"Broadway" Choir Concert

Ashley's final concert of the year was "Broadway" themed.  All of the numbers were from Broadway Musicals, from Fiddler on the Roof,  to the Lion King, to Wicked, to Rent.  It was lots of fun and the kids did a great job.  Especially, the 6th grade choir, the improvement from the beginning of the year was amazing.

This was also Ashley's solo performance.  She auditioned and was one of three selected to do a short solo from The Lion King's, Shadowland.  I thought she sounded great.  Dave and I were very proud of her, especially because her solo wasn't even in English!  Way to go Ashley!

Here is a short part of Ash's performance, it was too big to include the whole song.

Patooties

Never a dull moment with Paige. I needed, okay, wanted a new summer dress. Paige came along on my shopping trip and was quite the helper. These are moments/conversations you have to write down just so you can remember them.


Paige proceeded to help me pick out dresses to try on.

Conversation #1
"Mom, this one is so pretty," holding up the ultimate polyster pink two piece dress suit.

"I don't know Paige that seems a little 'grandma' to me."
Conversation #2
"How about this one, mom?" holding up a strapless, bejeweled evening gown.

"Umm, that's too fancy and it doesn't have any sleeves."
Conversation #3
"Look at this one!" holding up a super long maxi dress with the biggest, brightest floral print you have every seen.

All I could say about this one is, "I don't think so."

Conversation #4"Mom, there are pretty dresses over here" pointing to the Woman's sizes.

"I don't think those dresses will fit me. We should go to the petite section for ladies who are short like me."
Conversation #5"Mom, does this store have any patooties? You need patooties."
"I think they might have a petite section."
"Oh, I said patooties, that's embarassing."
The good thing about all this that she seemed to be listening to me because in the end I think she helped me pick out a pretty cute dress and I didn't even need patooties.

I Can't Wait!

Paige got her ears pierced!  She's been asking for a long time.  I told her she could do it sometime this year.  At the beginning of Spring, she asked once again when she could get her ears pierced.  I told her it would be better to wait until after soccer season because you can't wear earrings during games.  She agreed and we left it at that.

Fast forward to May 21st, the last day of the soccer season.  Paige plays her game, gets her trophy and as we are walking off the field, says, "okay let's go get my ears pierced!" 

Dave and were like, "you want to do it today?"
"Yes, you said I could, after soccer was over."
"Yeah, but we didn't expect to do it 3 minutes after your game ended."
"Please!!!"

Well, we agreed but did require her to go home and shower first.  And let's just say that Dave and I had about the best hour of entertainment watching Paige as she got cleaned up to go.  To say that this girl was excited and eager with anticipation is an understatement.  She was literally hopping/skipping around, bouncing off the walls, and jabbering with excitement.  She was the personification of an exclamation point!

Of course, we did have to have a little talk to make sure she was up to it.  I mean this is the girl  with a very weak constitution who faints when someone talks about blood.  Although there is no blood involved with ear piercings this is just the kind of thing that could send her over the edge.  She guaranteed she would be okay and she was.  In fact, she was stoic, solid...a lady who was watching said, "wow, she didn't even flinch."  Mind over matter baby!

Spring Remnants

Here are few remnants from our springtime activities that kept us busy:

The girls' springtime portraits

Homemade orange scones---my homage to the royal wedding.  I'm not really into that kind of thing, but if it gives you an excuse to make a yummy treat than I am all for it!

Breakfast with Books---a yearly tradition at our elementary school

While Mim was here, we made delicious strawberry cupcakes. 

I showed her how to make homemade buttercream frosting. 

She did the beautiful strawberry garnish.

And finally, Spring soccer.  Both the girls played again this year and had pretty good seasons.  Again, I didn't get any pictures of Ashley.  Her games move too fast and I always forget my camera.  We did however, have a good laugh over Ashley's "killer instinct" or lack thereof.  First off, her coach is always telling her to stop apologizing.  During one game, she was playing defender and tripped another player who was going to the goal.  Ashley was called for the foul and the other team got a penalty kick.  Ashley was crying she felt so bad---even though the other team missed the PK.  Also after the game, when a friend on the other team said, "good game, you beat us."  Ashley replied, "I know, I'm so sorry."  Seriously, Dave and I had to give her a talk about being tougher!

This year the season was a bit hectic.  First, almost all of the April games were rained out and had to made-up in May.  Between the two girls, there was one weekend we had 5 games!  Secondly, I agreed to be an assistant for Paige's team.  It doesn't really require much, just that I go to all the games and practices, but just this little bit extra was at times a challenge.  For the whole spring, between all the girls' activities and my commitments, we had something going on every night of the week.  I also found myself driving Ashley to school early on many a morning for choir, student council, and a bunch of other stuff.  I'm very grateful that it is all over and that Dave was often around to help.  We now have some days to just stay home--no early dinners, jumping in the car to drop someone off or pick them up, rushed homework, etc.

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, I was greeted in the morning by a little girl bursting with excitement to present me with two gifts she made at school.  One was a fill-in the blank poem, that included an embarassing story that she revised after thinking it might be too embarassing...thank goodness!  Paige also made me a clay heart she sculpted and painted in art.  It is so cute and according to Paige, "very hard to make."

Then we headed to church.  Mim came with us and got to join me in Relief Society for the annual Mother's Day brunch.  When we got home I took a little nap while Mim and the girls played Monopoly.

Our family has a fun Mother's and Father's Day tradition---THE RESTAURANT.  The girls, with the assistance of the "other" parent, creates a restaurant at which the celebrated parent is wined and dined.

This year, Dave and the girls with a little help from Mim, created a restaurant called "Momburgers."  On the menu was grilled hamburgers with every type of topping you could imagine--bacon, pastrami, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, grilled onions, mushrooms, etc.  Also served was corn on the cob, watermelon, and mango margaritas.  For dessert we had key lime pie.  Yum!  It was all very good and all for me.  Even better, the day was dry and warm so we got to eat outside on the patio for the first time this year.  What a great burger joint! 

Paige designed the cover of the menu and came up with her own, but very true slogan, "who doesn't want good burgers?"  Amen.

A Visit From Mim!

The first week of May, my cousin from Thailand came to visit for a few days.  When we went to Thailand last year, we stayed at Mim's house with her family, so we were excited to see her again.

Mim has finished her third year of college and came to the U.S. during her "summer break."  She was in America for about 6 weeks and visited a lot of different places and family members around the country.  We were grateful that she was able to come see us in Chicago for a few days.

The girls were especially excited to see Mim again.  It was a lot of fun to have her stay with us.  We are hoping that next time she can stay even longer.

The last time Mim was in the USA she was very little and really doesn't have any memories, so we decided to do some sightseeing and give her the chance to see Chicago.

Of course, a big part of Chicago, is it's food.  Our first stop was for a Chicago Dog:



Later that evening, it was deep dish pizza for dinner:

We also took her to see the movie Thor in 3-D.  Dave felt that this would be a great addition to our all-American day of hot dogs and pizza.  The truth was probably closer to the fact that Dave really, really wanted to see this movie on opening day!  Can't complain though, it was a pretty fun movie and Mim seemed to enjoy it too.

The next day, poor Mim had to sit through the girls' early morning soccer games.  It was also a pretty chilly and somewhat rainy day---pretty tough for someone used to tropical climates, but she survived and we spent the afternoon in downtown Chicago.  As you can see, it was a pretty quiet drive into the city.  These pictures crack me up!

We intended to go to the Sears/Willis Tower and try out the Ledge, but when we got there the whole city was covered in clouds and the visibility was zero.  Instead we went to get something to eat and ended up at the Rain Forest Cafe.

After dinner we walked the Magnificient Mile and stopped for some hot chocolate at the Hershey Store



Another funny picture, Paige is mad because her hot chocolate is too hot





We also decided to make a stop at the "bean" aka the Cloud Gate.  I love this sculpture!

At this point we could have gone home, but we happened to notice that the sky had cleared which meant we could go to the Sears Tower!  It actually worked out great, because there were no crowds as most people had already given up and we happened to be up there at Sunset, so we got the view in daylight and evening.  The Ledge was also a big hit.  (The Ledge is a glass box that extends from the observation deck that you can step onto and look straight down, 103 stories.)



Ashley's feet





On the Ledge, in the box

We called it a day after this, but Mim and I did return to the city a couple days later to take an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River...another one of my favorite activities.

Gotta Love It

Guess what I got?   My own personal pedicurist!  After a couple of practice sessions, Paige is officially my go-to-girl for painting toe nails.  I just sit back, pick a polish color, and in five minutes I've got pretty toes ready for flip-flops and sandals.  Love it!  And love this girl!  (Here are some of her "self-portraits" that keep showing up on my iPhone.)  



Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend was a study in contrasts.  Saturday was jammed-packed busy, while Sunday was very sedate.



The girls and I made Spring bird nest treats

 Saturday we had lots of items on our calendar.  I had a morning church meeting, our Easter egg hunt was in the afternoon, and we had one of Dave's colleagues from work come to spend the day with us.  In Dave's office, there is a pretty steady stream of individuals from the India office coming to Chicago on work rotations.  It's sort of becoming a tradition to invite them to our home to socialize with our family and eat dinner with us. 

We invited Chaitu to spend Saturday with us for some good old American fun.  He rode the train from the city out to the burbs, where Dave and the girls met him for lunch at Chick-fil-A and introduced him to the Wii.  After lunch, the girls and I went to the Easter Egg hunt, while Dave took Chaitu to some batting cages.  While there Chaitu rode the go-karts, his, "first time every controlling a motorized vehicle!" 



Dave's a real tough guy with his pink bat



Chaitu driving his first "car"


After this, we all went indoor, glow-in-the-dark miniature golfing....yeah, I smoked everyone, can you say, "hole-in-one."

Next, we came back to our house, to color Easter eggs.  Chaitu and the girls enjoyed this.  Chaitu, jokingly told us he was going to "quit his job to paint eggs full-time."


Dave likes to color easter eggs too!





The girls taught Chaitu how to hula hoop!

 While they dyed eggs, Dave and I got dinner going.  Fortunately, I had done as much prep as possible the day before so we were able to get it all put together pretty easily.  We had a solid, meat and potatoes dinner (grilled chicken not beef) to give Chaitu a traditional American style family dinner.

We had a great time with Chaitu, we all had lots of fun, the girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and Chaitu said it was the best time he has had during this rotation---ahhh, so sweet.

I have lots of pictures from Saturday, but only 1 from Sunday.  I'd like to say it was because after doing all the "fun stuff" on Saturday, we spent Easter Sunday in solemn worship of the risen Lord.  Of course, if I said that, then I would just be trying to gloss over the reality.

The reality is that on Sunday, morning I got up early to shower.  While I was in the shower, the girls woke up and everyone went downstairs and broke into their Easter baskets without me.  This picture is posed because I wanted  a picture but was obviously too late. 

It did cross my mind to take a picture of everyone in their Sunday best, but forgot by the time we all rushed to get in the car to go to church.  Fortunately, and rightly so, the highlight of the day was our church service.  Both Dave and I taught lessons, our meetings were great, and our focus was on the Savior. 

Once we got home, I had a simple family dinner planned.  We had ham and the traditional fixings.  Unfortunately, once again no pictures.  Dinner was pretty somber and no one--particularly me, was in the mood to take pictures.  This was due to some, let's just say, "disappointing" behavior from my daughters coupled with the fact I was starting to feel sick.  But in the end, we finished the evening on a good note, hanging out together and eating "butter braids" from Ashley's school fundraiser for dessert.