and the judge complimented her on her beautiful tone.

Other than that, life has been very run of the mill. As a result, Emily has been really looking forward to Spring Break. We are skiing in Colorado again this year and as I get good photos/videos, I'll be sure to post them!

A Star is Born?

We may have a star actor in the making. Emily felt strongly that she wanted to pick up an extra-curricular activity that would allow her to form friendships outside of her school friends. She is interested in dance, but there really weren't any good options in terms of offerings and schedules. Most of what is offered here is ballet, which she feels like she missed her window on by not starting at age two. Sadly, she isn't too far off base. For her age group, many places are now requiring two days a week, or requiring that you can't take lyrical dance if you aren't concurrently enrolled in ballet. Apparently, by the time you are nine, dancing just for the sake of fun and movement is off the table in a class setting.

Anyway, beyond dance, her next interest was in acting, and she begged me to find her acting lessons. She is in luck because I found (what looks like) a great theatre class at a time that works with our schedule. It is for kids in 1st - 8th grade and here is the description:

"This well-rounded theater class will focus on training for the young actor. Learn to introduce yourself in front of an audience, and explore scenes from famous musicals and plays. You will discover your creative strengths and make new friends! Families are invited to join us for an end of semester showcase." 

She had the first class this past Monday and really enjoyed it. She was nervous about it all day, afraid that she wouldn't meet anybody or that the other kids wouldn't accept her. It really stressed her out, but that all melted away once she got to class. In classic Emily fashion, she hit it off with two other girls who are already friends with each other and are also nine years old. They happily accepted her and all is right with the world. She enjoyed the exercises they did and jumped in the car ready to tell me all about it.

Other than her new acting interest, all continues to progress as usual. School is going well and Emily has her Valentines all ready for the party next Friday. Maybe Valentine's Day will encourage me to finally get around to getting some new photos or video for the next post!

Happy New Year!

The new year is off to a great start. Emily went back to school yesterday and I think she was very happy to be back. She was really energetic and talkative after school. With the new year, there is a new seating arrangement and she is sitting with Quinn, one of the boys in her class that she has a minor crush on. It isn't all unicorns and rainbows, though. Apparently yesterday he kept trying to talk to her during lessons and she had to tell him to knock it off.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, I should back up and post photos from the holidays. Emily had a great season. We left off with her fancy school lunch, which I think she looked lovely for!

This is most of her class, and her two teachers, but there were two kids missing. As you can see, it is predominantly girls and they all get along pretty well, so it continues to be a great environment for her.

Emily managed to get a bit of skating in before Christmas and, true to form, made a friend instantly. She and this little girl just held hands and skated together almost the entire time. I don't know how she does it, but she can pick up a friend pretty much anywhere, anytime. In fact, she made a new friend in the neighborhood over the break and the girl lives very close to us, so that is a new, easy option for those days when other friends aren't available to play.

She also managed to get in a visit to Santa this year. Talk about last minute - it was December 24th and there was no line because all the other kids have parents that plan ahead! :) She planned in advance what to say to him. She told him that she "wanted all the people who don't have stockings, or a fireplace, or a tree to get at least three presents because I already have everything I need." So sweet.

However, she did put together a Christmas list this year and Santa did pretty well with it. Among other things, she got the American Girl bunk bed for Ann and her other dolls, she also got lots of books, two new watches, new earrings, and a Polaroid camera.

Christmas Morning!

Emily also had a good trip to New Orleans. She had waited a long time for beignets and bread and butter from Commander's Palace and neither disappointed. Although, we didn't manage to do another ghost tour, which disappointed Emily. She had her heart set on actually seeing a ghost this year. She also wasn't too happy with me when I told her that I could take her to a haunted hotel, only to find that I led her to a place that was literally called "The Haunted Hotel." On top of that, we weren't allowed to go inside the hotel, so all her hopes of ghosts were dashed.

Vacation ended with a few more play dates and a trip to the theater to see the newest Star Wars movie, which I think that Emily was really pleased with. She gobbled popcorn and watched wide-eyed. All in all, not a bad holiday break!

Holiday Traditions

The holidays are in full swing and all of the usual traditions are keeping us busy. Emily is thrilled that her elf, Frisbee, is back this year. The new thing that she and her friends are doing is writing notes to their elves to see if the elves write back. She asked Frisbee a number of questions - Is it true that you are actually able to fly to the North Pole and back within a couple of minutes? What is your favorite color? Do you like candy canes? Is it fun to be an elf? Is there a North Star only on Christmas?

Frisbee has been kind enough to answer a few of her questions, but she can only answer one a night because it is so tiring for her to use a human-size pencil. So far, we have learned that it is true that it only takes a couple of minutes to fly to the North Pole and back, her favorite color is candy-cane red, she loves candy canes, and it is great to be an elf.

Of course, we have our tree up and the house decorated. Emily has already bought a present for Abbie and put it under the tree; Abbie has done the same for Emily. Both girls have a Christmas list and Emily is again asking for a cotton candy maker. I still haven't given Frisbee the green light on that, though.

Once again this year, the girls continued the tradition of playing Christmas carols at a local retirement home. Emily contributed to Jingle Bells, Jolly Old St. Nick, O' Come Little Children, and two non-Christmas songs that the old folks seem to like - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Go Tell Aunt Rhody. My camera angle is exceptionally poor, but here is the whole group playing Jingle Bells - four violins, a cello, and a bass. You can just barely see Emily between the music stands.

As for upcoming events, this is Emily's last week of school before the break. Their holiday program will be on Tuesday and their fancy holiday party will be on Friday. The holiday party is a big deal. All the kids get dressed up and have a formal holiday lunch together. To prepare, they had a half-hour lesson last week on proper manners, etc. As part of the lesson, the boys practiced escorting the girls to their seats and the girls practiced thanking them for helping them in and out of their chairs. Of course, it is all very old-fashioned and sexist, and Emily told me, "I can pull out my own chair, you know." Yes, honey, I know. LOL.

We will also be celebrating the holidays with a trip to New Orleans again this year. We are looking forward to three days and nights of great food, ghost tours, cemetery tours, and just general adventure. Hopefully it will be as much fun as it was last year and hopefully the weather will cooperate with us.

Biking!

Big news - Emily has finally learned how to ride a bike! She rarely practiced and often claimed that she didn't want to learn how to ride. However, this past summer, it hit her that kids much younger than nine able to ride like the wind. That got under her skin so she set her mind to the task. Of course, setting her mind to it and actually practicing proved to be two different things. For a long time it was too hot to attempt biking. Now that the weather has improved, there has been more opportunity.

She and her friend, Ansel, worked together on Saturday and that was all it took. Ansel was super-supportive and that is what gave Emily the boost that she needed. She was a little wobbly on Saturday, but by Sunday she was officially riding (and we have video to prove it)! I would never have predicted that she was just a day or two away from knowing how to do it. Not surprisingly, she is very excited and proud of herself. :)

Halloween 2019!

As I mentioned, Emily had two Halloween costumes this year. There was her non-scary white witch costume for school and then there was her Other Mother costume.

Apparently, she was not the only white witch (as you can see)! Also, it was a very cold day so she had to bundle up with clothes under her costume, etc. They went trick-or-treating through school during the day and she had a pretty big haul, which gave her a head start for that night. As you can tell, she was very not scary for school, but that all changed for her actual Other Mother costume.

Abbie did her make-up for her. There was a YouTube video that they tried to follow, but it is always easier said than done. It took them over an hour, but it turned out really well. Multiple people thought that it must be a mask, which of course it was not. Frankly, I was really impressed with how it turned out. Also, it was definitely more on the scary side, which Emily was pleased with.

Showing off her button eyes!

Emily's goal was to scare some little kids that were out trick-or-treating. She was exceptionally pleased because she literally had a kid run away from her while yelling, "I'm not scared of you." She also overheard a couple of kids saying to each other, "Don't go near her." LOL. She noted that scaring kids is a delicate balance - on the one hand, it needs to be late enough that it is dark enough to be spooky, but on the other hand, it can't be so late that the little kids have gone to bed. Rough life. She also had some disappointment on Halloween in that we went to the usual neighborhood party and as we left she lamented that she was the scariest one there. I couldn't disagree with her. Poor thing - nothing is ever quite scary enough for her!

Annual Check-up

Just a quick update - Emily had her annual check-up last week and she is now 4 feet, 3.75 inches tall. That puts her in the 30th percentile and means that she grew just over two inches in the past year. She also had a dental cleaning last week and I was really hopeful that she would ask the dentist to pull out her crazy baby tooth that is sticking out at an angle. The permanent tooth has already come in behind it and it seems like this crazy tooth would be annoying to her because it looks like it is poking into her lip or cheek. However, she doesn't seem bothered by it and didn't want the dentist to pull it, so there it sits. I guess maybe eventually the roots will disintegrate and it will fall out.

The Other Mother from Coraline

The other big item on the agenda is Halloween, of course. Emily has decided to be The Other Mother from Coraline. As you can see, there is the less scary version and the more scary version. I think that she is aiming for the more scary version, but my guess is that we will end up somewhere in between. We ordered a black wig and a polka dot dress, so now the issue will just be the makeup, including the button eyes, which are probably the creepiest part. Of course, this is just her trick-or-treating costume. She wants to be scary for trick-or-treating, but she doesn't want to scare the little kids at her school, so the costume for the school party will just be your basic witch costume. Stay tuned for pictures of both!

The (Not So) Usual

Donuts with Dad Day

With the exception of Donuts with Dad Day, life at school has mostly been business as usual for Emily over the past month. Her week days are filled with school, reading, and violin and her weekends are filled with play dates, swimming, and birthday parties.

One rather unusual event was that our work hosted a family party a few weeks ago and it was really impressive. The whole party had a Frozen theme, which the kids loved, and an open bar, which the adults loved. As you can see, there was face painting, movie characters, cotton candy, balloons, etc. Emily has a blast and was in a ton of photos from the event. All of the entertainment for the kids made it much easier for the adults to socialize.

In her spare time, Emily has been making rainbow loom necklaces for herself and the kids in her class (who are all putting in their requests for specific colors). She has also become interested in writing stories and she wants to get one (or more) of them published someday. She wrote a story called My Dog the other day and then worked really hard at searching the internet to find exactly the right images to illustrate each page of her story.

Having things "exactly right" is a big thing for Emily these days. She has some perfectionist tendencies and her clothes have to be "just right" as does her hair. It has to be parted perfectly, or if it is in a ponytail, there can't be any lumps or bumps anywhere. Its a rough life for sure. What has not been "exactly right" this week is the pimple that appeared on her cheek over the weekend. Needless to say, that was not in her plans and she is mortified. She came home last night upset that "everyone" at school had commented on it. Poor thing. All she can do is wait for it to go away and it just isn't happening fast enough! Little does she know that this is just the beginning!

Back to School

Emily actually missed her first two days of school this year thanks to our San Francisco trip. So there was no downtime for her when we returned home. She was back at school the next day. As luck would have it, it was a casual Friday and a half day - not a bad way to ease back into the routine.

First Day of School

I think that she was excited to be back and her friends were happy to see her. She really likes her teachers this year (with the exception of the new PE teacher) and she talks about how much she likes her school.

First Day with Uniform this Time!

Unfortunately, the germs have already started to circulate and Emily actually stayed home with a cold today. Nothing major, but according to her, she "just needed one more day of rest." I can't blame her. I feel like that sometimes, too!

It's been a long time since I have shared one of her classic one-liners. They happen all the time, but I often forget to write them down. She had a good one this past weekend, though. I went to pick her up from a friend's house and the mom was telling me about how she hadn't really eaten anything because everything they offered her was something that she doesn't like. One such item was some freshly cooked chicken, to which she replied, "No, I only eat chicken in France." I got a kick out of that one because it sounds so pretentious, but it really is true. Emily tried (and liked) some chicken in France, but she hasn't tried it again since then. Maybe we'll have to get her to eat some chicken in the US so that she doesn't give people the wrong impression. LOL.

Minnesota and San Francisco

After returning from France, we headed up to Minnesota almost immediately - no sense in hanging out in such hot weather! Emily was very excited to get back to her "summer home" (even though it is not actually ours). She says that it feels like ours because we rent the same place every year. The temperatures were definitely cooler, so we enjoyed that and all of the great food.

It wouldn't be the mid-west in the summer if it didn't get its fair share of wild thunderstorms. We had some big ones this year, but they were always great for cooling things down. One afternoon, a storm arrived very unexpectedly and I told Emily that it was probably a warm rain that would make for a good shower. She got pretty excited about that and immediately put her swim suit on so that she could go play in it. As you can tell, she loved it! :)

Emily was also thrilled to see her cousins and spend some time at the county fair. They rode rides together, saw the animals, and Emily even went to her first ever demo derby. Not surprisingly, the rides and the animals were a hit, but the demo derby was too loud and boring for her. I agree!

Upon our return from Minnesota, we didn't waste much time before flying to San Francisco for a conference/boondoggle. Our conference activities gave Emily a chance to swim in the pool where she always seemed to make a friend (not shocking!), and oftentimes it was with a child whose parent(s) were attending the same conference.

Enjoying the view from our room

We did plenty of sight-seeing with the girls (a bus tour, Berkeley, hiking Muir Woods, etc.), and there were a few things that Emily really loved. One was watching the seals at Pier 39. We took two trips to see them and spent about half an hour each time. For a couple of days Emily decided that she was going to be a marine biologist, but that thought has already waned and she is back to wanting to be a baker.

While in the area, we decided to stop at the Buena Vista, a place that we discovered on our honeymoon. It was rather fortuitous for Emily because it turns out that it has the best french toast that she has ever eaten (and Abbie agrees with this assessment). Emily ordered it three times during our trip.

As you can see, yet again, she has a bit of a snaggletooth as an adult tooth is pushing a baby tooth out of the way, but the baby tooth isn't quite ready to come out yet. While walking along the pier, Emily also stumbled into helping with a magic show. :)

Finally, Emily seemed to enjoy walking around Chinatown. She even bought herself (actually, I bought her) a Chinese dress that she was very excited about it. You can see it in her hand below, although her main interest here was in reading with the little bronze girl. :)

All in all, it has been a whirlwind summer and I think that Emily has enjoyed all of our trips. She has seen and done so much in such a short period of time, but I also think that she is looking forward to staying put for awhile in her own house (her real house!). :)

France

Emily was very excited for our trip to France. She did great with the plane ride and with the jet lag. Food, however, was another matter. I think that she actually lost weight on the trip, barely surviving on not much more than bread & butter and chocolate croissants. Even that became a challenge because there were times when the butter "didn't taste right." And, towards the end of the trip, she was even getting sick of chocolate croissants. Imagine.

Bonjour!

Food issues aside, she seems to have loved the experience. Of course, her preferred activities all involved the water. Fortunately, there were a number of these. After a few days in Paris, we traveled to L'Isle sur la Sorgue - a small town where we rented a lovely house with a beautiful backyard that included a pool and backed up to a small river with the clearest water that I have ever seen. There were constantly ducks floating by, ready to eat bread any time we were ready to provide it. We also took two short trips to Vacluse, which had the same beautiful, clear water. Besides just enjoying the views, we also took a kayak trip down the river, which I think that Emily really liked.

Relaxing in Vacluse

From there, we moved on to Aix-en-Provence - no water, so not Emily's favorite part of the trip, but it did have good markets where she was amenable to the fresh strawberries and cherries. After Aix, we went to Cassis and Emily was back in her element. We spent two days swimming in the Mediterranean and Emily was in heaven. Besides just being on the shore and enjoying the waves, we took a boat ride that provided some great views of the coast and culminated in some time to swim off the boat in incredibly clear, deep water. We were able to see little fish swimming beneath us and the salt in the water improved our buoyancy so it wasn't overly tiring.

Sisters!

From Cassis, we traveled to Annecy in the Alps. Again, more clean, clear water for swimming - yay! Emily was perfectly content to swim in the lake there and had a great time playing with a French girl her age. The girl chattered at her in French and Emily just faked it by randomly saying, "Oui" and "No." The girl caught on, though, and had a conversation with Chad in which she told him, "I can tell that she doesn't understand French, but I can tell that she and I have the same heart." Love this!

Exploring Roman Ruins

Beyond all the water activities, Emily did a ton of walking as we toured pretty much anything we could. She was a good sport about all of it, taking in the Catacombs, Luxembourg Gardens, and a climb up the Eiffel Tower in Paris, hikes in Vacluse and Roussillon, the ampitheater in Arles, and various attractions in Beaune.

Showing Anne around Town

Of course, Emily also thought that it was important for Anne to get out and experience France, so she made the journey with us and Emily took good care of her, making sure to show her the town. Emily also feels that she expanded her French, although I think that she is still just limited to oui, no (which she already knew), bonjour, and merci. LOL.

Being the homebody that she is, I think that Emily was fine with the trip coming to an end. She was so happy to be back in her own bed and in her room with her toys, etc. Upon our return, she just spent the next few days puttering around the house, building with her blocks and legos and having imaginary adventures with her Barbies and her Littlest Pet Shop animals.

Now that we have headed to Minnesota, Emily is looking forward to seeing her cousins and the friends that she made at summer camp last year. While she is comfortable in Minnesota, my guess is that she will again be happy to get back to her own bed, etc. when the time comes!

She's 9!!!

Emily turned 9 years old yesterday. She had her birthday party on Sunday and it was very informal, but she declared it the "best birthday ever." She had two friends over and the idea was that if it was nice, they would swim. If it was raining, they would watch a movie and eat popcorn. As you can see, it turned out that it was nice enough to swim so they did, then they watched a movie, then they went swimming again, then they had dinner, then they went home. It may have been the "best birthday ever" because it included the longest birthday party ever. The girls got along well, though, and seemed to have fun.

As for the movie selection, I asked Emily what she wanted to watch and she declared, "Labyrinth." Yes, the old 1986 David Bowie movie. She had seen it last summer and apparently really liked it, so that is what they watched. The other girls had never seen it before and seemed to like it. The food situation also seemed to be up to everyone's standards. Emily had decided that she wanted mini-cupcakes rather than a cake, so we ended up with mini-chocolate and mini-red velvet cupcakes. Between those, the popcorn, some watermelon, and some buttered noodles, I couldn't believe how much they all ate.

On Emily's official birthday yesterday, it wasn't that different from an ordinary day. She went to summer camp and then came home and relaxed with some Legos. I told her that she was looking much older now that she is nine. She responded, "You're just saying that." Busted. Yes, I had to admit that I was actually just saying it. I asked her if she feels any different now that she is nine and she instantly responded, "Nope!" So I guess that is that!

School's out for Summer!

Emily is finally out of school for summer break. Her last day was Friday, although it was only a half day and was filled with the annual talent show and the year-end awards. Emily wanted to play her violin for the talent show. She and her friend Ansel decided that they would do a piece together with Emily playing and Ansel singing. They decided on "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," which is Emily's favorite piece. I am not exactly sure why, but Ansel decided to sing only the 1st and 3rd verses. Overall, I think that they did pretty well and I think that Emily was pleased with how it went. Also, Emily is known in her school for enjoying the macabre so this song was good in that it further fueled her reputation. :) 

As for the year-end awards, all of the kids got lots of awards for their work during the year. A couple that stood out for Emily were her character award - she embodies Responsibility - and her AR award. Apparently the Accelerated Reader program is able to estimate how many words the students have read based on the AR tests that they have taken during the year. We were surprised to discover that Emily had read well over 300,000 word this past year. That seems like a lot and was by far the greatest number of words read in her class.

Other than the activities on the last day, the month of May was also filled with performances, field day, and a trip to the pool. Overall, I think that Emily enjoyed the performances and the trip to the pool, but was not very thrilled with field day. She doesn't like feeling pressured to go, go, go, so I think that sort of competition can be overwhelming for her. Anyway, here are a few shots to commemorate the month:

Celebrating the performance of their play, "Squirrel Etiquette"

Swimming and popsicles

The Rainbow Team on Field Day

Although the school year is over, the students still have work assigned over the summer to keep their skills up during the break. Emily has been working on that and also keeping up with her reading. She tried to bring her kindle to tennis/swim camp yesterday, but I made her leave it home. More and more, though, she seems to be finding time to curl up with a good story.

We also received Emily's 4th quarter report card last week and her teacher said, "How I will miss Emily's dry sense of humor and view of the world. She is a child who seems to take everything in stride and has a sense that while this moment may not be great, it is just a moment and a better one is coming. She has certainly helped some of the children in the room with this perspective. It has been a joy to be a part of her learning journey this year." Very sweet.

As for the rest of the summer, there is camp this week and next and then we are off to France and Minnesota for the rest of the summer!

Summer

It seems that Spring didn't last long because it already seems like Summer, which involves tree climbing and swimming. Emily has her favorite trees to explore, such as this one in our yard.

"C'mon, mom, take the photo already!"

She also seems to be excited for pool weather. Poor little thing was in the pool for about five hours yesterday and ended up with raw pads on her toes and fingers. Apparently she needs to toughen up her skin a bit. Despite the wounds, she was back in the pool today and loving every minute of it.

Emily and her bestie, Ansel

Although it feels like summer, there are still a few more weeks of school. There are lots of fun events coming up though, including Field Day, which has a ninja warrior theme this year, and a field trip to celebrate everyone's hard work during the year. Emily's new school has been so incredibly wonderful this year and she is already looking forward to next year. She knows who her teacher will be and it is someone that she really likes, so she is really excited about that.

Also, Emily has really come into her own with reading this year. She declared to her teacher that it just took the right book to make her love reading. It turns out that the Upside Down Magic series was just the ticket. It is a series of (so far) five books that chronicle the lives of kids in an upside down magic class. In the books, all kids get a certain type of magic when they turn ten, but for a subset of kids, their magic is a little unusual. For example, some kids are Flares. They get the power to light things on fire, but an Upside Down Flare might have the power to freeze things instead. It is an incredibly cute and compelling set of stories with a female protagonist who is a Upside Down Fluxer. Instead of shape-shifting into normal things like kittens, or birds, she shifts into unusual animals like a Dritten - half kitten, half dragon, or a Squippy - half squid, half puppy. Emily just thinks it is all hysterical and so do I. Unfortunately, we have read all five and the sixth is not due out until the Fall. Who knows when the seventh will arrive, if ever.

Other than that, life continues to roll along for Emily. She is progressing with violin and continues to love Legos, building all sorts of structures, playing with her stuffed animals (there is always a wedding in progress), chasing geckos around the patio, and baking/eating all things sweet. :)

Spring

Emily has been enjoying the warmer spring weather lately. She has been able to get to the park on a regular basis and never fails to find someone there to hang out with. She has also been busy with friends from school. There have been lots of play dates and birthday parties recently. Chad commented today that Emily's social calendar is more full than his, mine, and Abbie's put together.

Never afraid to jump

Although it wasn't that warm over spring break (think 50 degrees), Emily and her friend decided that it was warm enough to play in the baby pool. I would have frozen to death, but they seemed perfectly content to play for hours, ultimately getting bathing suits on and everything.

Speaking of school, she continues to do great! Report cards came out this past week and her teacher commented,

"There are so many things that make Emily a delight to have in class. Her sense of humor, her willingness to laugh at herself, her steadfastness in marching to her own drummer and her diligence to persevere when tasks are not easy are just a few. She also seems to appreciate the time and effort that everyone puts in to helping her be successful and she doesn't take that effort for granted. What a blessing she is!!"

Apparently, her teacher was so happy with her for remembering one of the spelling rules that she had taught the class that she actually kissed Emily because she was so overjoyed. LOL.

The other interesting event that happened recently was Emily's interaction with the tooth fairy. She lost another tooth and decided to put both of her teeth (the one that had been relegated to a Tupperware container and the recently lost one) into a miniature treasure box. She put the box under her pillow before bed, but then changed her mind before falling asleep and moved the box to her nightstand. The tooth fairy was a little too aggressive and didn't realize that she shouldn't take the teeth on the nightstand. So, Emily was disappointed the next morning when she woke up and found the teeth gone and $2 under her pillow. I told her that I wasn't sure, but that there was a possibility that if she left the money and the open treasure box under her pillow, the tooth fairy might return the teeth. It was a bit of an experiment, but she tried it and it worked! The teeth are safely back in the treasure box. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Emily's class had a western-themed Valentine's Day this year. I didn't think that she would have anything to wear that fit the theme, but she came up with a perfect outfit, complete with little pink hearts on her belt.

As you would imagine, they did the standard exchange of valentines and also had a school-wide party with games and activities.

It may be difficult to see in the photo above, but there has also been exciting news on the tooth front - the crazy baby tooth that was sticking out of her mouth for so long is finally gone. It got so loose that it fell out in her sleep and she found it in her mouth in the morning. Fortunately she didn't swallow it! Surprisingly, she has elected not to monetize the tooth - rather than going under her pillow, it has gone into a small Tupperware container. I'm not quite sure why or for how long, but that is its current fate.

Of course, Emily had a day off yesterday for Presidents' Day. She enjoyed it thoroughly - she had a play-date followed by a birthday party. In contrast, I had to work. As I lamented to her that I had to work, she didn't offer me much for sympathy, responding, "That's OK. You already had your time [off] when you were a kid." Yes, I suppose that is true.

Emily continues to crack us up with the stuff that comes out of her mouth. I received a pair of socks for Christmas that say "I was f**king talking" on them. It has been a running joke because I seem to get interrupted a lot. Anyway, I interrupted Emily during her violin lesson last week. In response, she looked at me and said, "Am I going to have to get the socks??" Chad laughed pretty hard.