Superheroes

I was going through my old email, trying to file and respond to things that could be filed or responded to quickly. I'm woefully behind on, well, EVERYTHING, and email is no exception.

This picture is from when Mike babysat with the kids back in June so I could go see Todd perform with an experimental band in Baltimore.

Adorable, right? They had recently been to Dash's superhero-themed birthday party. Even some of the grown-ups wore costumes. Check out these foxy mamas:

Todd's performance was great, by the way. He performed in a swelteringly hot, unairconditioned studio in an industrial park in Baltimore. I was afraid he and Bob might pass out from the heat.

What's that on your head? A wig!

Liam's day off

Liam's daycare was closed today, so he got an extra special, anything-you-want-to-do day. We started off by buying him a toy (which he later decided he didn't like after all and gave to his sister), and then off to the park to throw popcorn at the fish.

Afterward, Liam decided he wanted sushi for lunch. We took him to Tako Grill in Bethesda, my new favorite sushi place in the area. He enthusiastically ate avocado rolls and California rolls with roe, but he also devoured two complete servings of red bean and vanilla mochi. It was a great day!

Goofy

I know this is an incredibly silly picture, but doesn't Thea look like such a teenager here?

Thea's first day of first grade

Today is Thea's first day of first grade!

She's in a class with two of her best friends, Wendy and Jackie, and her teacher, Miss Toledo, seems nice. She looks like she's maybe twenty-five, but her class was cheerful and well organized. I think it's going to be a great year.

Such big boots for such a little boy

Liam loves wearing grown-up shoes. Don't all kids?

And my word, what a tired-looking kid. I wonder if I can convince him to take a nap....

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, August 13, 2010

Floogee was lucky enough to win tickets to see Sharon Jones at an exclusive show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, his home town. We knew from seeing them last year that the show was going to be worth the drive. Sharon works the crowd like no one I've ever seen, and the band is amazing. Their style is '60s soul, and you really get a sense of what it must have been like to see greats like Tina Turner in their prime.

Painting our nails

I'm not sure if you can see the paint on my ankle. There's also paint on the floor, wall, and boy. But it was still very fun.

Funniest name for a car ever

Thea is reading a bedtime story to Liam

My cube

My friends call me Plug-In (as in blog plug-in; get your mind out of the gutter). It's kind of a new nickname.

Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Wolf Trap, July 31, 2010

What a week for music! First the Black Keys, then Aretha Franklin, and lastly Gustav Holst's The Planets, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Emil de Cou. (I have no idea who that is, but I'm including his name just in case that means anything to you.) It was a lot of fun. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful night, and we got perfect seats on the sold-out lawn.

Here's what Wolf Trap wrote about the performance:

The Planets is complemented by beautiful HD images in Gustav Holst's The Planets (2006), a suite of seven high-definition short films produced to accompany live performances of the popular orchestral suite. It was produced and directed by José Francisco Salgado, with Adler Planetarium and Vectors & Pixels Unlimited, Executive Producer.

Each of the short films in this critically-acclaimed suite includes awe-inspiring images of the featured planet, historical illustrations from the Adler Collection of Works on Paper, NASA and ESA animations, as well as animations produced by the film’s director, astronomer and visual artist José Francisco Salgado. The film is not intended to be seen as a documentary but rather as an art piece that aims to inspire audiences and encourage them to learn more about our solar system and the Universe.

And the pieces that opened the night:

Suite from Avatar (James Horner)
Suite from WALL*E (Thomas Newman)
Theme from Lost in Space (John Williams)
Imperial March from Star Wars (John Williams)
Flying Theme from ET (John Williams)
Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Richard Strauss)