Kate's big show

Nova Scotian (is that a word?) bliss

Just another fantastic trip to see Len and Shoshana and their three supergirls (the full gang of five shown below) and as always hosted impeccably by Diane and Harold. Best of all was the now becoming normal instantaneous picking up where they last left off amongst all of the girls - to be honest, there were some periods of multiple hours when we just didn't think of them at all (can child services read this thing?) because they played so well (and so independently) together.It was another week of perfect weather, great company (even a little bit - never enough - of bridge), and (again topping what have become very high expectations) food fit for gourmet, but of course the best of all were daily, or more frequent, trips to one beach or another. My girls learned to love their borrowed wetsuits, as it made swimming (sometimes actually seeming quite like) forever possible. To wit:
But let's not forget the real purpose of the trip - wicked good tennis, again at least once and often quite a bit more each day - of course, you have to get last night's rain off before you can play. Thankfully we had some relatively (pun intended) cheap labor for this.
And it wasn't all communing with nature either - here are the boys taking care of business at the Keltic Lodge's bar during Buddy McDonald's concert (all five girls got to sing backup on one number)
buying Shirley Temples for younger Kate and Abby, amongst other less innocuous concoctions.
And Len/Mr. Pretty-darn-capable-at-all-trades of course provided nature's bounty, again per tradition...

Summer vignettes so far

Even before the big adventures to South Dakota and Nova Scotia, it hasn't been a bad summer for the Kimholms. Since school let out in July, the girls have enjoyed plenty of days where you don't get dressed all that quickly...
...and the rest of us all got to see Kate's drama class perform "Robinson Crusoe in Space." The basic narrative was obviously modernized a bit, and the production including lots of music and dance, as evidence by Kate getting jiggy in the below.
Not all fun and games, of course, including the usual piano practice for both girls plus some study on maths, English, and logic tests that Kate will have to take this coming fall and winter in her applications to secondary (11+ exams) schools. Don't worry that Abby's left out, though - she's got her own study books at age appropriate level. Finally, Kate's cracking on to music theory as in the below - something that neither Alice nor I have ever studied so we're little help.
And I shouldn't forget their gymnastics show, either - if I knew more about iMovie I'd put some video clips out here, but at least for now here is Abby doing her up-and-over on the single bar,
Kate pleased that her dad made it to at least one of these events,
and both girls after the certificates and medals were handed out.

Best day ever

All reportage secondhand here, but Al and the girls made it back to South Dakota and according to daughter number two their first day of vacation was as titled. At one point Abby commented that she really didn't want the day to ever end.

You make the call - the list of activities included breakfast with one set of grandparents (after rising painfully early still on GMT), piano practice, playing Sorry in a crawlspace/clubhouse, lunch with more grandparents on gourmet treats from Taco Johns (sigh), visiting the Humane Society to see the cats, dogs, rabbits what-have-you, the swimming pool complete with waterslides for which Abby is tall enough this year, and the public library for reading material and movies. It sounded pretty good to me.

Country weekend - with no pictures

We didn't even bring a camera, and even our mobile phones weren't handy when we needed them to capture Kate and Abby fully kitted out in riding gear on their respective horses for an hour long riding lesson, but the above is what the manor house looked like (stolen from their website) - it will tell you everything you need to know about the place that our rooms were in the old stables. Those horses had it good.

Just an overnight escape from the city (all of 20 miles away from our house) to spend a little time as a family before Al and girls head back to South Dakota for a month, but in a 24 hour period we accomplished...well, lots of swimming in the pool, borrowing mountain bikes for a spin around the 240 acre park (Abby made it the whole way, using handbrakes for the first time but still stuck on a one-speed bike), spa and massage for the adults, the first time ever the girls actually wanted to stay in a 'kids club' - and they really didn't want to leave it either - plus the aforementioned horseback ride, where of course Abby and Kate's trotting skills put me to shame. Alice on the other hand seemed like she belonged up there. I shouldn't forget to mention seeing some of the polo players warming up on their ponies - what a crazy sport that seems - or the fact that Range Rover was demoing their new small SUV there on a constructed hill that allowed them to show the power to alternate wheels as they swayed and tilted, driving with only three wheels on the surface. Can I use crazy again so soon?

Needless to say, we'd like to go back as soon as possible, and the rest of the weekend wasn't bad either, including my first ever professional tennis lesson (much to unlearn, per Yoda) and a family trip to the Barbican for its animated film expo and a big screen viewing of Studio Ghibli's "My Neighbors the Yamadas." Same group that did Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away - this was a comedic take on modern family life that had the girls in stitches again and again.

All of this in uncharacteristically beautiful sunny summer weather - aaaaaah.....

Sports Day

It was a rainy sports day, but the kids did not care!

Abby carefully handles the spoon and potato race.

Who knows what Kate's doing here, but I thought this was a cute picture of her. I think she's cheering on her relay teammate. Go! Go! Go!!!!!
Here's a tornado race, where the team holds a bar and runs to a cone, around the cone twice and back to the start.
Victory! For what? Who knows, but she's pretty happy.
Noah, her schoolmate got himself into this picture.
Lining up for the 400m dash (it's not really a dash, says Abby)...
After the first turn, the girls look good.
Kate accepts her certificate and medal.
And so does Abby.
It was a great day!

Abby's missing teeth

Abby's missing quite a few teeth!