Royal Wedding

It's been a long time since I last stayed up all night :-) I couldn't convince anyone else in my family to join me in watching the royal wedding tonight, so here I am watching TV, with both bbc.com and Facebook open on my computer. I have a cup of hot tea and a space heater (we turn the heat down at night to save energy), and I had my son show me how to operate the TV before he went to bed.

I remember being at camp when Charles and Diana were married, and I was very disappointed to miss the wedding. (Of course, even if I had been at home, I'm not so sure my mom would have approved of me staying up all night to watch it!)

Ease On Down the Road

Current mental soundtrack: "Brand New Day" from The Wiz

Two dress rehearsals and six shows this week: M was at every single one of them, while B and I only worked half of them (plus attending one show each). I was on backstage duty: opening and closing the back and wing curtains, helping move set pieces, and being part of the balloon-wrestling team. (One show there were six people trying to get that balloon to glide off the stage--it kept getting stuck on everything possible! By the last show, we managed it with only three people.)

M at the light board (poor kid saw the show EIGHT times this week!)

B was cast as part of the Yellow Brick Road, and also as a Winkie. Lots of dancing, a little bit of singing, and a lot of fun! We were not permitted to take photos during the shows, but here are some before and after show photos:

L (crow) and B (Yellow Brick Road)

L (Addaperle), B (brick), and M

L (Addaperle), L (crow), and B (brick)

Venetian Birthday

B's birthday-party theme this year was "Birthday in Venice." She had seven friends at her party (two more were out of town and couldn't make it). 

The cake: 

Vanilla with lemon filling and buttercream underneath rolled fondant

The Carnival masks:

We spray-painted paper-mache masks gold and glossy white, then set the girls loose with feathers, sequins, glitter, paint, and glue guns

The gondola races:

The birthday girl

The two teams (each girl had to put on a gondolier hat, striped shirt, black pants, red sash, and enormous black shoes, then race to the other end of the room and back while carrying a cardboard "gondola."

 

Another successful party, although I'm sure we're going to be finding feathers and glitter in random places for weeks.

Birthday + Birthday Weekend for B

B and a couple of her friends are having a busy weekend: L's birthday party was this evening, and B's party will be tomorrow afternoon. The guest lists are not identical, but four of the girls are attending both parties (two others were invited to both but out of town for the weekend). So far today, I've baked three loaves of banana bread, made lemon filling, baked a cake (from a mix), made buttercream frosting, filled and iced the cake, and decorated it with fondant. (Photos tomorrow). I also cut two gondolas out of cardboard, and I'm now trying to get up enough energy to do what I think is my fourth load of hand-wash dishes (the dishwasher has also been run twice, and needs emptying again).

Oh, and in between stages of cake decorating, I rescued our dog (DH took Coda on a hike which turned out to be much longer than anticipated, and our poor couch-potato dog needed a ride back to the starting point), cleaned the bathrooms, did some laundry, and went out for dinner with DH.