Memorial Day at the Bay

 We have lots of military people in our family past and present. You can find the photos of those on my past Veteran's Day posts. In our immediate family we have Adam in marine reserves, and he'll be going to Oklahoma three weeks this summer for training. And Jeff is active duty army. He is stationed at Fort Bliss but just went to Fort Knox for three months. He and Tyler are only 90 minutes apart now.

Yesterday we took the jet ski out for the first time this season. Jasmine is usually my spotter, but she has  been feeling sick to her stomach for a couple of days. In fact she's home from school as I write this. She went along to the bay and went on the board with Adam but didn't go on the jet ski or out in the kayaks at all.

Adam brought a friend with him and so did Jessica. Also our neighbors came, and that was fun. Hunter came to pick Jessica up but sat in the car until she was ready to go and wouldn't get out and talk to us. I don't envy her if they ever get into it because he can hold a grudge like no one else. We tried to not let that put a damper on things.

Jessica and Delisa

Kaleb

Adam

My best friend!!

This is the first of a series of four photos. I didn't see this, but someone shot it with my camera. Looks like Kaleb got on Adam's nerves! You can see Josiah, who is in third like the twins. And that's Adam's friend Ishmael behind Adam.

I guess it's best to leave big brother alone!

Out on the jet ski

Adam and Jasmine are close. You can tell by her face that she doesn't feel too well.

First of three photos--tipping over in slow motion

Adam loves driving the jet ski

Joy drove the jet ski for the first time with her mom on behind her. She's 15, and the legal age here is 14, but you have to take an online boat safety course to drive it alone. Jasmine will be able to do that next year.

Mid afternoon we started getting lightning within 5 miles so we had to pull the boats out. We packed up and left. Jessica had already left along with Delisa, and Adam and his friend had just left for work.

We went back to the house and watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and had turkish delight when Edmund got some from the White Witch. It's something we had  when we lived in England, but the kind we had yesterday was much better. Jasmine didn't eat hers. I don't think she ate at all yesterday really.

Things are winding down here. Dance is over until September, and today is Jasmine's last drum lesson. We've opted not to do summer lessons. They were too hard to schedule last summer, and she'll have summer band for three weeks. I hope she's up to going today. Normally if they are sick they do nothing all day, but you can't reschedule the lessons, and that means I'd lose $25. 

The twins and Jasmine are doing Hip Hop this summer. It's a six week class. I may try the twins in gymnastics too while we don't have the pressure of homework to deal with. The twins have camp while Jasmine and I go to the book convention in June. And I'll be working with the three youngest on their swimming again this summer.

Adam will be gone three weeks, Tyler will be home for three weeks.

What do you have planned for summer?

Dance

Dance dominated this week. Last Sunday we had a parent's meeting at 2:00 followed by a dress rehearsal. It took over four hours to get it all done. Then on Wednesday there was another brief meeting for those who didn't listen on Sunday (don't you love that?) and another dress rehearsal at 4:00. We were there until 8:00.

Last night the recital started at 6:30. There was one ten minute intermission. We finished at 9:40. That was a long recital!! But it's all age groups, all the classes, plus the four companies--petite, mini, junior and senior.

Hip Hop

Hip Hop to Ice Cream Paint Job

Jazz to Black and Gold

Finale

Finale

Eight Year Trophy--She has done jazz all eight  years I think, tap for one or two years, hip hop for two years and ballet for one or two years when she was little. She is not into ballet at all.

The eight year group

Adam came to both dress rehearsals and brought her flowers.

Before the recital

Outside the civic center before the recital

The other girl's mom took these on her phone.

 After the recital we went to Applebees. It was after 10 p.m. Jessica was our server. We went all out because it was for both the concert, which I missed, and the recital.

Here are some pictures from while I was in NYC.

Jasmine's spring concert

The twins' actual birthday.

Dressed for Jasmine's concert which was on their birthday. They got pizza afterwards.

They ran the Armed Forces Day run the 17th. We were trying to get a flight home.

The next day was Haitian Flag day, and we were home for that.

They made cheesecake with blueberries on top.

Monday night was the band banquet for advanced band.

So that's how our week went.

New York 5

I don't think I said last post, but Aladdin was amazing. The Genie stole the show. So talented and funny. The music was great and so were the costumes. It is a show not to be missed. Hard to describe the combination of talent, colorful costumes, sets and the music. If you get a chance, go see it. I hope the take it on the road in a few years.

After the show we bought souvenirs on the street and went to Applebees. Jessica wanted to be able to say she went to an Applebees in NY. (She works in one here). Unfortunately, it was much more expensive, and the service wasn't all that great.

Watching Jessica's picture of NYC being made after Applebees.

All done with spray paint, can lid and putty knife.

Souvenirs for the youngest three.

In the Subway.

It was interesting to talk to the musicians. Yeah, we did talk to them. They are people too. Plus Jessica plays sax and I did in another life. We also always dropped money in the cases if we took their picture.

Wednesday morning we planned to go to the Statue of Liberty again. Remember we'd changed plans Tuesday and ended up not going. We stopped at McDonalds for fries. They have Smart Phone chargers built into the table. I don't normally carry a phone. I only have a tracfone I buy minutes for.

This time we made it!

Me reading a book to Jessica. We read chapters at a few different places--here, Central Park, on the subway etc.

Later in the day we went to Rockefeller plaza. We went to Top of the Rock, but there was zero visibility. We exchanged our tickets for ones for tomorrow night instead.

We went to the M & M store and the Hershey store. We went to Nintendo World, but unlike the other stores in the area, it was already closed.

On Thursday we went to Madam Tussauds. We've been to the one in London, Rick and I twice, Tyler and Jessica once. 

Generic wax figure.

We wanted to go to John's Pizza but needed directions.

It's in what used to be a church.

After that we decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The subway was having a lot of problems, and we ended up walking. We got there about 3:30 and finally got our headsets for the guided tour at 4:00. What we hadn't realized was that the museum closed at 5:30. We only got to do the first part of the tour! We needed at least five hours there. If we'd known it closed that early, we would have planned to do it all day Friday because we'd left Friday open.  That was really disappointing.

We went back to Top of the Rock and it was zero visibility again. They offered us tickets for Friday, but then admitted that Friday was going to be zero visibility again. We were flying out Saturday, so we asked them for our City Pass ticket back because there was another half to it for another museum. They said they couldn't do that, and they couldn't refund our money. So we were just out the $25 each. We argued for quite a while. Then we finally changed the tickets for Saturday and went down to the ticket line and gave them to a guy who hadn't yet bought tickets. I hope he was able to use them so they at least weren't wasted.

On Friday we went to see Trinity Church from the movie National Treasure.

Trinity Church

We went to a candy store that had a lot of candy we'd bought in England years back and a lot of candy that I haven't seen since I was a kid, we had a snack at Chinatown, and then went back to the hotel to organize for our flight home the next day. Then we went to Grand Central Station.

Grand Central Station

We ate at the hot dog place.

Then we jumped on the subway and went to buy last minute souvenirs.

We got up early Saturday and caught the subway to New York Penn. We took a train to Newark Penn. We caught the bus to Newark airport. All to find out that we'd been bumped from the flight because of a connection problem. The computer dumped us off the flight instead of changing our connecting flight to a later one. So after over an hour of trying to work things out, we were sent by taxi to Laguardia. Instead of arriving home at noon, we got in at 8:00 p.m. But we had good flights and it all worked out okay.

The runway was a bridge.


So that was our trip. We've known for four years this trip was coming and now it's over. That's a strange feeling.
We are back into routine. Jasmine has dance recital tomorrow, and Kayla has a big field trip to some caverns. Kaleb still has field day ahead. We are done June 7. Lots to do between now and then, but it's winding down. What's left for you this school year?