The Curtis Clan - Spring 2009

Spring Equinox to Summer Solstice

A T-Rex named Sue

In celebration of spring or maybe just a bit of cabin fever, we hit the Science Museum on the Equinox to see the Grand Canyon Imax movie and visit the cast model of Sue the largest T-Rex. It was the first time the girls visited the dinosaurs at the Scieince Center without shreaking in fear on the animitronic version. Progress but don't see either fantasizing about becoming a palenotologist.

Randy Jane Cate and Sue

Blooms from the crocuses followed in short order by the forsythia bushes, daffodils, magnolia trees, pear trees and finally the red buds herald spring here in STL and calls to us to visit their temporary glory as it brightens our neighborhood. Walking is becoming a more regular past time, with the warmer weather, longer daylight and higher endurance by the girls to go further than just around the block before whining to be carried.

Sporadically the spring time weather was fantastic drawing us out of the comforts of home. One Sunday after receiving her allowance, Jane wanted to buy some McDonald’s French fries. While certainly not our recommended choice of things to spend money on, Dad acquiesced on the condition we walked there and back. Cate was feeling a bit under the weather so Jane agreed to pull her in the weekend with help from the surprisingly strong Lilly. As expected Dad ended pulling the train on the way back but it was a pleasant outing.

Lilly and Jane taking Cate for a walk to Old Orchard

2009_03_22 CJ and Lilly walking to McDs.jpg

During Spring Break, Bethany took the girls to Purina Farms with other members of their play group. All the kids had a great time seeing and touch the farm animals including the horses. Fortunately, they didn’t come home with the girl stereotype fantasies of owning a pony; may be that comes later or it’s supplanted but the overall Princess fantasy of which horse ownership is but one small aspect of royal entitlement.

Cate and Jane enjoy the horses	at Purina Farms

Randy missed that outing being on the road a lot as he was in his 8th month as a Project Manager for a couple of high profile projects in Orlando (e.g. Pinecastle Jeep Range). On Friday 27 March he helped the local Congressman host a town hall meeting on the sites. The freshman Congressman claimed credit for getting funding for the projects which he had really nothing to do with but did said several things the Corps needed him to say, so I guess everyone got a little bit of what they needed.

Randy speaking at Congressman Grayson's townhall

The Democratic Congressman is the one to Randy’s left whose profile

bares a striking resemblance to our 37th President.

2009-03-27 Randy speaking a Congress Grayson townhall.jpg

Turtlenecks keep the Curtis Clan warm in early spring

2009-03-28 Curtis Family in black turlenecks.jpg

Cate at 5!

Cate’s 5th Birthday became a weeklong celebration much to her pleasure and her parents concern that we’re spoiling the kids. OK we acknowledge there is spoiling happening as a function of being a kid in middle class American today, but it a matter of degrees and relativity.

Cate at five with cake

Anyway, the festivities started a day before her birthday, so her Dad could attend the family gathering on Sunday, having to be in Florida on Monday. It was the standard pizza and cake affair that has become the family norm. Cate was very pleased by getting a bike but in the months that followed hasn’t been overly inspired to work at learning how to ride it with any confidence. We need some peer pressure to help with that.

Cate with her new bike

On Monday her actual birthday, she got to bring cup cakes into school. After school, Bethany took the girls to the movies “Monsters versus Aliens” and a trip to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. Jane had movements of jealousy at all the gifts and attention showered on her sister. However when prompted she reluctantly had to admit, with all the fun stuff that the family got to do Cate having a birthday was really the next best thing to having one of her own.

On Saturday, Cate got to have her first party with friends. It was a originally only a tea party theme like Jane’s 5th B day party but the girls begged to also make it a princess dress up theme too, ascertaining it as an all girl affair except for dad. She invited 9 friends and all accepted. Not surprising for anyone with young girls from the last decade, all the girls also had their own princess dress up costumes and it was all very cute (and disturbing at the same time from question of the princess as a roll model standpoint). Bethany made a princess themed games: bingo, pin-the-crown on the princess and teacup bean bag toss. Of course, among the gifts Cate received were princess Barbies. Resistance to the princess/Barbie culture wave is futile.

Cate desending stairs before her Princess party

Princess party

Big Mouthed Frog Puppet Show

Jane and cast of the Wide Mouth Frog

2009_04_08 Jane and cast of Wide Mouth Frog.jpg

Jane’s class has a puppet segment and she snared the lead role in one of the class’s presentation of the short puppet play "The Story of the Wide-mouth Frog". The school had a puppeteer group coming to the school for 2 weeks to work with the class and teach them all about puppets - the different types, how to make them, etc. They then assigned parts and each student made their own puppet. Jane could read the entire play so they gave her the lead role - it was 2 type-written pages. She took her duties very seriously, practicing and memorizing her many lines for several days before hand. On the day of the production she had butterflies and concerns that she wouldn’t be able to do it just right. Her fears were unfounded as her practice paid off and she did a TERRIFIC job! . Granted we’re biased but she really did better than the other kids. Hopefully she’ll take away the lesson of the value of practicing in order to do something well. Wee recorded the performance on our bouncy point and shoot camera and a cell phone camera which don’t do justice to the craftsmanship of the puppeteering.

Daisey Scout Troop

Easter

Jane and Cate with their Easter baskets

Easter was a two major meal celebration for the day; first a brunch at Aunt RoRos and than to Rhonda and Doug’s for a barbeque. We were definitely uncomfortably full after this and are happy when the family gatherings get spaced out a bit better.

Easter with the Sages

Jane with Maddie and Lilly

The last weekend in April, Jane and Cate had their year end Ballerina / Dance recitals at the Crestwood recreational center after taking classes since last September. Although very cute in their recital costumes, as we noted before we don’t have to worry about saving up for Julliard for either one. It was an event that only family members could want to attend. The other high note to the recital is that it marked the end of the weekly classes which didn’t get them home until 7:10 pm, which is 10 minutes past bed time on a school night.

Cate and Jane anchor stage right	of their dance recital chorus line

Jane and Cate strike a poise at Stegar

2009-04-26 JC at Stegar before conscert.jpg

Earth Day 2009

St. Louis celebrated on the Sunday after the actual event in Forest Park. It was a beautiful sunny day, albeit a bit windy, so we packed up the clan and visited the various booths. The vendors were an eclectic mix of outdoor agencies and groups, New Agers and corporate PR and hucksters. Generally they were grouped by themes so the Green builders (Home Depot, AmerinUE, etc) were separate from the Green Peace and Sierra Club types. The whole thing had a lets make a buck / hippie-wanna-a-be vibe to it that made us feel a bit out of place and surprisingly conservative. The few Republicans that ventured forth are sure to have felt this even more so.

Jane and Cate playing in a tree at Forest Park Earth Day Celebration

On the first weekend in May, we made a road trip to Indianapolis to visit the Bethany’s brother Justin and his family for the baptism of their fourth child Ben.

Sage tribe gather for Ben's baptism in Indy

2009-05-02 Sage tribe Bens Baptism Indy.jpg

Clan Curtis

The cousins enjoyed an outing to Broad Ripple Park in the afternoon and had a great time over the whole weekend.

Sage Cousins	Sage Cousins with Gramy and Gral

On the second Saturday of May, Randy’s sister celebrated her “wedding” to Doug with friends and family at the Richmond Heights VFW. It started in the afternoon and was fairly kid friendly events as many of the Devil Dogs volleyball team showed up to help them celebrate.

Curti at Rhonda and Doug reception

Spring time 2009 also marked the transition to reading chapter books before bedtime most nights. Bethany has been reading the girls the Joanie B Jones tales about the kindergartener since last fall, but that was in the afternoons. Randy switched from reading only picture books at night with Beverly Cleary’s first book ”Henry Huggins”, a personal favorite that he pushed on the girls despite their misgivings. They enjoyed the story none-the-less. After that came “Mary Poppins”, which the girls found interesting in contrast to the movie that they’ve seen so often and listen to the soundtrack even more often. Worth noting is this is one clear example where the movie is far and beyond better than the book, and we all lost interest in finishing it (There's a reason why it isn't readily found in the kid book section any more).

After talking about it for nearly a year, Jane finally got her wish to have short hair. She was quite pleased with the results but her parents had somewhat mixed feelings as her appearance leaped forward a couple years.

Jane shows off her new short hair coif with Cate

2009-05-16 Janes new short hair coif with Cate.jpg

The melancholy of time passing continued with the end of school year. Cate’s no longer a preschooler and is more than ready for kindergarten (whether her parent’s are or not). She's already claims the Computer School as hers, much to her older sibling's chagrin.

Cate's last day of Preschool

Jane finished kindergarten, which coupled with attending cousin Tyler’s high school graduation party and the perspective that a mere 12 years hence we’d be having a graduation party for Jane was a bit of a heart breaker for both parents.

Jane's class say

Thank You to Mrs. Belike

2009-05-21 Janes Kindergarten class Thank You.jpg

We’ve noted over the years that Memorial and Labor Day weekends are a couple of the quietest for us socially, as there never is any planned events. This year was no different but we were looking forward to a groovy weekend of “no deeds to do, no promises to keep” after a couple hectic months. The next weekend, the girls got a balcony/crow's nest to their clubhouse /fort with spare wood left over from the house addition in 2003.

Jane & Cate playing on their new balcony with Lilly

In celebration of the last day of school, we took the girls to the Tivoli where we meet to see PIXAR’s “Up”. After that, we had dinner at Blueberry Hill to complete the introduction of the girls to the place where their parents met across a crowed room.

Jane & Cate's first visit to Tivoli

2009-06-02 Last day of school visit to Tivoli and UP.jpg

Bethany signed the girls up for several summer classes and camp for June and the first part of July. Shrewsbury offered a half day camp for the first 5 weeks starting on 8 June. Swimming lessons were twice a week, this time through Webster University instead of YMCA. Through Webster Groves Rec. Center, the girls started tennis lessons. They seem to be enjoying them all.

Cate and Jane start tennis lessons

Watch out Serena and Venus!

Maddie at 15

On the last Monday of spring we had planned to make our now annual pilgrimage to Six Flags with the Holmes family, only to be thwarted by torrential rains in the morning. We (Randy and Anthony) fibbed to the kids that the park was going to be closed for the day and quickly developed Plan B as a day at the City Museum. The four girls had a fabulous time exploring the caves, tunnels and quirky art, being more adventurous than the year before but still limiting themselves to only 3-4 stories up on the indoor slide and outdoor climbing sculpture (the rain eventually stopped). We broke for lunch at Soda Fountain Dinner in Lafayette Square, having subjected ourselves to the City Museum's fare in the past before returning to close the place down.

City Museum with Holmes

Jane emerges from the floor	Cate dances among the mosaics

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