4.5 hours of driving and 3 minutes of dancing

This weekend we drove north 130 miles on I-75 to Bluffton, Ohio, home of our niece Kelly and her family.  Today was the year end dance recital for Darby Elaine and we planned to be there.  We missed it last year since Max was in Las Vegas meeting Mikayla, our new granddaughter.  Now I think meeting a new beautiful granddaughter definitely qualifies as an "excused" absence from any event! Now this wasn't just any little dance recital as we soon found out.  There were 50 (yes fifty) dance numbers in the recital and Darby was in #30 and the grand finale.  So we sat through the first 25 before an intermission and then anxiously awaited Darby's group that came up at number 5 in the second half.  Darby's dance number must have lasted at least 3 minutes, but we were there to see it and then the final 20 numbers. I have a history watching a little girl dance!  Amber studied dance with a studio in Norman before we moved to Cincy- and then here in Cincy at two different studios!  And each event is unique in it's own way as it reflects the culture of that particular dance studio.  But there is nothing quite like that many little girls all dressed up and ready to dance.  So I was ready to watch our girl Darby!
This dance school certainly had a lot of students (I'm guessing over 100), mostly girls ages from barely past toddler to high school.  And as you know I like to take pictures, so I put on the telephoto zoom, adjusted my ISO up to 1600 in the dark auditorium to try to get a fast enough shutter speed so the pictures wouldn't just be blurrs.  I did get a bunch of blurry pictures, but I also got some pretty good ones that you will see later. I recommend that you stick around for the end.  If you think it's too much time you just should have been sitting in that auditorium for the 3 hours- then you'd would have a REAL appreciation of the relevance of time!
But first here are the shots of Darby that came out OK.  I wasn't going to make you wait through 30 other acts before seeing Darby.

Now if you only are interested in Darby and the Prichard family you might scroll down to the bottom of this post for the pictures of the after party! But I think looking at Don's pictures are a hoot and I highly recommend!

Darby's act was in a fairly large group.  Some of the acts involved 2-3 and some as many as 20 or so.    We didn't know any of the kids other than Darby, so all of the following pictures are perfect strangers to us, but their families were all there just like us for Darby.  And you can quit right here and not look at any of them, but some were awfully cute, and it was amazing how many different costumes there were (50 to be exact).  So here they are, all of these little girls in overdone make-up, (I might mention that Kelly put the make-up on single handedly for most of these little ones!) and at least you won't have to sit through 3 hours to see them.  This little Chicken was the first act.

These next two pictures were of one of my favorite groups.  Very young girls in tap shoes and very fancy costumes. I'm really with Don on the favorites!  The little ones!  Now it is really nice to see the talent develop at the upper levels- and some of these girls really have talent (and of course lots of hard work- which is what makes the talent look so good)- but it is the little girls that brings the ear to ear grin that just doesn't go away- you just keep on giggling after they have long left the stage!

And each these little ones seemed to be just doing their own dance

OK, for those of you who lasted to the end of these pictures, here are some after pictures of Darby and family taken after the show.  First Darby with her flowers...

And with Mom & Dad...

And the sisters and brother too...

But this was not the END. NO SIREE!  Kelly promised a grand finale to a big afternoon of dance.  We were off to the local Dairy Haus for ICE CREAM- a tradition for the Prichard Family after all dance recitals! 

I bet you wish you were there!

Amber's Graduation, a Taste of Chicago, and the Botanical Garden

We traveled to Chicago to celebrate Amber's graduation from Loyola University with a Masters Degree in Public History with a focus on Museum studies.  We are so, so, so proud.  In fact I think probably you heard our buttons poppin' all the way from that beautiful Illinois city.  Amber started her studies in the fall of 2008 and has done marvelously.  When Amber left Cincy her career plans were vague at best.  During that amazing journey of graduate studies she has not only learned a whole, whole, whole lot about history, but additionally she became increasingly knowledgeable about how history is collected and catalogued and preserved.  History is so much more than a book on a shelf- but rather a collection of our past- carefully tended by the experts.  In the process of her education she became aware or the advantage of a library science degree to this career in archives- so she is actually in a dual degree program with Dominican University. She will complete the additional graduate degree next May.  (You might be noticing that we've been collecting "degrees" around here.  Just don't think the "apple" falls far from the tree.  Don has both a masters in microbiology- from OU- that would be Oklahoma! as well as a PhD in microbiology from Arizona.  And I picked up a masters in nursing and then a masters in business both from Oklahoma.  And we won't even begin to list Matthew's education pursuits- I've yet to learn all the letters of his alphabet!) 

But it was PARTY TIME in Chicago.

After our arrival in Chicago we met Evan for dinner at Las Mananitas-  very nice Mexican restaurant just a short walk from Amber's apartment. I love Mexican Food- and it just isn't easy to get good Mexican food here in Cincy.

After dinner we were already pretty tired- so we went home to rest up for our BIG, BIG, BIG day coming up!

We started with breakfast at Nookies and look what Evan brought!  Way to start the celebration! Evan does know how to impress!  And I am impressed!


After breakfast we made a trip on the train to Loyola for the Graduation Ceremony.

And after the ceremony it was all about pictures of our new graduate!

And, Loyola is located right on the west coast of Lake Michigan.  This next picture was taken in front of the "library" which has a 3 story glass wall looking out onto the lake.  We wondered how Amber was able to study as she sat in those compfy chairs lined up along the window.

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We were really fortunate this time that we could visit Amber's work with the archives at Mundelein College at Loyola.  Mundelein College was the first skyscrapper all women's college in the world- and the last all women's college in Illinois, now completely absorbed by Loyola.  Amber works with the archives for this college.

We even got to take a trip to the basement where the archives are, and Amber showed us the OSCAR!

Yep you got it- a real OSCAR!  Back in the days when they were gold. 

One of Mundelein College graduates was Mercedes McCambridge and she won an Oscar for her supporting role in "All the King's Men", though she is probably best known for as the demon voice in the Exorcist.

And she works in a beautiful building on the campus of Loyola! 

And then we were off to lunch at one of Ray Bayless's restaurant the XOCO Restaurant for lunch.  They served a really nice local beer- perfect for a hot afternoon.

And now you're going to be really, really, really jealous. We were off to watch the live taping of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!  If you have never listened to this radio program, you really should.  It is a wonderful review of the week's political happenings all done in the format of a quiz show with a wonderfully funny approach.

Amber and Don are BIG, BIG FANS.  So we got tickets for a special graduation celebration. And what a treat it was!  I laughed so hard- for the entire time.  And of course now it's even more fun to listen on NPR!

On Friday we headed out of town for the Chicago Botanic Garden.  As you well know Don and I love gardens.  And this garden was a real treat.  I think I especially loved how they respected the open spaces of the prairie. But there were lakes- and Japanese Garden... You would love it...

Max does like the open spaces, but my real favorite are all of the flowers that were in bloom.  Of course I had my macro lens with me just because I love to get up close and personal with flowers.  Below are some of my favorites.

We met up with Evan for dinner at the Hearty Boys restaurant- the owners have a new cookbook- "Talk with your Mouth Full"- and have a program on the Food Network.  Now I would have loved it just for the great food and wine they served...

But they really won me over when Steve- one of the author/owners came out to personalize my new cookbook and to talk FOOD.  I was tongue-tied! Or probably blubbering idiot is more like it!

And then we were off to the Hancock Building to spend the rest of the evening looking out over this beautiful city!

The next morning after breakfast at the Flower Flat...

We were off home.  But you can rest assured WE'LL BE BACK!