Abbey's Dance Recital

Abbey was SO EXCITED for her dance recital!!

Friday night started off with a long dress rehearsal that lasted about three hours, running through everything and taking class photos.

Here's Abbey at the rehearsal:

There were two recitals, Saturday and Sunday at 1:00.  These pictures are a mixture of both days.

Miss Melissa giving a pep talk and last minute instructions before show time.

Abbey had fun running around backstage with her buddy Addy.

The Beginner Ballet Class was from K-3rd grade; intimidating for Abbey at the beginning of the year but she stuck with it and loved it by the recital.

 

Mrs. Spaulding came to see her little dancers!

And so did Shawn and Georgia!

Overheard a mom telling the girls they looked "sexy" in this costume.  Grrrr.....

Miss Melissa and Abbey

Watching the big girls dance from the back of the auditorium

Daddy and Josiah came to the recital on Sunday

Josiah covering Abbey's eyes while Daddy came in with a balloon

We were so proud of Abigail!  She was a beautiful dancer!

Letter People Parade and Grandparents Day

Our first week home was a busy one.  After spending the day on the road, we brought Ben to baseball practice.  We have baseball six days a week now!  Tuesday night, I had a Room Leaders' meeting at Lisa's, Wednesday we had a home game, and on Friday, the boys went to Portland with "I Love Maine!" and Abbey had a Letter People Parade with her class that involved me making a costume, and I had Abbey's dress rehearsal and a late night book group, then Abbey's dance recital all weekend and a baseball game and birthday party for the boys.  We hit the ground running!  Here are the pics of Abbey's parade and Grandparents Day the following week.

Gordon College Pals

We left Bedford and had a gorgeous drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains to Round Hill, VA.

This whole road trip, the kids were amazing.  They were kind to each other in the back, kept busy drawing and listening to books on tape, and had lots of patience for the 35 hours on the road we spent over five days.

We got to spend a couple hours visiting Jen and Jake in Round Hill, and Clay and Larissa drove over from Arlington to join us.  It was so fun to reconnect with these dear friends!

Then we spent three more hours on the road and made it back to Wilmington in time for Matthew's delicious BBQ ribs and some more fun with the cousins, crashing in Mom's apartment for the night, and hitting the road at 5:30 the following day for our trek back to Maine.  It was a whirlwind trip but so good to see everyone!  Short and sweet.

The Lodge

Marcia and Barry rented a lodge in Bedford, VA for everyone to stay in over the weekend.  It was really beautiful and only 30 minutes from the university.  It was very fun to be all together!

Josiah wrote this recap of his football star Rashad Jenning's commencement speech. :)

The whole family, Sunday morning before we pulled out at 9:00.