Okay, so I haven't posted a weekly report since October. I should probably just admit I'm never going to consistently meet that goal. So here's what happened: October was very, very busy. As I wrote in my last post, RobotBoy spent a lot of hours rehearsing and performing in Don Quixote. I added it up recently and realized that he spent 23 hours at the dance school and theatre in one week. Add in the fact that we spend at least 30-45 minutes on the road each way for each rehearsal and performance and that I volunteered to supervise the kids backstage for all but one performance, and that ballet just pretty much ate our lives for a while there.
Right after that, we took off to meet up with Moonheart for her fall break. We wisked her off on a surprise trip to NYC, including an early birthday gift of tickets to see Gypsy. Let's just say that Patti LuPone is her new hero. We did some other tourist-y things, including taking RobotBoy back to Rockefeller Center for another skating session and taking a great backstage tour of Lincoln Center. And we worked in a little education for RobotBoy by visiting the Egyptian wing at the Metropolitan Museum.
We deposited Moonheart back at school and then came home to prepare for our church's Halloween party.
By the time I woke up, it was November, which brought more intensive Nutcracker rehearsals and yet more trips to Virginia. Moonheart had to be picked up and brought home for Thanksgiving and then returned after the weekend was over. Then, a week and a half later, she had to be brought home for the semester break. In the midst of it all, RobotBoy was attending lots of rehearsals for The Nutcracker and for his choir's big holiday concert, sometimes both on the same day.
I blinked again, and it was December. No sooner had we arrived home with Moonheart than she had to rehearse with her local choir. That very weekend, she rejoined the choir for their advent concert. We were also able to get our hands on copies of the new CD the choir (including our favorite alumna) recorded last summer.
The plan had been to have RobotBoy on break by the time we brought Moonheart home. Because we were so behind, though, that didn't happen. He had to keep working for about 10 days and still didn't accomplish all I had hoped. So, here we are.
All was not lost, though. We're still behind in a few subjects, but we did manage to accomplish a lot. RobotBoy danced eight performances of The Nutcracker (including two abbreviated school matinees as Fritz) and sang with his choir. He also finished his FLVS Art class and completed the first semester of FLVS Geography. He worked through most of his assigned reading for recent months in the car and continues to make good progress in Algebra. On the Virginia road trips bookending Thanksgiving, we did field trips to the "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs" exhibit in Atlanta and the "Day in Pompeii" exhibit in Charlotte, NC. At the Discovery Place in Charlotte, he also had a great time exploring the Machine Shop, which tied in nicely with the reading he's been doing about ancient science.
We're now on break until about January 12. At some point before we pick back up, I'll have to sit down and figure out how to redistribute the remaining work over the second semester. I'm not terribly worried about it, though, because finishing the art class means we'll have a little more wiggle room in our daily schedule to make up the work.
Given RobotBoy's very busy schedule this holiday season, we opted not to have him participate in the children's Christmas eve concert at church. Moonheart was asked to participate, though, and reprised her popular solo of "I'll Be Home for Christmas." She sang again for the service later that evening, doing a lovely job on a song written by our church's music director. I thought you might enjoy seeing/hearing it:
Since we are on break, I'm not going to even pretend I'll be posting again until we get back to work in January. I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season!
