End of Summer...finally!!

My last activity of the summer has finally ended. What a busy, yet fun summer. It seemed like I was always on the go, but on the other hand, I stopped to enjoy quite a lot too. Part of that was because Sophie is so much easier to deal with than she was last year. She's just happy to sit and play with legos or little people for most of the day and really doesn't need a whole lot. Well, I do feed her and put her on the potty once in a while...when I remember.

I just finished up a wildly successful run of "Jessie Jane's Jamboree" at the theater. Bleeet (who isn't speaking to me for some reason...) wrote it and Rachel Haider directed it. It was a fabulous show. I had so much more fun than I did in Cabaret. I wonder if part of that was just the atmosphere and the subject matter. Doing a show that isn't about Nazis and abortion seems like so much more fun. The dialogue was funny, the songs were well chosen and the dancing was incredible and challenging enough to be a blast every night. Plus the cast was fun to be with. There were a lot of Cabaret people, but also lots of people that I haven't been in a show with in a while and a few new people. Hopefully I recruited another RRR kid during the run.

Pat was just down for DJJD. It was good to see him, even though we saw him just last weekend! We had a pretty mellow, cheese curd eating weekend. Sophie danced a lot in Bridge Square and we happily stuffed the gooey fried concoctions in her mouth as she spiraled and balanced for the onlookers. You can read Michael's blog more to see the full story.

As for other summer related events, here's my bulleted list:

1. YPT - fun and pretty uneventful. I have decided that only teaching in the morning preserves my sanity and makes this a more enjoyable experience. It was still intense and stressful, but I had a good time for the most part.


2. West Side Story - I will never again have the gift of doing a show this good again. At least not in the non-professional world. It is a sad thing when an artist realizes that she has just done her best work, but there it is. The kids were incredibly hard working and really pulled it all together in the end. I was blown away every night and believe me I saw every show! The acting, singing and dancing only got better every night. Officer Krupke reached a new level of perfection every time those boys did it. Pride is not a strong enough word for what I felt for all of them.


3. Vacation - this was a major accomplishement. Sophie did really well, although I don't think Mimi and Papa (Micahel's parents) were quite prepared to travel with a toddler. Uncle Matt rocked as a playmate and sanity keeper though and we made it through just fine. Sophie still talks about "catching the water" at the beach. These are incredible words because there were hers and hers alone, not something that we said to her. She is truly starting to express her own worldview through little phrases and expressions.


4. NYC MTW - or Northfield Youth Choir Musical Theater Workshop - 60 kids, sweltering gym, lots of work, lots of fun. I had a great time doing this. The kids might have felt differently, but I think they enjoyed it too. Every day ended in a pool party and we covered a lot of material. Some of the boys might have even enjoyed themselves!


5. Hail Storm - Yup, a big fucking hail storm hit Northfield. You can see Michael's blog for the details. We had quite a bit of damage to our house, but not too much. My car, the ever faithful Bubo, got totalled. But we have replaced Bubo with T3 or Tor the Third, a fine little Ford Escape. It's a good asset to our home considering we always had to call someone else to haul things. Now we can go and get Sophie's big girl bed whenever we are ready.


6. Potty Training - this is mostly done. She's not saying when she has to go yet, but she goes when we put her on and stays dry all day. Woohoo! She even did great on vacation. Yay, no diapers...ok, no diapers except at night. Can't have it all.


7. Jessie Jane's Jamboree - see above. Again, I'm sad to see this end. Although it will be nice to have my evenings back...for a while at least.


8. Getting Teresa's stuff out of our garage - this may not seem like much of an event, but it sure was. After three years, we were able to help her move all of her belongings out of our garage and into her home. Woohoo!

I'm sure I missed something, but that's pretty much the lowdown. Now it's time to get started on Beauty and the Beast choreography. I'm really looking forward to that too, it's no WSS, but it will be a good time.

It's been a while since I posted a Sophie pic. So, here it is: (Pretend there is a cute picture here. Blogger is having trouble, so I guess I will try and post it later. THE END!)