Summer Dance Recital

Hello, dearest party people. Brooke finished out her summer dance class this past week, and starting this year they have a recital at the end! Brooke had been doing hip hop flip flop, and I think most people who read this have seen her sick hip hop moves over the summer! Here's her ending pose to the dance. To get the pose right, her teacher asked her for a food she didn't like, and she said mushrooms. When she went to do her pose she was supposed to think of us trying to give her mushrooms for dinner and think "you're giving me mushrooms!" As you can see, not a big mushroom fan. The recital was great, and I'll put a link to the video of it down with some other pictures from the dance. Brooke did superb, and we had snow cones after dinner to celebrate!

Rewinding back to last Sunday, we had family in town! We headed over to the creek to play in the water. I think we've been down there before, but never really played in the water. We had a lot of fun, and I've asked the girls if they want to go back, but so far no one will go with me :(.

While we were there, Winry was in flip flops so she walked on out into the stream... and then started walking down stream. She was just going to keep going past where our "beach" was, but I called her back. She said it wasn't too deep, and she wanted to keep going....

After some fun in the water, we crossed the bridge and headed to the rock circle. The kids had fun running around. Brooke tripped and scraped up her knee, so we cleaned it off, and then played in the grass at the park for a little. We all practiced our cart wheels!

Winry found a really special rock! I don't think it made it home, which is probably for the best. We ended up staying at the park until my family call was starting, so I put Winry up on my shoulders and joined the call. Winry and I got to talk to everyone while walking back to the car.

When we got home there was a bunny in the front yard, which was very exciting. Brooke grabbed some really good pictures of the tip of her finger with the bunny, and here's everyone getting as close as possible before the bunny ran away.

Over the weekend I cut and stained shelves along with some other projects around the house. I also worked on a new mantle for the fireplace, and towel racks. The shelves look really nice, and it's amazing how much more "finished" the bathroom in the basement feels now. I didn't think they'd make such big difference.

Jelly continues to help me work. This past week she was super intently staring out the window like there was something moving around. The only thing I ever found was a grass hopper, but it was on the opposite side of where she was looking... Anyway, good work distraction.

Sticking with Jelly news, this past week I turned the water on for her to get a drink, and she put her head under so it was hitting her right on the top of the head! She typically tries to avoid getting wet, but I guess she was just too thirsty this time.

Brooke and I have continued to go on walks around the neighborhood. She is starting to get pretty good at riding her bike. She's good at steering and staying on the sidewalk, and can keep a pretty consistent pace all around. She isn't struggling pedaling up the hill, and she's learned to gently push the breaks to just slow a little, instead of completely stopping every time.

On Friday morning we had muffins for breakfast, and after Monica mixed up the batter, Brooke helped fill the muffin tin! She loves doing this, and she does a really good job too!

On Saturday I got out Monica's old tablet from college to see if I could set it up as a digital picture frame. I finally found a good app that can pull a photo album from Google photos to run a slideshow. The girls like to watch the pictures, and it's been pretty cool so far. The plan going forward is to make a frame for the tablet so it looks nicer, and then we can let it run!

Saturday was Brooke's dance recital! She did a super great job. You can watch the whole thing here!

Halfway through, the back and front switched, so Brooke was up close when she did the coffee grinder! That's been a favorite move to show over the summer!

After the dance, Winry greeted Brooke with a big hug! Brooke got a flower from her teacher for being so great!

This picture got put in a little out of order, but this was Winry and me waiting for the show to start. There's a week off dance before the fall class starts, and Winry will start then too! I'm so excited for Winry to get to start dance class! She loves to dance with Brooke, and tries to learn all her moves! Get ready for double recitals!

Today's been going well for us. Today was the first day we could have gone back to church. We instead watched a zoom broadcast. They muted the video during the sacrament, and we did our own then. It was pretty nice to get to do a slightly more normal church. Right now the setup is that half of the ward will meet the second Sunday, and the other half the fourth. So we could technically go once a month, but we'll be able to watch it twice a month.

That's all I've got for this week. Have a wonderful week!