The In Between

The only sad thing about our New York trip, was that when we came home, we discovered that Ryder's chicken, Billie, had died.  We'd had Adam and a neighborhood girl checking in on them, so it wasn't because they'd been neglected.  I think it was just the extreme heat that did her in.  It definitely put a damper on our homecoming, and it seemed especially cruel since Ryder would get up every morning and greet Billie by telling her how much he loved her.  We decided we would get another chicken so Ryder could have a new pet, but this meant quite a bit of research to find a place where we could get a grown chicken, since you can't really just raise one chick.  Different places had different breeds, so Ryder pondered on his choices for a bit, and ultimately decided on a farm out in Bedford, VA.  I was busy the day we could go, so Craig drove out there with most of the kids, and Kendra texted me this very happy picture:

Meet Olivia!  She's a lovely lavender Orpington

It was nice to see Ryder so happy again!  Unfortunately we are having a hard time getting Olivia (as in Olivia Rodrigo, following our theme of naming chickens after pop stars!) integrated into her new flock.  Watching them is like observing a bunch of middle schoolers in the cafeteria picking on the nerd trying to ingratiate herself with the in-crowd.  It's kind of sad, and chickens can be real jerks.  But I'm sure we'll get there eventually!

Also during that week...

Colton creates a mayonnaise face on his sandwich...

I think this was snapped after we'd been playing a rather violent round of Pit for Family Home Evening!

The thing I'd been busy with was a summer choir concert!  Cville Opera had asked any TOSVA members who were available to join in with their Emerging Artists program for their FestivALL-- a free concert at the Pavilion with all 16 soloists performing and a few choir numbers (like "Masquerade" from Phantom of the Opera and "You Got Trouble" from The Music Man) and also some ballet dancers performing.  It was fun to do, but I have to admit, I felt bad being at rehearsals and missing out on family time on a summer evening.  (In the winter, not much is usually happening so I've never felt too guilty not being home!  I was not expecting this!)  The concert itself was wonderful but also insanely hot.  Like, we had big electric fans on the sides of the stage, and then we were all given hand fans, too.  And still we were all dripping with sweat!  But what a cool idea-- they had face painting and it was really designed to encourage little kids to be there and get some exposure to high art (the first soloist sang the Queen of the Night solo from Magic Flute!  And she did it really well!).  I love stuff like that!

Camille enjoyed the face painting!

"Oh we got trouble!  Right here in River City!"  (If you look really closely, my head is sticking up just to the right of the front row guy wearing a tux on the left) (if that makes any sense at all)

I did not realize I was so much taller than the other women around me!

We were only home for a week and a half before we were... Driving back to New York again!  But this time instead of visiting my sister just outside the city, we were bringing all the youth to see church historic sites in upstate New York.  It was time for yet another High Adventure!