Sunrise...

Sometimes the sunrise is just too beautiful not to post. This morning took my breath away!

Room Update...

Zoe has been anxious to re-paint her room for the last couple of months. Since we've been busy with other house projects, hers went on the wait list. She woke up late in the morning after a very long weekend of rehearsal, and asked if we could do it today. We decided to start at 11:00, went to the store to pick out paint, picked up Lacey on the way home, and we went to work!
These girls worked hard. They did all the rolling, and I did all the brush work at the ceiling and baseboards. 

 She wanted to get rid of the bright stripes, and have one neutral solid. After a long afternoon, the painting was done. We took a break for dinner, and the girls finished up some chemistry homework together, and we started putting the room back together.

 She had found a beautiful tapestry online, so we got that up, hung some lights around the border, and she put up a bunch of pictures throughout. It turned out great, and exactly how she wanted it.

It was a long day of work, but by 10pm, we were done!

As she reminded me, this will probably be the last time we re-do her room before she leaves for college...sniff, sniff. I don't even want to think about it! We worked hard, but we actually had a lot of fun and shared a ton of laughs all day! Another project crossed off the list!

Acceptances!

It's been a busy, and a bit of a stressful month. Audition season is always a roller coaster...full of highs, lows, and in-betweens. There were endless hours of audition classes, driving to and from, filming classes and variations, editing, etc. On top of the emotional pressure, it can be a lot! Zoe felt great in some, so-so in others, and just waited to see what happened.
One of her auditions had 80 dancers in one room, with only 2 "judges". That is a lot, and she knew it would be tough to be seen. After getting a letter declining admission, she decided to keep pursuing it, and do a video audition to follow up. It worked, and she immediately got accepted! I am so proud of her persistence and perseverance to keep on going.
 Besides that one hiccup, it has been a very successful season!

  

 As usual, now is the really hard part. Where, when, how much?? It's a lot harder this year since I am working much more in the summer, and I don't know what Cooper's sports schedule will be, but we will see what we can do, or if there are any that will work for her. I  just continue to be amazed by her hard work and determination in all of this. It is not easy to do what she does, every single day, and I am so proud! Congratulations Zoe!

Tutus and trees...

Zoe and Savannah decided to take some ballet photos today. We're done with needing any for auditions, so this was just for some fun...(because you can never have too many dance pictures!)

 Zoe has loved climbing trees since she was a tiny little girl. So why not go up in pointe shoes??!!

 These girls had so much fun together...lots of laughs and playing around.

 It was getting dark, but we squeezed in a couple more.

I love spending time with these girls, so I'm thankful they allowed me to be their "photographer" for the afternoon!

Another project!

We've been needing to replace our dining room carpet for a while now...between the dogs, food, fading from the sun, and the chlorine from the pool path, it had seen better days. Since our budget was limited, and I've been seeing stained concrete floors all over the place lately, we decided to give it a try. Let's just say that this was a much bigger DIY project than I anticipated!
Joe and I spent a day pulling up the carpet and pad, and getting the tack strips out of the concrete (not an easy job!).

 The concrete was in much worse shape than I had hoped. We ended up having to rent a concrete prep machine. We knew it would be a mess, so we put up some protection for the rest of the house.

 The project was extremely challenging. Martin came in and saved the day (first by rescuing Joe when his car died, and then helping us on the floors for hours and hours!)

 Unfortunately, even with the tarps, the house became a disaster! It was late into the night, and we all had to be up for work. So clean-up had to wait until the following evening. It was overwhelming, and there was still so much to do.

After cleaning the rest of the house, we spent the next week sweeping, cleaning and mopping the concrete many, many times. We also repainted the walls to match the rest of the downstairs.

 It was finally ready to stain!

 Two coats of stain and then two coats of sealer...

We moved the furniture back in temporarily to try to get the rest of the house back to normal, while we waited for the new area rug to come, and while we finished baseboards, and the threshold...

Finally, we are officially DONE!

This project was a ton of work, but I absolutely love the finished product! Another DIY house update crossed off our list!

Valentine's Day...

Valentine's Day was a little different this year. We had to be out of the house early for Cooper's lacrosse tournament, so we didn't have time for a big breakfast together. They each got cards and a little chocolate (Cooper loved his chocolate fish!).

We spent the day in San Diego watching lacrosse, and Zoe spent the day at the beach with friends. We all came back together in the evening to enjoy our traditional chocolate fondue, but somehow I didn't get a picture. Even in the craziness, I'm glad we were still able to hang on to a little time together and celebrate "Love" day. :)

Lacrosse...Spring 2015

Although basketball season is still going, Cooper started Lacrosse this week as well. So two nights a week, he plays basketball from 4:30-6:00 and lacrosse from 6:30-8:30, plus games. It's tiring, but will definitely build his stamina! He's started with a new league this time, and they are a new group, combining a couple of different leagues. They were invited to play in a last minute tournament this weekend, and we agreed to go.

We headed to the San Diego Youth Lacrosse Festival early Saturday morning. They played 5 games over two days.

 Coop spent most of his time playing midfielder.

 Since they only had a couple of subs, he got lots of playing time.

 There were some big players on a few of the other teams, so it made it even more of a challenge, but Cooper held his own.

 There was lots of down time in between games. We tried to get the boys to sit and relax, but most of the time they kept playing and tossing the ball around.

 They got to play their last game on the nice stadium field. That artificial turf was hot, although it was a beautiful weekend, with temperatures in the 80's and we had a great ocean breeze.

These boys played tough all weekend! We only won one of the five games, but that was expected. The other teams were all club, travel teams that have been playing year-round. Our boys have only been together for a week (we don't even have uniforms!)  It was a great way to get some practice in before the official start of our season though. Cooper is enjoying the boys and the game. It really got us excited for a (hopefully) fun season!