LYDIA'S VISIT

The inspiration for Lydia's visit this week was the recital which marked the Tenth Anniversary of the Quinn School of Irish Dance - the school which Lydia was a "founding member" of (at least if dance terminology is like Church terminology).  

Ten years ago we took the leap and left the highly respected O'Hare School in Detroit, to drive a bit less far and join Erin's new school in Marshall/Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Erin is a most exacting teacher, and she probably ended up making Lydia the disciplined person which she is today.  Below is a short video I took of  Lydia dancing a Treble Reel with Erin.

Erin Quinn and Lydia

Lydia stayed from Friday through Monday.  She took Anastasia to get her ears pierced again; this seems to be a tradition.  Good thing Lydia doesn't come visit too often!  Then we went out (just the girls) for Mexican food.  Lydia bought me a Mother's Day gift:

There is a story (an OLD story) behind this bracelet.  When I was a very little girl, 4, in preschool, one day another girl spent a day there.  She had the most marvelous bracelet!  It had brightly colored little plastic fruit charms.  Oh!  I loved that bracelet and wanted one so much.  I do not know if I was able to describe it all that well to my parents, and I doubt even if I could, that they would have known how to find just such a bracelet for me...but I do remember how they tried!  The closest match, apparently was a small plastic bowling ball on a ball chain, which I wore for a loooong time.  But, no bright little fruit.  In the back of my mind for all these [many] intervening years, I've had that little bracelet in my mind - so imagine my surprise and delight to find just the bracelet!!!  I'm not sure that the little girl's fruit had faces, but mine does.

On Friday night we ate chocolate and watched a wonderful movie - Midnight in Paris....totally "up my alley" so to speak.  On Saturday we took a family trip to Lake Michigan  -  at least we  got four "family" in the car besides Craig and me - Lydia, Maxim, Ilya and Zhenya.  Sergei and Anastasia were with friends.

No one was up for posing, but I got this photo of all of them to prove it.

I am not sure why we didn't really dress for the beach.  We all put our feet in the water, but that is about it....we did enjoy the sun and the lighthouse, and so forth.  I think Lydia, who lives in Virginia Beach, is spoiled for beaches, anyway.

Lydia enjoyed the dogs while she was here, and we cooked Mexican food another night.

Yesterday she went home.  On Monday we had quite a "challenging" sort of "adventure"....but I'll write about that in another post.