Field Day

GLOWING: Here's Annabelle this a.m., after a shower in which she attempted to get knots out of her hair. This (de-knotting) would become important later. ...

PARTY TIME: Today was the official end of school year shindig at the kids' Shoreline school. We went at noon to throw some hotdogs on the barbecue and the kids enjoyed playing out in the field with some of their school friends.

It was super windy, so the bubble station was doing a brisk business. Bubbles were flying everywhere. The kids both had fun chasing them. CASHING IN: Part of today's festivities involved the kids' cashing in the points they'd earned in the Accelerated Reader program by reading books and taking comprehension quizzes after. They pooled their accumulated points to buy a Pokemon statue (Snivy, in case you're wondering) and carrying case. CJ models it here ... ;)
TIGHT BUNS: This afternoon was Annabelle's Very First Ever dress rehearsal for ballet. She (and a whole bunch of other ballerinas) have a recital on Friday night.

Part of the dress rehearsal meant taming her long, wild, knot-prone hair into a nice, tight bun. My oh my, did she put up a fight. You would have thought I was trying to scalp her, seriously. (I reminded her that NONE of the little girls in the YouTube bun-making videos we watched were screaming bloody murder.)

After a few shrieks and many a bad word muttered under both of our breaths, we finally got a semi-passable 'do.I am happy to report it held up to the rigorous rehearsal. :)

I was rather surprised to see that only HALF of Annabelle's class bothered to show up for the dress rehearsal. Srsly? Seems pretty lame to me. I know this isn't the Bolshoi Ballet, but before we even signed up for the class the teacher made people commit to a June 17 performance. This has been on the books for weeks and weeks.

Despite the small numbers, Annabelle did have the pleasure of comments from a couple of (mean) girls being (mean) girls. Bee was wearing SUPER COOL pseudo Crocs that are shaped like Lightning McQueen from the really entertaining movie "Cars." So one (mean) girl says to her, "Why are you wearing your brother's shoes?"

Annabelle just looked at her and said, "They're Lightning McQueen," like that should be answer enough. ;)

Of course the girl persisted, saying, "But they're BOY'S shoes." And then the (mean) girl turns to ME and says, "Why's she wearing her brother's shoes?"

I didn't say what I would have liked to say, but I did tell the girl that I liked the movie "Cars" and so did countless other girls - cars aren't just for boys.

Annabelle added, "Well, he outgrew them, so now I wear them." Clearly she doesn't understand that likely wouldn't help her in the "I'm cool" column. ;) I don't know about you, but I thought the shoes looked cute on Bee.

WEEKEND REWIND: We have been out and about both days the two weekends preceding, but this weekend we stayed home and worked worked worked around the house. It wasn't out and out sunny this weekend, but it didn't rain, so I suppose we can't complain. Annabelle, for one, was ready to get her summer party started and wanted to get the kiddie pool out. She found a way to enjoy herself despite the cramped quarters.CJ opted to pass on that action.

The small pool "wet" Annabelle's appetite for something more, so Christian was a good sport and took both the kids to Pop Mounger Pool in Magnolia. There too, it wasn't warm, but it wasn't f-f-f-freezing, so they splashed around for a good hour plus. During that time CJ had a major breakthrough - he (willingly, purposely) put his whole head under water, a first for him. Yea for CJ!!

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME: Tonight we took advantage of some of our free tickets from the Starbucks promotion and went to the Mariners game. Because the crowd was so sparse, we were able to upgrade our seats to the Hit it Here Cafe. The Mariners lost, of course. They do 9 times out of 10 that we go. But we still had fun.