ADF 2016

I have been wanting to take James out on a date, just me and him.  I picked up a bulletin on the American Dance Festival, which comes to Durham every summer, and noticed that they had a few children's matinees that allowed kids as young as 3 years old to attend and tickets were at a discounted price! (Double win.)  So I snagged us two tickets to see Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.  It was not a children's show - the company performed two of their actual pieces that they perform all over the world (N.N.N.N. and One Flat Thing, both choreographed by guest artist William Forsythe).  No children's music or anything like that.  In fact, one piece had no music and only vocalizations from the dancers.  The turned the house lights off just like for normal performances, but then during intermission left the curtain open so that the children could see the tech hands moving things on stage and one of the dancers was narrating what was happening and why and answering questions from the audience.  It was awesome, and James did great!  He asked a LOT of questions, but in whisper voices and it was precious.

Pre-show soft pretzal snack

Post-show popcorn snack (and his new "cheese" face).

4th of July

It's still July, right?  Not too late...  Stuart had the weekend available, so we made a quick trip up to WV to visit with my grandparents.  Most of my family was able to go up too, so that was so fun!  Ripley, WV has a huge 4th of July celebration each year, and I have so many memories of going to the carnival and the parade and fireworks as a child.  I was excited to take my kids!  We also went to church, spent time with the Parsons, grilled out and did our own fireworks at the Acree farm.  We ended up leaving town before the parade due to thunderstorms, but we did stop by the carnival for a few rides.  So much nostalgia being there over the 4th of July!  I hope we can do it again.

Recent AR Visits: Part 2

Throwback to April... a few days after arriving home from Mimi's funeral, we learned that Grandad was not doing very well, and then later got a call from Nana that he had passed away peacefully at home overnight.  We rounded the troops and headed back to our people in the hills of northern Arkansas for the life celebration of another dear one.  While we were there, we decided to extend our trip so we could go to Heather's wedding (one of Stuart's cousins).  It was really sweet to have a happy event at the end of that hard month with all of Stuart's family!