MADcamp

All this week Elyse has been in MADcamp (music, art, and drama) at Granny and Pa's church, Ingleside (which I still kind of think as my church, since I was baptized there in 1972). Tonight was the culmination of the week's work, their performance of "Get On Board; or What do you do on a Rainy Day in an Ark?" Elyse played the dove; she didn't have any lines, but she did have to fly out and retrieve an olive branch to show that the flood was over, and she did get to sing some of the songs with the other kids and dance.

(This is obviously Jessica and Anna, waiting for the performance to begin.)

Portraits

Today we made some (more or less) formal portraits. None of them include me, but they do include some of the girls' favorite dolls, both cats (though not in the same pictures), and the girls' mother:

Elyse's First Play

Elyse has been going to a theater camp at Lawrenceville's Aurora Theater all week, and today was her class's end-of-camp performance. Their play was Dr. Seuss's Daisy-Head Mayzie, and Elyse was Finch, the gardener who says she can just cut the daisy off the top of Daisy's head.

Here are some pictures of the production; Elyse is in the pink shirt, wearing the gardener's hat:

(In this cast picture, you can barely see her right in the middle, looking a little uncomfortable.)

Zoo Atlanta

We go to the zoo fairly regularly, so there are several other posts here about our visits there. Here's what it -- and we -- looked like when we went today:

The Girls Return From Minnesota

This morning I went back to the airport and picked up the girls and brought them home. They were glad to be home, and I was very glad to have them back!

Here are some pictures that Molly sent me from their adventures in Minnesota (thanks, Molly!):

The Girls Go Off to Minnesota

This morning I took Anna and Jessica and Elyse to the airport so they could get on a Spirit Airways plane and fly to Minnesota to spend a week with Anna's family. I will miss them all, but I'm also looking forward to having the house to myself for a while, and getting a few projects done around the house.

Six Flags Over Georgia

Today we went to Six Flags!

The girls all got free tickets through their school (including Anna), so we only had to pay for me to get in; otherwise it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 (which would have meant I wouldn't be writing this post at all, or else it might have been about another day at Stone Mountain or the zoo).

We got there right when the park opened, and started the day riding the sky buckets across the park. Then we went to Thunder Canyon, which I rode once, got thoroughly soaked, and decided I'd had enough. The girls, on the other hand, rode it two more times.

We also spent an hour at the wave pool in Hurricane Harbor, rode the Hanson Cars (which Elyse drove), and took a spin on the Riverview Carousel. There was also some ice cream at one point.

It was fun, though I'm not sure I'm eager to do it again anytime soon. It's an hour away, and there's lot of people, and you wouldn't believe how sunburned I got. (Note for next year: When Anna offers you sunscreen, take some! Also, wear a shirt with a collar and a hat.)

When I was a kid, way back in the 1970s, Six Flags was a magical place, a kind of Kid Heaven. Frankly, I might still have that affection for it if they hadn't done away with the Tales of the Okefenokee ride, but they did in 1980.

None of us took a camera or anything that can take pictures, so I don't have any pictures of our day to post, which is kind of liberating in a way. I am posting a few pictures from my visits to Six Flags in the 1970s, for nostalgia's sake:

(This is me and my father on the carousel, forty (or so) years ago.)

(Sadly, H.R. Pufnstuf no longer roams the park.)

(Me and Dad on the Hanson cars.)

(The last three are B'rer Bear and B'rer Rabbit and some other rabbit from the Tales of the Okefenokee ride, circa 1975. Or 1978. Or 1973. I really have no idea, but I don't think it changed in the 14 years it was there.)

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today, Anna and I have been married for fifteen years!

Elyse at Tree Top Quest

Today, Elyse's Girl Scouts troop went to Treetop Quest in Buford to climb around amongst the tree tops. Here are some pictures from her adventure: