Musical Waterslides

 Freestone loves orchestra!!!

 Evil eye

 Ari in her pirate garb

 Tolly sneaking up onstage

 "Mom, why are you torturing me?"

 "Don't you love me?"

 Araceli and Freestone finished up their summer orchestra program with two fun concerts, one at the Ed Kenley amphitheater, attended by all the grandparents, and one at Cherry Hill, attended by all of our cousins and friends who wanted to spend the day with us doing waterslides.  I love all these pictures where Freestone is giving me the evil eye.  I think he experienced new levels of misery enduring this experience.  The group played Pirates of the Carribbean and Spirit of the American West, which, I admit, were way over Freestone's head.  I thought he did an admirable job of faking, though, which is a very valuable orchestra skill.  Too bad Freestone wants a valuable orchestra skill about as much as he wants his very own copy of "The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare."

Nevertheless, Freestone survived, Araceli was a pro and did a great job and they both got their FREE pass to Cherry Hill!  And look how much fun we had!  We were at Cherry Hill from 9:45 in the morning to 8:30 that night when we reluctantly left with the last of the crowd.  I left the kids to procure two meals to eat in our shady corner of the water park, but other than that, we were doing slides and pools the whole time.  I went through a whole bottle of sunscreen.   Ptolemy quite enjoyed himself, from what I could tell.  Every time I took him down the waterslide, he acted calmly indifferent like, "Uh-huh.  OK, a waterslide.  Whee?"  We drifted in the Lazy River for hours.  He loved it all just as much as the other kids, and so did I.  I wish we could go back today and every day.  I'm thinking of asking Santa for passes for next summer.  The best part, now that my kids are great swimmers, is that I could drop them off and pick them up later, and they could stay entertained and cool for hours at a time, while being outdoors and getting exercise.  Win, win, win!  Except that I might want to stay and do the waterslides, too.  Cherry Hill takes me right back to my childhood, and that's a good feeling.

As much as Freestone claimed to have hated every minute of orchestra, I love that he stuck with it.  I heard him singing Spirit of the American West in the shower last night, and I had to smile.  He may never play Carnegie Hall, but slowly, against his will, he is being enriched.  Ari's sweet friend Emma said to me after the concert yesterday, "Your family loves music."  It was such a simple validation of all my efforts, I wanted to give Emma a hug.  We love music and we love waterslides.  I wonder if there's a way to combine the two?  If there is, Freestone will probably figure it out.