Kansas City Feis/Irish Fest

Aside from St. Patrick's week, this time of the year is the busiest and most exciting time of year for the O'Riada Manning Academy of Irish Dance! Yesterday, Chris and some of the dancers from his school were on Fox 4 News with Kathy Quinn in the lead up to their big weekend. You may recall Kathy from the segment Chris did with Josie at Brady's Pub back in March. Here are some pictures from the morning...

And enjoy these two high tech segments as recorded on my phone from our TV...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1etLgSelew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJ3CtkED0Y

Reflection

Chris has been enjoying school so far this year and he especially likes his three core subjects (math, language arts, and social studies) that they switch teachers for. He did a reflection last week on a quote that went along with a story they read in language arts and I thought it was worth sharing...

First OC Feis

Brian and Chris went back out to St. Louis this weekend for Christopher's first competition in Open Championships. Usually, feis organizers will combine the boys and girls to compete against each other because boy numbers are often low. We thought that might happen this time but it didn't so Chris was the only dancer in his competition. When this happens, he looks at the scores and judge comments rather than overall placement. His scores were good and they gave him a ton of comments so he knows what he can work on. He also came home with this Stanley Cup-like trophy that doubles as an upper body workout weight!

The next day, he danced against another boy who placed 7th at Nationals this year and competed in Worlds in April. Chris finished second to him but his scores were really close which is very encouraging for him!

Most likely, Chris will dance against this kid (Manuel is his name--they are getting to know each other and Chris is happy to have another boy to chat with!) next weekend when we have our feis as well as another boy from the Southern region. Our feis and Kansas City Irish Fest are coming up!

The Garden

Every summer with our garden is an adventure. I haven't posted as many pictures this year of our harvests but the picture above is representative of our tomato harvest almost every other day! After a few mishaps (our gourds and pumpkins didn't survive the transplants, our peppers did nothing, our carrots were too small every time I picked them, and our neighbor overzealously stained his fence and I lost half of my produce as a result), we still have had a great year with tomatoes, kale, chard and onions. One of my basil plants survived the spray-fest and we add that to the above tomatoes for a delicious salad. While we were out of town, many of the tomatoes did go to the birds (and squirrels and bunnies) but the garden still flourishes. My favorite part of summer!

A Vistor and First Day Updates

This morning, when I went out to water one of my plants, we found a praying mantis hanging out on the flowers! Always cool to see. You have to look closely to see him...

And the boys both had great first days yesterday! Jonathan was happy to be back with his friends and this morning, he wanted me to drop him off so he could walk in all by himself. Chris had a great day too and said the fifth graders get a whole lot more independence this year. In addition to switching teachers for the major subjects, they also get to walk across campus to their specials on their own with no teachers. There's a catch though; the kids can be marked late if they don't get where they are going on time. Love it! Here is a nice picture from Pembroke's Facebook page of J and I from the first day...

First Day of School 2019

It has arrived--the first day of school! Christopher is starting fifth grade with Mrs. Hughes and Jonathan is starting preK with Mrs. O'Donnell (and Mrs. Marklewitz but she is still on her maternity leave). We did our yearly front step pictures...

And now Mommy is going to savor the silence for a few hours. So proud of these boys and how independent they are getting and even with the silence, I will miss them during the day!

Tropenmuseum and Chocolatl!

First of all, we had a lovely dinner last night at the Food Hallen, a food hall with very eclectic and interesting food and drink as well as music. It is located in the old tram depot so there are street car tracks under your feet as you order your beer (or ice cream taco)! More importantly, we met my friend Erin and her family. Erin and I went to college together and later worked together as teachers. It was great to see her and catch up, enjoy some good food, and talk Irish dance with her. Unfortunately I have no pictures but a good time was had by all!

Today is our last day in Amsterdam and we spent the morning at the Tropenmuseum. First we took the tram to get there and J still loves any kind of streetcar/tram he can go on, while Chris is a little more pensive about it...

We had no streetcar problems today, now that we now how it operates and we made it to the Tropenmuseum which is essentially a museum about human cultures. It was a less touristy museum and many of the visitors were Dutch. It was interesting to go through the exhibits and see a Dutch perspective on cultures from, for example, Papau New Guinea or Java, especially with the Netherlands' history of colonialism. Anyway, aside from the Indonesian and southeast Asian cultures they featured, there was a very cool exhibit called "Cool Japan" which looked at the influence of Japanese culture on the rest of the world. There was a lot about anime, among other things. At the end there was also a group of video games, new and old for the kids to enjoy...

After our visit, we strolled back to the tram through this lovely park...

... and went back for lunch and a quick rest before making a very important walking trip up to Jordaan, a fun section of the city with little shops and cafes. We were on a mission to find chocolate and Chocolatl! It was a cute little chocolate shop where the owner knew more about chocolate than most people know about their children! We all tasted some lovely chocolate and Daddy and I had espresso...

It's been a lovely trip and we will be heading back to the states tomorrow. One thing that has been a constant on this trip is walking, walking, and more walking. I recently remembered that we can check our "steps" on my phone so I went back over the last week and a half and the results are fascinating--especially when you consider that our 4 and a half year old did these steps with us...

Monday, 8/5 (arrival in Paris): 12,623 steps/4.1 miles
Tuesday, 8/6 (climbing the Arc de Triumph): 16,042 steps/5 miles/35 floors (!)
Wednesday 8/7 (Versailles): 15,313 steps/5.2 miles
Thursday 8/8 (Louvre/Montmartre): 12,191 steps/3.5 miles/33 floors
Friday 8/9 (I don't even remember!): 14,763 steps/4.4 miles/14 floors
Saturday 8/10 (Wussy! Travel to Amsterdam): 7,392 steps/2.1 miles
Sunday 8/11: 6,589 steps/2 miles
Monday 8/12 (Back in business!): 13,833 steps/4.1 miles
Tuesday 8/13 (Rijksmuseum): 11,277 steps/2.7 miles

So on this trip (not counting the journey here or the journey back, we walked:

110, 023 steps and 33.1 miles

Rijksmuseum

We spent this morning at the Rijksmuseum which has beautiful works of many kinds! By the time this trip is done, our boys will have seen an incredible amount of art that they will hopefully remember. In addition to the paintings, there were incredible collection pieces of everything from model ships to furniture to musical instruments. Here are some of the highlights...

We were able to kind of see Rembrandt's The Night Watch but they were analyzing it for restoration. Nevertheless it was cool to see how they do that, even if we couldn't see the whole painting. We also got to see several Vermeer pieces...

Jonathan used the multimedia guide to learn about some of the pieces in the museum...

He really enjoyed searching for the numbers so he could listen to the narration about the paintings! Like the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum building was just as beautiful as the artwork it housed. Here are some examples of the windows...

And here are a few more of my favorite pieces...

After the museum, we got falafel for lunch and wandered back to the hotel. Along the way, we found bubbles! It has been so fun to hear so many different languages during our travels and no matter what language a child speaks, they all love bubbles!

We are now resting back at our hotel before we head out again later to meet my friend Erin and her family for a visit!