My kid-free sliver of summer is coming to an end

 

The girls' dance studio had photos week this week, which threw my routines into a tizzy (which is actually FINE because I am treating this month as an epoch in between seasons, so I have sort of embraced the no-routine routine). My reward for the chaos, though, was watching Minnie's classes perform in their costumes after their group pictures. OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO CUTE. Like, I do not know why the ballet dance has a monent of butt-shaking, but I AM HERE FOR IT.

And she's such a pretty little ballerina

In sad news, she does NOT want to try out for the dance team this summer, but I am definitely going to sign her up for at least one more rec class next year because I love Dance Minnie so much.

Dorothy got her summer dance placements, and she is going to be in the studio for fewer hours than she was last summer because she is taking only one set of hip hop classes (last year she was on the bubble level-wise, so she took 2 sets of classes-- tech class and choreo class, for a total of 4 core HH classes a week). I also dod not sign her up for any extra credit classes this summer (except for 1 HH combos class that all her friends are taking **eye roll*). She also decided to stop taking tap **sob again**.  Each week this summer, she has 3 hours of ballet, plus 30 minutes of pre-pointe and an hour of modern. She also has a strength class for an hour, three hours of hip hop, one hour of jazz tech, and 45 minutes of jazz choreo. Phew! She also wants to dive for summer league because she is thinking about doing dive team in high school-- sooooo, I feel like her summer is all set.

We did a crazy kid shuffle at dance on Tuesday this week, and thank goodness Ben was home on a random Tuesday to help drive all of the places. He also got to see Minnie in her jazz glory, important since he is going to be at USA Diving zones with Cooper during the dance recital (this summer is PACKED YOU GUYS-- PACKED).

I have been hard at work on my summer season intentions, since my mom sabbatical comes to an abrupt end in a few days (June 10 to be exact, but the last couple weeks of school have tons of interruptions and events I have to attend, so this feels like my last real week). AND I read some really excellent books this month-- both things I am excited to share more about next week. For now, though, you can just imagine me ecstatic to have a plan-less weekend and a whole yard to clean up-- if that is not an old lady's late spring dream, I don't know what is.

(we don't use pesticides, so I have been waging a war on individual dandelions, and I AM WINNING).