Tough Couple of Weeks-- 5/8/10

What a tough couple of weeks!!! The week of April 26 was a long week of rehearsals amid other activities (especially track and softball) so we were ready to close out another dance year by the time that the week-end arrived. We have been holding the dance recitals at Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville for the past few years, and, even though it's a very nice facility, it's also a 30 minute drive each way from our house! Thus, we always just try to keep the trains running on time, and not much else, during tech week.

Anyway, we began last week-end with the annual Factory Street Dance Studio spring concert on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Christie's mom and grandma came over from Indiana, after sadly attending the funeral for Christie's sister's husband's dad. Our extended family has been hit so hard this year. We know that we are so blessed that our girls are well, but we've had much more experience with ordering funeral flowers during 2010 than we've had in all of our years of marriage combined.

Britti choreographed the Children's Tap 2 and Intermediate Tap pieces; Chelsea danced in the Advanced Tap and Advanced Jazz pieces, and Emmy danced in the Children's Tap 2 and Tech 2 Modern pieces. Not wanting to be left out of the act at all, Ellie-Kate went with us to rehearsals, and she was particularly eager for dress rehearsal. The stage manager announced that the show would begin in seven minutes, and I leaned over and said, "The baby tappers will be out here in a few minutes." Ellie-Kate's eyes sparked, and she tapped her chest, pointed at the state, and said "BABY? Baby tapper? Ellie-Kate baby tapper." She really thought that she was a baby and could be tapping right up on stage!! It took some explaining to get her to understand that she still has a few years before she can grace the stage at Stuart's Opera House!

Christie's mom and grandma departed early on Sunday morning, and Christie left right away to take Britti to the airport so that she could go to Virginia and visit Grandma P. before leaving for Disney. We went to Chelsea's band concert and spaghetti dinner fundraiser in the afternoon, and we returned home to settle in for the night and watch Amazing Race. Unfortunately, we discovered that our basement was flooding. We have poured walls, and we couldn't figure out how water was getting into the house. Finally, Roger found that a tree root was clogging one of our rain gutters, and he raced out to trim it in the drenching rain. Although the water drained quickly then, our carpet was ruined, and we made a mad rush to get all of Britti's belongings off of the floor. Fortunately, nothing was destroyed (except for our flooring) so we're blessed that we didn't suffer through the fate of many in Kentucky and Tennessee.

On Monday, we realized that our 14 year old sheltie, Sunni, wasn't doing well, and Roger took her to the vet. The doctor was still optimistic, and he noted that she would likely bounce back in around 24 hours. Sadly, she didn't. After a long 36 hours, she passed away around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. We're all just devastated, especially Emmy and Christie. We're going to miss her terribly... She was a champion show dog, winning many ribbons for Britti at the Ohio State Fair and the Athens County Fair. She loved to play catch, and she believed that it was her personal responsibility to keep her family safely in the house and everyone else out of our house. It's going to be much quieter around our home...

However, life does go on... Emmy has had two softball games thus far this week, with two more in store for us today. Chelsea broke her personal records on Tuesday at the track meet in Marietta, with a score of 15 seconds in the 100 yard dash and a jump of 12 feet and eight inches. She didn't place, but she was certainly excited to break both of her personal records in those events. Grandma A arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and Britti returned home on Thursday evening.

Grandma A has been able to watch lots of softball, and Emmy was very grateful that she could go with her to Grandparent's Day at Morrison Elementary and the Girl Scout Mother-Daughter Tea yesterday. Emmy played her cello and recorder in the Morrison Recorder Choir for Grandparent's Day (part of a very select group of fourth graders to perform), and she and her friend Kali provided the entertainment for the Mother-Daughter Tea. Emmy played her cello, and Kali played piano.

Although the girls always provide the very bright silver lining in our lives, the past few weeks have been so hectic and stressful, and we're craving more sleep and less stress. Hopefully, this next week will be less eventful :)

Thanks for checking in with us!! Enjoy the new pictures that we posted below :)