Whew! What a week! In the mornings, after I've taken the kids to school...there is this sweet spot of silence. It's amazing. God gave me this blip of time in order to allow me to handle the hail storms of the afternoons and weekends. This week in particular, I reveled in those quiet moments. I played some tennis and had a tennis party at Jennifer's gorgeous house. I played golf and had lunch with Sunny to discuss The Sellout. It rained almost every afternoon during the week, so Ellie lucked out for swim practice. We had the Village Dance studio rehearsals all week. Cutlip saved me all week...especially Wednesday when I was there for 3 hours....she gave me wine and pizza and even sheltered us during the rain. Phil's parents came in town on Thursday evening for the weekend festivities. I took them to adoration then lunch with my parents on Friday. The afternoon was going smoothly until I waited for the train on the way to pick up Ellie from school early. Ugh! We were able to check in early in my SIL, Vane's hotel room across the street from the theater. Getting ready right across the street was the way to go! I got food for the room for when we had breaks. It worked out well. Boy, was our group tired when we finally got out of there around 10pm! I loved sitting with Cutlip, drinking wine and watching the dress rehearsal. Check the video page for all the girls' dances. I took all of those that night. Saturday morning, Phil and Ellie got up early to head to the Cecil Aquatic center for the middle school city championship meet. Ellie placed 3rd in a 25m butterfly and 9th in freestyle. JWJ ranked 3 overall. Wow! He dropped her off at John's river Birthday bash for a few hours. Meanwhile, the rest of us had a lazy morning with pancakes, bike rides/dog walks, hair cuts, me reading and later Phil napping. All of a sudden it was a mad dash to get out the door for the recital. Vane came over to do make up. Marly lost her costume (which in hindsight it was good that she waited to figure that out as we were walking out the door, because had we noticed that earlier, we would have been freaking out looking all over the house for it). We found it balled up under the dressing room table. Phew! I finally chilled out when I poured my first bootleg cold red and all 11 of us were sitting in our seats. The girls danced so well. Voss was a great little brother watching the show. My parents and sister, Phil's parents and sister and the VanWie ladies were an amazing fan club. We went out for late night pizza at my favorite Moon River after. What a night! Sunday we were able to sleep in a bit. We had to be at the church at 9:45 for Abby's First Communion. Good thing we had so much time because Ellie and I had practiced the wrong version of Sunday's readings! Marly and Ellie did a great job altar serving. Ellie and I were lectors. They even had Abby bring up the gifts with some of her class mates. It was cool to have all the Bravo ladies participating. I was in awe that we had such a family support group for the first communion photo. I can't wait to see how it turned out. After we all headed to the TCC pool for an after party. The Nixons and VanWie's met us up there. It was a gorgeous spring day (too cold to swim, but perfect to sip and sit) visiting with family and friends. The cherry on top was Dane (and Jeff) Facetiming Abby on the way home to congratulate her! Just, wow! We had leftover pizza, charcuterie and salad, got more hair cuts and did the rosary together (with some new rosaries). Then an early bedtime for all! We were wiped out! Today was calm once I got everyone where they needed to be. Kids off the school, the Bravos headed back after breakfast. Vane decided to stay an extra day and spent the morning "lounging like a lizard" at her hotel pool. I met a new JWJ PTA friend for coffee and talked about my new role as VP of membership. I had a zoom Stockton PTA meeting discussing the end of the year and the kickoff of the school supply fundraiser. Now Vane and Marly are playing checkers, Voss is doing homework. Ellie is getting ready to watch her buddy, Charlotte swim in the first river rats swim meet (odd not being there this year!) while Phil plays tennis. Abby is doing gymnastics in the front yard. It's a delightful Monday afternoon! Check out the pics from the week.