Broadway Across America: The Sound of Music

Sunday I took the girls to see The Sound of Music. This season has been tough with timing of plays, so this is just the 2nd musical I've been to! {We had tickets to Six but it was canceled when we were iced in a few weeks back}

Plot: A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.

Review: Mixed feelings here - the play itself was great! Actors were wonderful, especially the children, singing was awesome, it was entertaining throughout. BUT I didn't love some of the changes that were made from the movie - which is my problem having seen the movie a bajillion times. They rearranged some of the songs, cut some songs, made new songs {so other characters got to sing}...it all made sense, but I couldn't help comparing to the movie! The girls both enjoyed it, and that's really what counts! 

Broadway Across America: Kimberly Akimbo

It's Broadway Across America season! Yay!  There are a lot of great musicals on the calendar this year and several I'm excited to take the girls to see! Our first musical was one I hadn't heard of, Kimberly Akimbo, but we had a small group interested in checking it out!

Plot: Kimberly Akimbo is a Tony Award-winning musical about a teenage girl who has a rare genetic condition that causes her to age four and a half times faster than normal. The show follows Kimberly as she navigates typical teenage issues like family dysfunction, friendships, and first crushes, alongside the challenges of her illness.

Review: Meh. Unfortunately we didn't start this season off with a bang. This was ok, but it will definitely not go on my favorites list. As always, the acting and singing was phenomenal, I just didn't love the plot - it was really bizarre and the family dysfunction was pretty extreme. My mother-in-law was there with a group of friends during the same show and her group felt the same way, but I did bump into other 2 people I knew when leaving and they LOVED it! So take that for what it's worth! Here's hoping the next ones are better!

May Memories

Finally up to May! I'm going to do a separate post about all the end of year happenings at school, but this is everything else - just the 'regular life' stuff!

Lazy littles

We saw 2 plays in May - Annie and Moulin Rouge. Our performing arts center had a Moulin Rouge swing up when we were seeing Annie, and the kids loved taking pics on it! We went to Annie with my mom, Tricia, and Charlotte, and then Drew's friend Zara came with her mom and 3 sisters and sat with us. Annie wasn't the adults favorite, but the girls seemed to enjoy it!

Just a swingin'

One year of Gus!! <3

We had a Girl Scout garage sale and sleepover at our house.

Love these young ladies!

Mother's Day lunch with most of the Swope girls.

My little artist decorated her shoes! So blown away by her talent.

The most boring but delicious birthday cake!

Moulin Rouge was a ladies only event - it was so good!

My parents celebrated 50 years of marriage in June and planned a big party. We had fun helping get everything ready! One of my aunts printed a lot of pics of my parents through the years and we pulled my mom's wedding dress out of storage for the party!

LOOK AT THESE CUTIES!!!

Her dress was vacuum sealed for 50 years!

The Rest of March!

Continuing my revisit of 2025 while in my blog 'downtime'...

We finally celebrated Drew's birthday with a sleepover with her besties!

We also celebrated Gus' birthday - our favorite little pup turned ONE!!!

The bluebonnets were late coming in this year. This girl was NERVOUS!

Donating extra GS cookies, love the giving hearts of our girls!

Who doesn't love cake for their birthday? HA!

Makeover with my jazzercise faves!

Drew's art continues to amaze me!

Can't stop, won't stop

Gearing up for primitive camping! AND GCPS' newest cheerleader!

One of the things we did with Girl Scouts this year was take our girls primitive camping! The girls earned several badges on this trip, but we all had a blast!

What is primitive camping you ask? No electricity, no running water 

{therefore no flushing toilets so I'm throwing away our waste, yuck}

Where we camped was right near a museum for the first settlement in Texas!

Dressing up as settlers, cuties!

The day we returned from camping, I took the girls to see Hamilton with Tricia and Charlotte. Such an amazing musical and experience to share with them.

I'm exhausted re-living all the busy-ness of March ha!

January Flashback

January is always a bit of fun but also a bit of a bummer as we return to reality after a long break from work and school.

We celebrated Drew turning 12! She and I did some shopping, and both sets of grandparents came over for taco bowls and s'mores {her picks!}. Her friend party happened later.

We had our last Christmas celebration with my mom's extended side of the family.

Only picture I took - Nap Auntie time!

I took Drew and my mom to see Come From Away with my friend, Tricia, and her daughter, Charlotte. Paige was a bit put-out by not being included, but I thought the subject matter might be a little tough {or over her head}. This was my 2nd time to see it, but it was everyone else's first time. Everyone loved it!

The rest of the month consisted of:

Cookie Season

Awards at school

Cuteness from Gus

A Celebration of Life for one of Brent's oldest friends

Book club happy hour