The Morning Show

The Princess and I awoke this morning at 5:00, feeling rather grumbly. We got dressed and guzzled our coffee in silence. I asked her if she would be ready to leave by 5:45 and she grunted at me. I took that as a yes. 


We shuffled out to the car in the dark and drove the 45 minutes to the television station. When we entered the building, we saw the morning meteorologist (weatherman) who greeted us with a chirpy, "How are you this morning?" We muttered a reply and glowered at his chirpy back as he entered the studio. Happy Morning People are very annoying.

Arriving at the studio...

The Green Room

Dulce Anaya, the Artistic Director, helping the girls with their hair...

Sleepy, Grumpy Princess!

Ms. Dulce posing with the "friends"...

Practicing in the lobby...

The Moms watched from the Green Room...

"Friends" in Giselle and friends in real life, too!

If you'd like to see the dance, click this link and for the interview, click this link. The Princess is on the left in both videos.

Photo Op for the Mamarazzi

It's been a busy week what with all the back-to-school-after-spring-break-hoopla and the oh-dear-AP-exams-are-right-around-the-corner-mania and the rehearsals for Giselle and The Princess's freshman solo concert coming up. 


Naturally, my hormones and my brain decided this was a fantastic time for a migraine.


Which was, you know, a LOT of fun. As per usual.


But today I woke up without a migraine and felt fabulous. Which is good, because the many items on my "to do" list were all still there waiting for me. Plus, there was an extra Giselle rehearsal thrown in - right during rush hour traffic - because part of the cast of Giselle will be performing on the local morning news show (WJXT for the locals!) And at this rehearsal, we found out that The Princess has to be at the news station not at 7:00 AM as we were originally told, but at 6:30 AM! 


Six. Freaking. Thirty. A. M.


We'll have to leave the house at 5:45.


Have I mentioned that I am so NOT a morning person? 


*sigh*


The good news is that The Princess has her costume with her...and that means a photo op for the mamarazzi!


The Princess, even though she was tired and cranky from being at school all day and then having a rehearsal and not getting home until 7:30, after leaving the house this morning at 6:45, was a really good sport...

She put on her costume and an old, ratty, dead pair of pointe shoes and she tried to ignore me as she did some stretches...

And she even posed for me.

And...

Isn't she absolutely lovely?

P.S. Here is the information on the performance, if any of you who are local are interested in seeing it...

Back to reality...

Our spring break was wonderful and relaxing. We slept late every morning. I didn't see a single sunrise. We got a lot accomplished - haircuts, orthodontist checkups, pointe shoes ordered and the a/c fixed (don't ask!), flowers planted, cars washed and the boat was cleaned. We also relaxed. We read and the kids had sleepovers and The Boy fished.

Yesterday The Boy had friends over to go tubing...

The boys went out and got the boat ready while they waited for the girls...

And then they all headed down to the boat...

I wasn't invited to go along.

But that's OK, because the mamarazzi had her mamarazzi zoom lens handy...

The photo below is what I could observe with the naked eye...

But the mamarazzi zoom let me see this...

Don't worry - after a while, once I made sure that everyone was still wearing life vests and that the "Captain" was being safe, I stopped stalking them.

After sleeping in every single morning for the past week, it was a wee bit difficult to make myself arise from my nice, comfy bed. Luckily, my favorite daughter had a cup of magic elixer/coffee waiting for me. That helped...a lot.

When I got home from dropping the aforementioned favorite daughter at carpool, I looked longingly at my my nice comfy bed. And then I sighed, mumbled under my breath about wretched early mornings, and trudged out to watch another sunrise.

I glanced up and saw that I had company...

Once again, I was very thankful for my mamarazzi zoom lens. Without it, this lovely osprey was nothing but a dark smudge in a tree...

He/She/It watched me for a while and then flew off...

To check on his/her/it's babies...

And I decided that was my cue to head back inside for another cup of coffee. Happy Monday!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Pam at Empty Nest For winning the Barnes & Noble gift card and to Mark at Our Simple Lives for winning the Starbucks gift card! If you haven't read their blogs before, pop over and say hi - they're both awesome!


And thank you, once again, to ALL of you who take the time out of your busy day to pop over and read this blog. You are awesome too! I wish I could afford to buy a little thank you gift for every single one of you...

Spring Break, so far

It's spring break for the kids (and hence, for me too!) and we have been sleeping late every morning and relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We've got hair appointments and dentist appointments scheduled and the kids both had homework over the break which they have been diligently working on. Okay, maybe not so much with that last one...but I have been diligently reminding them to do it!


Over the weekend, The Boy rescued a young seagull with what appeared to be an injured wing...

The Boy named him Jonathon. 

Jonathon L. Seagull.

He wanted to keep him here and try to rehabilitate him. He had a corner of the pool enclosure all set up and was feeding Jonathon tuna fish. I tried to gently explain that we weren't really qualified to take care of him properly. The Boy had an argument for every excuse I came up with - he'd google what to do and just look at the nifty little area he had all set up for the little gull and so forth and so on. Finally, I had to put on my Mommie Dearest hat and say no, nope, not happening, no way.

Instead we drove out to Big Talbot Island (and hour and twenty minutes away, thank you very much) and left him in the capable hands of a wonderful bird rescue organization.

It was a lovely drive and a gorgeous day...

My sweet boy was sad to leave Jonathon but we know it's the best place for him. And The Boy perked up when he saw some peacocks wandering around...

I took a few photos and then we headed for home (another hour and twenty minute drive...*sigh*)

At least it was scenic!

This morning, The Princess got some driving practice in and we picked up her BFF "The Court-i-nator" and then we made the trek to Costco and stocked up for a week with teenagers and teenager friends at the house.

I went all out and bought the girls a Costco special for lunch.

Once we got home and put the copious amounts of food and snack items away, the girls hit the pool...

Lucy was thrilled!

That dog loves to chase balls and loves to swim. And when those two activities are combined? Well, she's just a really, really, really happy pooch.

Then we went for a little jaunt around the lake...

We ordered pizza and had a salad. The kids ate ice cream for dessert and watched a movie. It was a perfect ending for a perfect day!

Don't forget about the MDSA 1000th post giveaway. Just click on this link and leave a comment by Wednesday afternoon!