Like Heather's class play, the girls' gymnastics class held their first recital since 2019 this weekend. Corinne was nervous about it, but had a great time. She was positively beaming when she got her medal. Heather is always very stoic during public performances, her play and this recital included. Pictures came out a lot better this time since I have the new camera. The gymnastics recital is always incredibly challenging for getting decent pictures. Full sun outside, but dim inside with lots of backlighting. We went and got frozen yogurt afterwards.
The girls' school had a fundraiser event on April 15 of wearing white t-shirts and running through clouds of chalk being thrown at them. The fundraising aspect was "please give us money while kids run in circles" I guess. Some of the pictures look like a mustard-gas attack, but they had fun. The older grades were running around the track. The younger grades were on the blacktop.
Corinne's birthday was a smashing success this year. School was an early-release day because they're doing parent-teacher conferences this week. When she got home from school her treasure hunt was ready and waiting.
First she needed to find which cone was hiding the next clue.
But when she did reveal it, she didn't see it (in the blue).
But she eventually noticed and moved on to the Chasm of Chaos!
The clue collected from the chasm of chaos directed her to the shooting gallery.
Which was a bit more difficult than intended and we all took turns helping out.
The four clues indicated they would need to be assembled.
Upon assembly their bread-shape was clear and the clues said that to reveal the next secret the bread would need to be toasted (toast is one of Corinne's most favorite foods).
Interesting photography note: The photo was apparently captured between LED refreshes on the toaster oven display which appears blank.
After a thorough toasting a message written in invisible ink (lemon juice) was revealed. The paintbrush I used was a bit too big and the juice spread a bit too much, but they managed to decipher about 90% of it without help.
She then found the elephant that was sitting on a blanket that was hiding her presents in the family room.
A chicken, from Heather. It looks like the chickens they're raising in their co-op game of Stardew Valley.
Corinne's teacher read the book Slugs in Love at school on Valentine's Day and Corinne was absolutely in love with it. So we gave her a copy for her birthday and Grandma made the two slugs as stuffed animals. Corinne just about popped when she unwrapped them.
The slugs smooching.
The just-released, 9th "Princess in Black" book.
London didn't want to miss out on the family excitement, but was less enthused.
After presents I had to go back to my closet and do more work and before dinner the girls had gymnastics class. But once they got home it was Corinne's favorite dinner: spaghetti! And then cake!
On Saturday we went to the zoo with the Spencers because that's what Corinne wanted to do to celebrate. So she got to be in charge of where we went. We had lunch of chicken strips, hamburgers, and corn dogs at the zoo. Afterwards we stopped at the Ghirardelli factory store for ice cream.
Oddly, Heather's and Corinne's classrooms are next to each other. Which turns out to be pretty convenient because parents aren't allowed inside the fence right now as a Covid precaution, so Heather can drop Corinne off on her way to class.
They eat lunch outside at picnic tables under the solar panels. Which seems like a super California thing to do.
They both survived the day. That, uh, has a much grimmer tone to it than I meant considering the number of kids around the country catching Covid in their schools right now :-/.
Corinne celebrated her second pandemic birthday this week.
She had a treasure hunt at lunch time to find her presents.
I had to go on site to work for the afternoon. While I was gone Jess helped Corinne construct that Lego set. When I got home Corinne and I played with it all the way until dinner time.
Corinne's requested dinner, the best dinner she could ever imagine, was spaghetti with alfredo sauce and mashed potatoes. We offered to include toast (one of her most loved foods), but she turned it down because when she has two things on her plate that she really loves (toast and spaghetti) she'll only eat one of them and then be full without getting to enjoy the other. We suggested having less of each to be able to enjoy both, but she turned that down too; too risky.
After dinner was cake. Corinne was very excited about the nightlight ladybug thing she received, so it needed to pose with her.
Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a vanilla (but pink colored) mousse filling. Decorated with Hershey kisses around the edge, one of her favorite candies.
On Friday we took the afternoon off for a trip to the zoo. We were all pretty wiped out though. Not sure if it was from the time change or a year of incredibly sedentary lifestyle or both, but we only covered about 1/3 of the zoo before coming home. Corinne's favorite part was riding the gondola to the top where the bears, bison, wolves, and eagles are. Those animals weren't her favorite, the gondola ride itself was her favorite.
