Dewdrop’s reflections

Aaron and I were asked to teach a group of youth from our church a dance for the CA Inland Empire Dance Festival. Neither of us can dance. Or teach. We don’t know what they were thinking. The one time we tried to take dance lessons together we almost ended up at a marriage counselor. We spent most of the spring and summer teaching and practicing with these kids and then I spent several very, very long days in the middle of July at dress rehearsals (Aaron had to work, lucky dog). It was chaos, pure chaos.

At the end, I look back and think how much I love those kids, how hot the middle of July is, and how I never want to do this again. Oh yeah, did I mention these were 14 and 15 year olds. Click if you want to. This is the preview video for the whole dance festival. There was a video of just our dance (Footloose), but it didn’t do justice to how well our kids really did (although it does look they ended up using our groups for a lot of the close-ups). Bear in mind these are NOT professional dancers, they’re teenagers, who don’t dance very much, and are awkward. And we did our best. So don’t judge us. Please.

No, we didn’t take any pictures of anything. We don’t want evidence.

They do say a thousand words, don’t they?  Let’s hope so, because we all know I’m not going to.

I took my brothers to Disneyland for their first trip ever (they’re in high school or older, can you believe it!).   Not many pics, but we did take this one of our picture on the photo screen  after we rode Space Mountain.  Pretty funny, huh?  I’m not really that scared, my face just does that on roller coasters (and up-and-down — otherwise known as hilly — roads).  It’s been a lifelong problem.  Hey, just showing I can laugh at myself.  You can’t really tell here but my brother had pretty massive hair when he got off the ride.  Aaron took him to the barber shop to get it shaved off a couple weeks later (sorry dude!).

I finished the apron I’d been working on for a couple months.  My machine was in the shop for over 2 months with feed dog problems.  It turned out OK, not wonderful, but OK.  I used the pattern in Amy Butler’s In Stitches.  Not my favorite pattern in the world, but lots of good inspiration in that book.

Aaron playing guitar hero with my cousin.  For the first time ever.  We’re not a big video game family.  I’m not sure who was winning here.  If I remember right she was a little better (but she’s had more practice, right?).

Aaron on a moto/fishing trip.  I’m not a big sleep under the stars kind of gal, so they usually don’t invite me along.

Looks like they saw some trees and a river.  I don’t know, I just put it in there because I miss trees and forests.  The first time Aaron took me on a fishing trip (which actually wasn’t too terribly far from where he took this picture) I asked him if there were trees (a requisite for every stream/river fishing trip I ever went on).  He said yeah, there were trees, it was really beautiful where we were going.  There weren’t any trees.  There was scrub.  And sagebrush.  I told him I grew up in north Idaho, dude.  These are not trees.  And have you seen beautiful?  Let me tell you about beautiful.

Aaron and some snow.  In June.  In California.  They were pretty close to Mt. Whitney, though.

My brother working on the pergola he and I built this summer.  My Dad helped out some with initial planning and material buying and Aaron did a few little things, but for the most part it was him and I.  He did most of the grunt labor, of course.  I wasn’t getting paid.  It’s done now, I just keep forgetting to take pictures.  Hopefully I get the patio laid this Fall.  I still haven’t found any paving stones I like.

(Sorry about the date stamps on all of our pictures.  We keep forgetting to turn the darn thing off.  I never remember until I go to post them on the blog — or print them out!)

(Oh yeah, and it looks like I did say a thousand words.  Who knew!)

Hey blog, did ya miss me? It’s been one heck of a summer. 3 whole months have passed since I blogged last (oh no, someone’s gonna yell at me)! I’m surprised you’re still here! I’ll use the excuse of an unbelievably busy summer, as opposed to the alternate explanation, which is I’m just lazy and a bad blogger. I might be a bad blogger, but I definitely was not lazy this summer. So much went on I have no idea where to start.

When we last saw each other, I had just gotten a haircut (which I started to dislike soon after I posted that pic) and have since gotten another, similar haircut (trying to fix the first one), which I like only slightly better. But, it’s just hair, it grows back, and it’s never really been one of my strongest features anyways.

Anyways, I made a list of everything we did this summer and, man, I don’t think I’m going to get it all blogged about! My three youngest brothers were here while my parents went to the Bahamas, and then two of them stayed for most of the summer to work. Aaron went on a few motorcycle and fishing trips, although not as many as he would have like to. We watched hours and hours of the Olympics and went on a bunch of trips. I didn’t get much crafting done, but I hope to get a lot done this fall. I have a bunch of projects planned out, including two half done sweaters that I’d really like to be able to wear during the very short California “sweater season.”

I’m hoping to get pictures posted and more details up in the next couple weeks. I haven’t even started looking through what we’ve taken this summer. I’m a notoriously bad photo taker, so we’ll have to see if there are even any good ones.