We had a low-key Halloween since it fell on a Tuesday. Serafina and her school friend Sydney dressed up like Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. in these silly onesies. They hit the neighborhood for trick-or-treating but not before I forced them to take pictures.
Leo didn't go out but he did have a little photo shoot with this amazing clown outfit and glasses I picked up at the Goodwill last week.
Mousse is handsome as always in his Halloween bandana.
It is hard to believe that Leo turned 16 on Sunday. Sixteen!!! Time flies when you're enjoying an amazing human grow up in front of your eyes.
Though this wasn't officially part of the birthday celebrations, the Wednesday before his birthday we took in a mid-week movie. Just the two of us went to a mid-week showing of Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film. It was a remastered version to celebrate its 40th anniversary. We wouldn't normal see a movie on a school night, but it was the last night it was playing locally.
The theater was pretty empty, but before it started, a few more people trickled in. We both absolutely loved the film so I'm very glad we made the last minute decision to see it.
On Saturday, we kicked off the official birthday celebrations. First up was a trip to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco to see a Takashi Murakami exhibit. We saw some of his pieces when we visited the street art exhibit in Brooklyn in 2019
The exhibit was pretty amazing. I'm very glad we went. We had the added bonus of seeing the Blue Angels from the museum's roof since the air show was happening for fleet week.
Sunday was his actual birthday and we started the day with a birthday brunch.
Nana joined us for brunch.
When discussing his birthday, Leo declared he wanted a seafood tower for dinner. Well, a upscale seafood restaurant opened near us during Covid and Leo wanted to try it. They didn't have a seafood tower on the menu, but Leo was okay with that.
Serafina was cold so she used a napkin as a shawl.
First course, oysters.
That was followed by lobster and another fish dish. Look at these guys ready to dig in.
We followed up dinner with a visit to Salt and Straw for yummy ice cream.
It was Tom's first time trying it and he was a big fan.
Both kids had Monday off from school, so Leo celebrated one extra day with his friends at Top Golf. Top Golf is kind of like if a driving range and a bowling alley had a baby.
It was a wonderful, celebratory birthday weekend for Leo.
It felt like Serafina spent almost her entire birthday weekend at the dance studio, but luckily, those are people she loves to be around. There was a special hip hop choreographer visiting for the weekend to teach a Master Class Friday night, and then choreograph her Senior Hip Hop Crew routine and her large Hip Hop team routines Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Here's a post from the dance studio of all the kids with the choreographer.
Saturday morning, her actual birthday, she had some time in the morning to have special birthday donuts and open a few gifts, including these cute pajama pants that look like Mousse.
That night, after back-to-back choreography sessions, her friend Karin came out to dinner with us. Here they are post-dance at the restaurant. They were initially sitting on their own, but decided they could tolerate sitting with the rest of us instead.
After dinner, we had Crumbl cookies because those are her favorite and they opened one closer to our house.
After cookies, she opened a few more presents, including this Squishmallow from Leo. The name was in inside joke and it cracked them both up immensely.
Sunday? Yep, you guessed it. More dance.
But Sunday night we got to celebrate with Nana. I offered to make her a cake but she politely declined.
On Monday, she had the day off from school because of Labor Day and finally the day off from dance. She spent time with her sweet dance friends.
I think overall she had a pretty good birthday, but it definitely didn't feel as celebratory as we would have liked because of her dance commitments. I told her we would make it up to her with a Sweet Sixteen party.
Our friends, the Ciccottos, moved back to New York pretty early into the pandemic. It was an understandable choice once Pete's job at Google went fully remote and the importance of being near family was brought into sharp focus because of the circumstances of an uncertain world. But we missed them. A lot. Leo and Serafina kept in touch with the kids via social media and I text Mary regularly.
Their visit to California wasn't only to see friends and family. Their older two daughters were signed up for several college tours. This brought them to town during a particularly busy weekend for Serafina since she had both boot camp for her dance team as well as choreography sessions. But we did our best to facilitate as much visiting as possible.
This meant on Saturday night, this gaggle of girls went with me to pick her up from the dance studio. They were excited to surprise her.
From the studio, we made a quick trip to Target right before closing. They declared they needed to get the ingredients for their s'mores lasagna, which was a recipe they made up at a sleepover many years ago. Oh and they needed matching shirts too.
Gotta document their creation.
The matching shirts were Lizzy's idea so she could have them recreate this photo from March of 2019.
Serafina spent the night, even though she had a long day of dance on Sunday.
On Sunday, most of the Ciccottos came over to hang a little bit and hear Leo play guitar.
It was wonderful to spend time with the Ciccottos. We hope to make it to New York at some point to visit family and to spend more time with them. Like most visits, it went by way too fast.
Another recital in the books! It was an exhausting, inspirational, fun time. Each year, I get to know the kids and teachers more and more so the recital becomes more meaningful. It's such a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the dance season, especially on a year when we aren't headed to the national competition just a few weeks later. The recital was the actual finale to this dance season, complete with an emotional sendoff for this year's graduating seniors.
Serafina performed all of her competition routines, with the ballroom routine performing in two shows. Because she was a teaching assistant this year for a pre-jazz class, she was also in the opening number. Her large hip hop routine closed every show. It is one of the most high energy, fun routines and is delightful to watch.
In addition to her competition routines, she performed with her four technique classes as well. Here's a few shots from hip hop. My phone acted up and I couldn't record it.
Here's her technique class contemporary routine. I took this video during dress rehearsal so there is a lot of talking in the background.
Here's a video of the opening number featuring the teachers, TAs and seniors. This is also from rehearsal so they are all in various costume pieces. For the actual show, they looked more uniform with matching shirts and bottoms. I helped back stage for the two morning shows. I got this cute picture in the wings before the girls went on for Show Jazz.
Serafina's school friend Bella came to the first show. It was really sweet of her to support Serafina.
Tom, Leo and I got to watch the afternoon show on Saturday.
Sunday morning I worked backstage again. I got a few pictures of Serafina's ballet dance from the wings. She wasn't that please with me about it.
Her bestie Sunny, along with Sunny's aunt, and Serafina's former teacher Mrs. Ghelfi, came to watch with her daughter Sadie. Sadie loved the recital and had lots of questions about it. She had her mom sign her up for a class as soon as they got home.
They hung out with us during the break between shows. We walked around to the front of the theater and I got this shot.
Ah these two.
The final show was Sunday night. Tom, Leo, Nana and I were in the audience. The little jazz dancers that Serafina was a TA for performed during that show and I told her I needed a picture of her with "her little friends" (that's what I called them all season when she went to assist in their class). Serafina was dressed for her Senior Hip Hop Crew dance that went on immediately after their routine.
After the show we were able to give her lots of flowers and praise.
That night we celebrated my birthday and Father's Day with one delicious cake.
I don't really mind spending my birthday at recital. Next year, Serafina will be old enough to sign up to participate in the "Dancing Dads" routine. Tom isn't so sure about it all, but it is a crowd favorite and Serafina assured him he'll be towards the back.
