17!

Amy celebrated her 17th birthday by having a show for musical theatre class, which she is the teacher's assistant for. "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" had its first showing on her birthday and then again the following night, and it was a super funny show. I think it was a little tiring to spend your birthday going to school and then staying at theater for five plus hours after that, but she was with her people so it was all good!

It's been a big week or two, with Amy being asked to prom by Ashley, who she also does stage management with. So now they are officially dating and that's a whole new world for us, since Reed hasn't jumped in that particular pool just yet. We will all find our way through it! 😀 I am happy that she's going to her first high school dance, and she was excited to choose a prom dress to order online (now we are anxiously awaiting its arrival and hoping it fits without alterations!). Many more decisions still to come – shoes, hair, jewelry, dinner location, and more. 

I am very grateful that this has been a semi-normal junior year, though it's not been without its covid-related challenges. When our *^@($_ governor decided to stop localities from requiring masks at school, that was particularly hard for Amy, and she is still wearing a mask and is not comfortable being around those at school who aren't (well, she happily has meals next to lots of people not wearing masks, but that doesn't count in her mind). When you've been told to do something to keep people safe for nearly two years, I understand that it's hard to make the switch. So we do our best to support her, while also trying to help her understand that the risks are not the same as they once were, and we're not going to wear masks forever (though it sure was nice not to go nearly two years without getting a cold!). 

Amy spends pretty much five days a week after school at theater, and sometimes Saturdays too. It's a full schedule and a tiring one, but clearly she enjoys it and I think she still has enough time to do some fun things with friends and also have down time. 

She is starting to think about what she might want to do after high school graduation, which is exciting. We have a few college tours lined up for spring break next month, so we will see what she thinks about the whole idea now that it's closer to reality....I think when she visited CNU, VCU and JMU with Reed, it was too far-off of a concept. 

Happy #17, Amy, we love you so much and are so proud of you! 

Trying to make up for lost time

This past weekend was Freedom Theatre's production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The kids did a tremendous job, as usual.

I am personally still recovering from volunteering so much during the Tech Weeks, another VHSL competition, and then the four days of shows. 

All the Head Techs after the show

From February 15 through 27, I was at school for hours pretty much every day. I was also doing a million errands – picking up show t-shirts, picking up Playbills, picking up dinners for 100+ kids, going to Walmart/Target and Costco/BJ's day after day buying snacks and concessions. I helped serve meals and supervised the backstage area. I price-shopped for the best prices for roses we could sell individually at the shows. I helped set up the lobby for concessions and Break-a-Leg-a-Gram sales. I also prepared 1,500 "Break-a-Leg-a-Grams" in a new format. I have no idea how many hours I gave, but it was a lot! 

And it was SO terrific to be part of it all! I had the opportunity to see the kids "in action" and get to know some of them a little better. And since I was there helping clean up after the final show, I even got to watch the "follies" where the Head Techs basically perform the play at triple speed, using as many actual lines from the script as they can, but mostly paraphrasing and zipping through it. I don't think Amy really approved of my being there, but oh well! They had a great time and I felt very lucky to see it.

I hate it so much that because of the pandemic we all missed a year and a half of school time where Amy could have been doing in-person theatre and I could have been volunteering. But I won't lament lost time, I will just do all I can to make the most of the next year+ before Amy graduates!