Our 4th CFT Season

4th!?! I can't believe we've managed to live somewhere long enough to have done anything for four years. If you're keeping record, that itself is a record. This is the longest we've stayed put since we left Charlotte in 2001. Let's hear it for a wee bit of stability.

There is a part of me that likes to move. There's something about a fresh start, a clean slate. You can reinvent yourself. Change your name. Throw mountains of useless stuff away. You get the picture.

But back to this CFT thing...

This was (Kleenex, please) Juliana's last year in Alpha. And while all that growing up that she's doing is wearing me out emotionally, I am a bit excited to have fewer plays to drive to and pay for next year. Can anyone say four dollars a gallon?

The year began with Stuart Little which could have easily never made it to the stage. I mentioned before that all the snow came on the opening day of crunch, but I believe I failed to mention that it was shortly followed by its cousin, Ice.

The first two days were flat cancelled. The third day was attempted. Birch slid her all the way there, dropped her off, headed for home and five minutes later noticed the roads were being closed. Chalk this up to a Slip and Slide tour of North Atlanta. That'll never sell.

They pulled it off. That's what theater people do.

Next up, Children of Eden. Sometime, if you've a cup of hot tea and are interested in a mound of salacious details, I'll thrill you with all the controversy surrounding that one.

I will simply say this. It was beautiful and magical from start to finish. We're so blessed Juliana was able to be a part of this.

Two weeks later we ended the season with The True Life Adventures of Gooney Bird Green, or something close to that. This play, in a word, was fun.

It starred the unbelievably amazingly talented Emily Haynes as Gooney Bird in her last (for now?) year at CFT. (It's quite possible, okay probable, that she will read this blog post. Not that that in any way biased the above statement).


And while I am mostly just relieved that my summer calendar is blessedly blank (minus Z's confusing visitation schedule), I know that come August, we will all be excited about our 5th (Who'da thought?) year.

Yellow Belt

Why, yes! I am the proud mama of a new yellow belt!

Holt tested for and received his yellow belt in Choi Kwang Do this past semester. When Birch took him the previous semester to test for his white senior belt, the rest of us didn't go. When they returned, Birch informed me that I'd really missed it. This was the equivalent of Juliana's plays and Mouser's dance recital. So this time, we all showed up with cameras and video.

He's a tough fellow. He's inherited the speed of his daddy's youth without the shoulder chip.





Here is the entire group from Timothy that tested.

Finished and relaxing with his sisters-

Here he receives his new yellow belt at school on the following Tuesday.

As a side benefit of Choi Kwang Do, Holt sure impressed his Scout leader the following Monday. He'd asked the boys if anyone could count to ten in a foreign language. After one or two boys recited in Spanish and there were a couple of poor attempts at Pig Latin, Holt dropped jaws when he announced that he could (and then did) count in Korean.

Wonder if we can count that as a school credit?

Noah's Ark

One of the most "out of the box" solutions for hurting children that I've seen in a long while takes place at Noah's Ark, an animal sanctuary that is also licensed by the state of Georgia to provide residential care for children. It's a true sanctuary for those who need it, both human and not.

We travelled to visit in Locust Grove with a bunch of our homeschool friends from WINGS.


The highlight of my day came at the end of our loop around the property. Along the border of the path lay an enclosure of ostriches. The eggs that were strewn along the fence were enormous- as were the ostriches that lay them.

As we were coming parallel the fence, Holt and a couple of other boys began to run (that IS what 8 year old boys do). As they ran, the ostrich bolted alongside them. You could hear the flurry of feathers and feet. It was a race! Thinking this was surely a fluke, the boys turned when they reached the end of the fence line and ran the opposite direction. Again she gave chase. Over and over. Back and forth. And, man! was she fast.


Finally she grew disinterested (I'm relatively certain they didn't even begin to tire her).

I'm wishing there was a video copy.

Timeless Gift

Juliana is a shutterbug. She's got talent, America. And for his 41st birthday, Birch was treated to a photo shoot at Dellinger.

Here are my favorites!

With Mouse-



With the boy-

With the Baby We Love Whose Name and Face We Can't Reveal-

And with the photog herself-


And with me.

A fixed time capsule. Priceless.

My Favorite Scout

This winter was Holt's (and Birch's- who are we kidding here?) first Pinewood Car Derby.


He finished respectably for his first entry, but clearly his Daddy has some studying up to do before next year.

Question: What happens when three kids get snow-induced cabin fever?

Answer:

This was only the fashion preview.

Act 2 consisted of angel wings and a tiara.

There may be a special corner of heaven set aside for dogs who allow dress-up.

Momentary Northerners

This winter I finally got my fill of snow.

Our big hill in the side yard finally met its potential. It is no longer only a redneck tarp-covered water slide.

Although we received an acceptable (by Southern standards) amount of snow on Christmas Day, we never anticipated the dumping that would occur two short weeks later.

Monday, January 10- inconveniently also the first day of crunch for Stuart Little - it came down in sheets. And not just that day, but the next as well. SNOW! is what is written on both boxes in my calendar. As in "SNOW! Who could imagine?!?"

Last year Mouse would have no part of it. This year she donned her little pink parka and cap and was the cherry on the sundae of our sled.

The kids (and me!) discovered the joy of "piling on" this year. No one offered Birch a turn.






Walter, as usual, is fun to watch like a drunk on stage. He's understandably perplexed by the cold white stuff.


I'm pretty sure you get the gist of his experience here.

For three days our town was literally shut down. By the third day, I was finished with the snow. How long can one survive without a Chick-fil-a run?

Factoring into this is the "I would've never bought this house on this street that angles straight up towards the sky if it EVER snowed here" hill we had to first make it down and around before we could rejoin society. It was four, FOUR!, days before I left the house. Did I mention it was four days before I left the house?

But, for the part of this glass that's half full, for two days while I still thought snow was fun, we lived a continous cycle of

1. Layer up.
2. Sled your brains out.
3. Strip on the front porch. (fun for our neighbors, I'm guessing)
4. Nuke up some hot chocolate.
5. Veg on the couch.
6. Repeat.

I'm a snow-lover. But even I have my limits, people. And I'm pretty sure I reached it.

Ringing It In

This year for Christmas the kids got an XBOX Kinect (thanks, Nana and Pop!).

In light of that, we fixed the yearly dilemma of what to do on New Year's Eve. It's too hard to get a sitter, every restaurant is jam packed, where could we go the kids would enjoy, etc.

So this year New Year's Eve began the First Annual Jones Family Fun Night.

We hooked up the Kinect and played and played and played. All of us, not counting Walter. If you've met Walter, who spooks when a door slams, imagine him with all of us randomly jumping and making seemingly illogical sudden movements. Doggy Hell.

After we wiped out on the Kinect, we popped corn and watched the kids' new Christmas movies. We (and here's the real labor of love) camped out for an all-nighter in the living room.

I do want to say here, however, that even though it's been months ago, I still remember that when I woke up the following morning and rolled my aching spine over, I noticed that The Bald Man was MIA. Then I followed the sound of The Snore and found him all nestled comfy-like in our bed. I (obviously) have not forgotten.

It was fun. There was lots of laughing, lots of sweating, lots of food, and even a wee bit of sleeping.

And since they say you're supposed to spend New Year's Eve with the people you most want to spend the following year with, there was nowhere else I could have possibly been.