Giselle, Mono, a Certificate and our 25th Anniversary

So much has happened in the last few weeks. First, we continued the endless illness in our family. I think this has been the sickest year our family has ever experienced. May found me sick once again with whatever the sweet little guy for whom I am a nanny. He and I were both a mess for more than a week. It felt significantly worse than when I had COVID. Then our cat Eve got a very high fever that resulted in an ER visit, two hospital stays and lots of IV treatments. She didn't have any of the viruses for which they tested her, and the vets finally declared it was a fever of unknown origin. While she was struggling for more than a week, my husband fell ill. His energy had been poor for a few weeks and then he got a terrible cough, high fever and pink eye. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and mononucleosis. Now, I wonder if the cat and I also had mono since it can show up as a high fever in cats. Who knows? My husband is still struggling with a cough, but otherwise we are all back to normal. It was a crazy ride. 

In the meantime, life goes on and is filled with blessings. Rebekah performed in Giselle. There were three performances. It was a beautiful and dark ballet about a peasant girl's ghost who attempts to protect her lover from the Queen of the Wilis as well as the other Wilis (angry female spirits). In two of the shows, Rebekah performed as Giselle's mother, which was mostly an acting role. She did a superb job. She also danced as a peasant girl as well as one of the Wilis. For the third performance, she had her most challenging role, that of Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis (Myrtha). This role is a coveted role on a dancer's resume, and Rebekah did an excellent job of it. 

Here are her pictures as Queen of the Wilis.

Here is the one photo we got of her as a peasant (with brown vest). I am still waiting for a photo of her in the role of mother. 

I am so glad that Rebekah found such a wonderful ballet school to dance with this year. The plan is for her to stay with them next year and continue to train. They give wonderful opportunities to perform. During the last few weeks, she also performed in a recital and the Amadeus Festival. 

Rebekah also completed step one of her Associate's Degree in Business. She is achieving her A.S.S. degree by building steps, so if she ever needs to stop, she will have a completed certificate or diploma at the end of each year. This will allow her to show a completed accomplishment instead of only saying she has some college on a resume. This system does require her to take a few additional courses, but seems like the right choice. We know that a ballet company might pick her up in the coming year or two, which would mean her college education would have to stop for that time being. 

This year she completed a Certificate in Retail Marketing with a 4.0 GPA.  We are very proud of her hard work.

She has already begun her summer course, Principles of Management. By the end of the coming school year, she hopes to have completed all the course work to achieve her diploma in Business Administration. Then the year after that, if all goes according to plan and she stays living in the local area, she will complete two Associate's Degrees, one in Business: Retail and Marketing and the second in Business Administration. 

Dear Husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary this month. We had a lovely little get away at a brand new local hotel. It was absolutely charming. We ate in the hotel restaurant, had mocktails at the rooftop hotel bar, sat by the fire and pored over an eclectic stack of books in their library over breakfast. It was a lovely restorative 18 hours away from home. 

The rest of the family is doing well. Elijah is busy with work, expanding his friend group (which is a big deal for him with his social anxiety), keeping up with his normal activities and giving driving lessons another chance. Tim is dong tons of testing to try to get services that would follow him for life (even when we, his parents, are old and grey).  He has been on the "Needs Not Being Met" waiting list for 11 years. no kidding. 

There is so much more going on this month. My birthday is right around the corner, Father's Day, a small bathroom renovation reveal, working with my little guy and the true beginning of summer. I hope to get another post up at the tail end of the month. 

Blessings, Dawn

Three Birthdays and an Internment

April was filled with celebration. It was Tim's 33rd birthday on the very same day we arrived back from Universal Studios.  We went with a store-bought cake that was delicious and had a lovely evening of cake, presents and pizza. Timothy was more than happy to rest and skip any other party activities. 

Elijah turned 21 in April. We had a small donut and gift celebration at home. Elijah doesn't like cake as much as some other desserts. He was really delighted with his gifts and thanked us over and over again. We then took him to a fun cafe that has more than 700 games to play, plus nice light food such as sandwiches and pastries. Some of his friends came and they had a great time playing games. Rebekah, David and I played giant Uno and Worst Case Scenario at a different table. 

My mother also celebrated her 75th birthday this month. She decided to have the same cake as Tim, because she had enjoyed it so much.  

We also took Grandma to the Harlem Globetrotters. She enjoyed it, and because our arena is pretty small, we got great seats. It was a very lively show. 

Easter was a calm and peaceful day. We kept it slow and had a nice ham dinner. 

My Father-in-Law passed away last September, but his internment at his home church did not happen until April. We all traveled home to lay him to rest in his final resting place. It was nice to see all of my husband's side of the family and visit the church where we were married almost 25 years ago. 

Blessings, Dawn

Universal Studios ~ All The Rest

There is so much to do at Universal Studios. We couldn't possibly do it all in three days (two of which weren't full days). However, we enjoyed everything that we did manage to do. I think the family's favorite non-Harry Potter ride was The Mummy. It was a dark coaster ride that had tons of pyrotechnics. At one point,  I opened my eyes to see the tracks in front of us on fire. I closed them again...lol! Tim and Elijah did this ride more than once. 

We also enjoyed the Men in Black ride, Race Through New York City ride and the Despicable Me ride, which were all more tame than The Mummy. 

David in front of the Back to the Future Delorean.

We loved the Mardi Gras parade which ran every night. They threw tons of necklaces into the crowd and the kids got several each. It was one of the best parades we have ever seen. 

We found staying at the parks until closing time was our favorite time. It was less crowded after dinner time and the heat was much more manageable. The lines for the rides were much shorter and we were able to do several. We didn't leave the park each night until 10 pm. One night we got in line for Voodoo donuts in the Universal shopping area right outside the parks. We stood in line for about an hour to get these famous donuts. They were good...but not so good that I would stand in line for them again. 

We really enjoyed our one fancy dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was delicious and everyone was excited to finally eat in this iconic restaurant. 

Timothy especially loved the Jurassic Park section of The Universal Studios Islands Of Adventure. In the Discovery Center there were many great displays, including a really impressive animatronics display of a dinosaur hatching from an egg. Universal Studios really is impressive and cutting edge. 

We liked the Poseidon's Fury show. It was exciting and had some really cool water features. The air conditioning was pretty wonderful, too. Temperatures were in the 90's in early April. Florida is too hot for me. 

Skull Island was an exciting ride. King Kong was so realistic. One of the things that Universal does very well is making the lines for rides really entertaining. The attention to detail is truly impressive. 

Only Timothy, Rebekah and I had the energy to go back into the park on our last day. Elijah and Dad had really enjoyed themselves but preferred to sleep in at the hotel. We spent our time mostly in Seuss Landing, embracing our inner child....lol. Actually, the train ride around Seuss island was pretty fun and who can skip a carousel ride, not I.

We returned to the hotel and packed up. The guys were satisfied and didn't want to go back to Universal. We still had a few hours until it was time to catch our train. We checked our bags in the hotel storage and headed out onto the street across from our hotel. There was entertainment everywhere. We decided to have lunch at Red Lobster and then play mini golf. This was a different mini golf place, because there were live alligators behind fences at every turn. It made for an exciting match. 

We walked back to the hotel, picked up our bags, ordered an Uber and got some cold drinks from Starbucks. It was a wonderful trip. 

We traveled by train overnight in coach both ways, which was an experience of its own. We enjoyed the train, but we didn't get tons of sleep. We had a very noisy sorta weird person going to Florida and yet another such person on the return trip who kept everyone awake. Next time, we will try to get cabins. 

Blessings, Dawn