Headlights in the Fog

Drama Camp

Jack and Kitty attended drama camp in August at the Arden Theater's Drama School. They both love, love, loved it. All week long they took classes in playwriting, movement, musical theater and more. Friday there was a special performance in the theater for all of the parents. My mom and dad joined us. There were about 6 plays... each about 5-10 minutes long. Inbetween the plays were musical numbers and demonstrations of things the kids had done like movement class. The plays were written by the campers. Each camper got to come up with their own character which made for some ecclectic, surreal plots. Jack was a Roman Centurion. He wore all red and a helmet I made him out of duct tape and fabric. I'm quite proud of this helmet.

Kitty was a snow leapord. I took a white t-shirt and used a fabric marker to draw on stripes. I also made her ears... but I don't have a picture of her wearing them. Below is the best shot I have:

I really am so impressed with this drama camp. I would reccommend it highly. The one major downside is that it is in downtown Philadelphia. It wasn't too bad a drive at 8am as one might think... but still, it's a stressful, all-systems-go kind of experience. One day Jack stayed home from camp after throwing up. Thom drove Kitty in during a torential downpour which had lots of traffic lights out. When they got to the round about in front of the Art Museum, Kitty threw up into Thom's reuseable grocery bag (oddly enough, it hasn't been reused since then.) He brought her home and missed a meeting he was supposed to lead at a once a year convention. Luckily, his boss has many kids and totally understands the language of 'My daughter threw up in my car.'

My parents came with us. I nearly killed us all when I inadvertently drove through a red light. I was travelling too close to a Deer Park water truck and didn't see the traffic light until I was already in the intersection. Everyone was very nice about it and even allowed me to drive home. Part of that could be the fact that I was the only one who knew how to get home... but I'm sure that wasn't it.

School starts next Tuesday. Yesterday the kids both go back to school haircuts. They both look very studious!

Kitty turns 6!

Kitty turned 6 on 8/14! Above is Kitty after being face painted at her camp's carnival. I was quite impressed... being a card carrying face painter myself!

Jack and Kitty on Kitty's birthday. The brother/sister birthday photo has become a tradition. 

I made Kitty (at her request) a horse birthday cake. It is (again) a design by our favorite cake decorator, Liv Hansen. Liv always makes making cakes look so easy... in reality it is quite an undertaking. The cake is practically 100% (I'm exagerating a little bit) icing. The icing served as a kind of plaster and is holding everything together as the cake was falling apart as I was icing it. It was eaten and enjoyed with no one being the wiser.

One of the games we played at Kitty's party was 'Guess the Ice Cream Flavor.' Everyone was blindfolded and fed 4 different flavors of ice cream. They then had to identify what was what. The most frequently missed flavor was chocolate. I found that surprising... I thought chocolate would be the easiest to identify!

New Beginnings

I finished the commissioned quilt I have been working on for the past year. It took so much longer than I thought it would. I delivered it on Monday and Susanna (the client) was so happy with it. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Now I am beginning to do new projects in the studio... like my new bag!

I love it. It is smaller than my old bag and firmer... I used more stabilizer... so it doesn't flop around.

Last weekend we did a thourough cleaning of the living room which involved removing all of the sofa cushions. Jack stacked them in the kitchen.

Thom has been dilentgy working on the wall. He made great progress this past weekend. Below is him at work:

When I download photos from the camera, I often find pictures taken by a girl I know. I'm not quite sure how she managed to take the picture and pour water... but I found it most impressive.