Driving Dad's Bimmer

Tom took my car to the mountains to have a guys weekend with his friends.  We were left no other choice!  Leo had to practice driving after all.  We sent him these pictures and surprisingly, Tom did not have a heart attack.  

 

Dancing with Karen Chuang

When we were at the Taylor Swift show, Serafina mentioned that one of the backup dancers, Karen Chuang, was also a dance teacher that she had taken class from during a convention.  This was a pretty cool fact.  Well, it got a whole lot cooler when her studio invited Karen to teach the weekly Master Class Serafina attends.  

Here's the contemporary dance combo they learned during class.  

 

Serafina's Birthday Weekend

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.  

Beyoncé Renaissance Tour

Almost five years ago, I got to see Beyoncé play at Levi's stadium. It was awesome and I was so excited when she announced her Renaissance World Tour.  Tickets were pricey (of course) but I splurged on two - one for me and one for the second biggest fan in the family, Serafina.  Serafina has dance to Beyoncé songs in competitions, recitals, classes and at conventions.  Plus, I knew she would appreciate the amazing visuals and dancing in the show.  So even though it was a school night, we headed to Levi's to experience this true legend on stage.  

Serafina looked gorgeous. 

Our seats were high up, but with a straight on view and the first row of our level so no one directly in front of us.  They were definitely better seats than we had for Taylor Swift. But next time Beyoncé comes around, I'm selling a kidney and getting close up. 

Silver cowgirl hat is one of the best merch table purchases I've ever made.  Epic photo shoot prop, for sure. 

Even though we got home extremely late and were dead tired the next day, we both thought it was completely worth it.  

 

The Ciccottos Visit

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. 

 

First day of school - 10th and 8th grade

This summer flew by in the blink of an eye.  No one was really ready to go back to school, but they threw on some new clothes and set out to conquer the day.  

Continuing the tradition of forced first day of school pictures in the front yard.  

 

Final summer adventure to the SF Zoo

We wanted one last adventure before the start of school.  Leo suggested the San Francisco Zoo to see the monkeys.  Captive animals make me feel a little sad, but I pushed that feeling aside to enjoy the beautiful weather and quality time with my teenager before their days are filled with school and dance/music.  

Serafina felt some kinship with the giraffes.