Girls' Weekend

Bethany's birthday was thoroughly enjoyable but yielded no photographs. We finally got around to booking her birthday party so there will be photos on the 8th of August, exactly a month after her birthday. Toby did a great job of being happy for Bethany when he was so very excited for himself. On Thursday he and Andrew went all the way to Brisbane, the return trip involving four plane rides, for the purpose of seeing Celtic (the Scottish football team) play. We have Skyped regularly so know that they are having a wonderful time. Brisbane is full of Celtic fans from all over Australia and New Zealand (!?) so Toby, decked out in Celtic gear, is getting thumbs up from strangers everywhere he goes. They went to Australia Zoo yesterday which was fabulous even though they didn't see Bindi or Terri Irwin. The game is this afternoon and I am looking forward to seeing the photos, maybe he'll put some here.

No boys, of course, means a girls' weekend. On Friday night we made our own pizzas and ate them in the lounge room while watching Pride and Prejudice. We went for the movie version so that we could watch the whole thing in one go and Joss was a bit put out that there was no kissing at the end. We have been giving Milo some exercise, taking him for walks to the park. He has that habit that many people have of walking next to someone and drifting into them. I tripped over him and sprained my ankle, only mildly. We have also being playing soccer with him, he's pretty good.

At the end of each year Bethany's dance school puts on a huge costumes, sets and lights extravaganza. In the middle of the year they have what they call a display where every class, just wearing their uniform and optional make-up and glitter, get up on a stage and give a little performance of what they have been doing in class. Bethany was pretty excited as we bought her some proper ballet tights and promised lipstick and mascara. There are so many classes held at the school in ballet, jazz, tap, cheer leading and acrobatics that the show was to go for three hours! Thankfully Bethany was on in the first half. Here she is before she left wearing the beautiful coat she got for her birthday and her new, super natural looking, screwed up face smile.
The jazz and tap kids were on first so we had a while to wait but Bethany really enjoyed watching the other kids on stage.

She didn't seem nervous but there were several small children who just stood on stage crying so I reminded her to smile and have fun. I could see her cheesy grin from our seats towards the back. She was great, remembering all her steps and smiling the whole time. She's right in the middle.

Jossie and Bethany had ice cream to celebrate a successful show and when they were both in bed I sat down with tea and scones.

I watched And When did You Last See Your Father which was a quietly lovely film. Ah, the serenity.