stat chew off flip are tee

Every time I think of the Statue of Liberty I think of two things. First, playing mad gab with my Mom and laughing deliriously as she tried to give the hint for "Statue of Liberty". It makes me smile every time I think about it. Second, cute pictures of kids in front of the statue. As I was leafing through my Aunt's old family photo albums for the Fennimore family reunion I found this picture of my Dad and Aunt circa early 1950's.

I felt like this was quite the coincidence since just the week before we had taken the kids up to NYC for some NYC touring with our friends Challey and Spencer (more on their visit later) and taken these photos.

It was hard to believe that the last time we went to the island Max looked like this:

and the twin towers were still standing:

If you look closely you can see some resemblance between the young Max (here he is at Jones beach)

and Saul (imbibing a Gray's Papaya fruit drink). Granted, Saul is 12 months older than the picture of Max above.

Mosquito's and Flytraps

You can imagine my surprise a couple weeks ago when Jennette informed me that she was taking Max and Olivia to audition for a play. I knew I had already underestimated Jennette's love for outdoor theater earlier this summer but I never thought Jennette had much "stage mom" in her. It was hard to believe that with her friend Challey coming to visit for the next two weeks and Cub Scout day camp the following week that Jennette would sign herself up for rehearsals and all that a play would involve. So everything made much more sense when she explained that it was only a one week commitment. They were auditioning on Monday, with rehearsals starting immediately through Thurs, and then two performances on Friday. Maybe it's the cynic in me but then I immediately assumed that there would be some financial catch to this (especially since all this was happening at the Grand Opera house in downtown Wilmington which is a pretty nice venue).

Amazingly enough there was no catch, and they passed the auditions and were suddenly cast members in "The Frog Prince." The production was put on by the Missoula Children's theater and is part of a nation-wide theater program for school children, using minimal and talented staff, parent volunteers, and a clever use of production equipment. Max was a "mosquito" and Olivia a "venus fly trap." The music was catchy, the costumes cute, the kids cuter, everyone had generous stage time and I was amazed how much they could remember from just 4 days of rehearsals. Olivia and Max had a blast and I think this will be part of many summers to come.

Oliva was so excited for the performance that she wore her costume around the house.

Max the mosquito (& his friend, Naomi, as the toad)

Who's ready for a cast party?

Have I mentioned that we have a new video camera so we can upload videos? Here's our first attempts:

Cape Henlopen

If I look at my hobbies (both present and those on hiatus): skiing, cycling, running, hiking, rockclimbing, backpacking, & ultimate frisbee I can see a common thread of a mixture of adrenaline + being outdoors. When I think of Jennette's hobbies: friends, food, traveling, outdoor theater, indoor theater, reading, & just about all things British a common thread that runs through it all is Anna. Anna is Jennette's BFF who was recently mentioned in a previous post by Jennette and who I can thank that Jennette doesn't want to spend every weekend working on the house/yard but insists that we at least get out to see Delaware's Shakespeare festival (and probably is also the reason why our girls go off to bed singing "I love you a bushel and a peck" from Guys and Dolls). Anna and her family have recently moved "back East" and we are thrilled to have them close by.

Last weekend we began the Eastern hazing by taking them on a camping trip to our local state park/beach Cape Henlopen.

Lucky for me since we took so few pictures, Anna had already chronicled the trip on her blog. We have camped there in the summer several times before. While we have had some rainy weather in the past, the heat of last weekend gave new reasons to reconsider camping as a cheap source of family togetherness. It was so hot and humid I was having flashbacks of growing up without AC in an apartment in NYC and officially swore off camping with children in the summer forever (though I may rescind that oath when we start pricing out the other options). But besides the heat we had a wonderful weekend. The kids got along well, the food was good, the water was cool, we managed to squeeze in trips to the outlets and Funland, and we even got to meet up with our friends the Eskelsens (who is really how this whole Adam & Jennette thing got started). So by the time we were driving home I had almost forgotten about the sleepless sweaty night and all the labor involved in taking a family of four young children camping but was instead overcome with how wonderful my life is, how much I love Jennette and the kids, and how much more beautiful lower Delaware has become to me after all these family vacations at the beach. Maybe I'm not ready to swear off camping after all.