Camp Life - Hansel and Gretel

Eva's class put on a play for the parents last weekend.  It was a poetic version of Hansel and Gretel and it was very cute!  I had to edit waaaaay down to get it short enough for even family and friends to watch.  It ends with Free to Be You and Me.  Anyone who went to Orange Hunt with me will remember singing this in music class. Turns out that I still know the words!

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Camp Life - Diving

Camp Arcadia's lake is Pleasant Lake and it really and truly is pleasant!  There is a dock shaped like an H and the girls have lanes roped off there for swimming and there is a diving board.  Eva learned how to do a regular racing dive which is GREAT because she didn't know how to do that at the beginning of the summer.  She was working on her side dive and is hoping to learn a back dive by the end of the summer.  It was very difficult to capture this on the teeny weeny Flip but I did my best.

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Camp Life - The Horse Show

Bill and I spent last weekend visiting Eva at Camp Arcadia.  She is having a fantastic summer and we enjoyed meeting all of her friends and counselors and seeing the different things at camp that she likes to do.  Bill took care of all the still photographs (which is why I don't have any) and I shot a bit of video.  Here's a short clip of the horse show.  I don't really know anything about riding horses except that you couldn't pay me to wear those tan stretch pants.  Additional video is coming!

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Eva Learning to Dive at Arcadia

Eva is much more enthusiastic about swimming this summer than she has been in the recent past. She is also learning to dive, and we saw great improvement even in just the couple of days we visited. She did very well diving off the side of the dock, and even went off the 1 meter diving board (which looks more like 4 - 5 feet off water).

Via iPad

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

Best. Breakfast. Hot Suppa! - Portland, Maine

We were visiting Eva this weekend at Arcadia in Casco, Maine. We stayed near Portland and made it into the city for breakfast on Saturday. Two years ago we randomly discovered Hot Suppa! and were instantly addicted. We have since discovered that it is deservedly a foodie institution.

I would not expect great biscuits and gravy north of Virginia, but Hot Suppa! has them. Also (of course) blueberry pancakes, great omelets and the signature corn beef hash with eggs. Currently they are only open for breakfast and lunch, but after some renovation in August they will be opening for dinner in September. It is definitely worth a detour if you are near Portland.

We drove up to Portland from Logan Airport, and stopped for lunch at Giuseppe's in Newburyport, just off 95N. It should be in any guide to 'just off 95' restaurants. Any trip to New England requires seeking out local pizza and subs, Giuseppe's exceeded expectations. We split an Italian sausage sub that tasted fresh and homemade from the bun to the sauce to the sausage.

Via iPad

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

Lyra - Master Baker

Lyra loves to help cook, and cinnamon rolls are a special favorite both for eating and helping. Lyra gets to mix the cinnamon brown sugar filling and then scrape the leftover filling off the pastry cloth and eat it. She enjoys kneading the dough, although she gets annoyed about it sticking to her hands (as do I).  

Via iPad

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

Eva is at camp!

This week I took Eva up to Camp Arcadia in Maine and left her there.  WAH!  (That's me crying, not Eva.)  It rained the morning of drop off but things cleared up quickly and she was so happy to be back and to see all of her friends.  The returning counselors were surprised by how much she had grown.  I cannot believe that I made that trip and took NO CAMERA.  Here are a couple of photos taken with my cruddy Blackberry camera.  The indoor photo is terrible but it shows Eva in her cabin with Emmie, her good friend from camp last year.  The girls have kept in touch all year long and were so excited to see each other.  The outdoor photo is Eva in front her cabin, Plebe 2.  This has a much less picturesque name than last year's cabin (Chickadee) and I do not recall seeing any electricity in this cabin. 

Today we received our first letters from Eva. One was to the family and one was specifically to Lyra.  Let me tell you Lyra was positively ecstatic to get her own mail personally addressed to her.  Similar to last year, the water is cold.  But it sounds like she has settled in nicely; there was no immediate request for us to go up there and bring her home.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Eva's Birthday - Entering Double Digits

Eva had a great tenth birthday celebration yesterday.  We were joined by her friend Sarah and Anders, their parents Eric and Leigh, and of course Eva's grandmother Emily.  

Eva carefully planned a menu of her favorite foods, and dinner turned out extremely well.  We had pulled pork BBQ, Eastern North Carolina cole slaw (e.g. spicy), potato salad, fruit salad and tossed salad.  It sounds like a lot of salad, but it all worked well.  Eva had asked Cathleen to make her a cheese cake for her birthday cake, and it came out fantastic.  As a last minute bonus I had gotten sour cherries at the farmers' market, and made a cherry sauce for the cake.  It was amazing.  I think everyone faced a battle between how much cheese cake they wanted to eat (a lot) and how much would fit in their stomach after the rest of the meal.

Grownups of course also had some good wine, an Amisfield Pinot Noir I brought back from Australia and a Coturri Zinfandel.  These will be covered in more detail in later blog notes. 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

Alexandria Children's Chorus - Ten Years in Harmony

We attended a very special concert today. Will sings in the Alexandria Choral Society's Children's Chorus. Today the Children's Chorus presented their 10th Anniversary Concert, "Ten Years in Harmony". This year, the Chorus introduced a new program, a composition contest for young composers. For the contest, Eva submitted a short song she made up for our family to sing as a grace before meals. Eva's song won the composition contest, so she was honored at the concert, and the Chorus performed her song.

I enjoyed the selection of songs performed, and I thought the Chorus Director, Mr. Carr, did a wonderful job conducting (I really enjoy watching conductors). This video was a quick edit job, trying to condense an hour+ concert. I reduced it to about six minutes, but that is still long by internet standard. This is an HD video, so if you play it full size (or full screen) it should look good. I have taken still photos of many of Will's concerts over the last three years, and this is a situation where video is MUCH BETTER.

You will see (and unfortunately hear) fans in almost every video clip. It was 90 degrees in Alexandria yesterday, and the air conditioning in the church where the concert was held had not yet been turned on for the season. It was very hot and sticky.

The video is also posted at Vimeo here which in my experience provides higher quality HD video streaming than FaceBook.

Enjoy!

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

Upriver with Eva

Both kids loved canoeing on the Macal River.  Chaa Creek provides canoes for guests to use, and the river is beautiful with lots of birds and other wildlife like iguanas on the banks.  

Eva with Appaloosa

Eva fell in love with the horse she rode at Chaa Creek, Appaloosa.  She even went to visit him and say good bye on our last day at Chaa Creek.  

We never figured out for certain if his name was Appaloosa or Appalooso.  Since the 'o' ending is masculine in Spanish, we kind of think it should be Appalooso.  

However you spell his name, Appaloos? was a great horse for Eva, with just the right amount of spirit and energy, but without too many bad habits.

Swimming Across the Macal River

After one of our canoe journeys, I suggest Will swim across the river just for fun. He did, and was very proud of himself. Eva of course HAD to do the same thing. I dropped her on the east bank of the river, and she swam across to the landing for the River Camp with me following along in the canoe (as I had for Will). Both kids were very proud of their accomplishment.

Interestingly, we had been assured that there were no crocodiles in the Macal, only at lower elevations closer to the ocean. Except on our last day at Chaa Creek one of the workers mentioned seeing a five foot croc the day before, and related a legend about the relationship between dogs and crocodiles. Apparently in legend the dog borrowed the crocodile's tongue so it could talk, and has never given it back. Now whenever a croc hears a dog bark, it chases and eats the dog to get its tongue back. Whether or not this story is true, apparently crocs are known for loving to eat dogs. We will be very careful in the future swimming in the Macal.

Cath - This is the girl who I had to haul through the water in the cave and who Bill had to force a life jacket onto during the Placencia snorkeling trip. I am hoping that Eva's swimming skills get a big boost in camp this summer and that she learns to have her confidence in line with her ability. I am appalled about the crocodiles.....especially after getting to see one go after food Live and In Action. See post further on down.

Eva at Breakfast

This is a photo of Eva during breakfast at the River Camp.   We loved breakfast at the River Camp, there were always a variety of birds - hummingbirds, thrushes, yellow birds, etc., and the food was great - every breakfast started with a big platter of fruit, always perfectly ripe.  

Sister Support

This is Eva holding Lyra's hand while we fly.  In reality, Lyra did not seem to have any issue with the small plane at all, actually telling me later she preferred it to the bigger jets.  I suspect this was partly because we flew 20min from Placencia to Dangriga, landed for five minutes to take on two passengers, and flew 15min more to Belize City.  Much easier than three hours from Belize City to Houston.

Cath & Eva

We all had to wear helmets in the cave.  I dislike helmets in general, and disliked these especially.  That is until I hit my head so hard on an overhanging rock that my neck hurt from the impact.  I am not sure I would have been badly hurt, but at a minimum the helmet prevented a bloody bruise.  

With the helmet lights we could all see about 10 feet ahead.  At several points in the cave everyone turned their lights out and we had an opportunity to experience true, can't see your hand in front of your face, total darkness.  I am in awe of the Maya walking in and out of these caves with only burning torches.  

Eva has the best view of the inauguration on the jumbotron.

Cookie Decorating!

FINALLY I made some gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate. I don't seem to find time to do this very many times during the year but it is so fun and not as much of a pain as I always think it is going to be before I start.

Eva's buddy, Schyler, came over for a sleepover and they are having a lot of fun! It is always nice to have Schyler over because she is cool to have Lyra there and does a very good job of looking out for her. You can see her helping Lyra decorate a cookie. I think Schyler may be a teacher some day.

The girls decorated their cookies with royal icing, sugar sprinkles and those pens with the edible ink that you can get now. They don't work as well as I'd hoped they would but the are not bad. When I bake the rest of the cookie dough, I am going to dry painting on some of them BEFORE baking with colored egg yolk. I might actually need to buy another paintbrush or two to do this because all my good supplies seem to be AWOL. I do not know what happens to all my stuff.

Will and I waited until the girls were done before decorating our cookies.
Results are below

Eva Celebrating the Christmas Tree

I am actually not entirely sure why Eva is so fired up in this photo.  She really loved decorating the tree, especially putting the angel on the top.  

More on the Tree Trimming

Everything Cathleen says in her long post below is accurate, including me saying the 'f-word' when trying to untangle the defective lights from the top of the nine foot tree standing on a ladder getting my arm perforated by the blue spruce.  I thought I said it under my breath, but 8 year olds have good hearing.  

Other than the lights, we mostly had fun decorating the tree, though some egg nog would have been very nice.  

What's Fun?

After we arrived and got settled into our cabin, we went to happy hour, and it was happy! See Eva and Lyra having a good time? Our cabin was very close to the lake and there were canoes, kayaks and small sailboats to take out. There were hiking trails populated with fungi in every color of the rainbow because the summer had been so rainy and wet. Lyra was especially fascinated with the mushrooms. There was also a game lodge and one very exciting bingo night! Will insisted on staying through the entire thing.