Blackrock Summit

Zara climbed up here all by herself. She's become quite the climber, and I can only imagine that another summer at Hidden Meadows will help her continue the trend.

Bridge Kids

Here are the Bridge Kiddos performing Tell Me Ma/Nell Fee's Polka at the BRIMS CD release part at C'ville Coffee.

CD Release Party

BRIMS recorded a 2nd CD (it's called "Here's to You" and if you'd like a copy, let us know, we can arrange something) this past summer. To celebrate the CD release, many of the performers reunited for a concert at C'ville Coffee. While this group of Scoil kids is not on the CD, they did lead off the show with an incredibly sweet performance of an Irish lullaby. Zara's technically no longer a Scoil kid (she's now a Bridge kid) but she was feeling nostalgic and decided to join in the fun, too.

Preschool BFFs

In spite of the sturm und drang typical of preschool friendships, Amity and Amaya remain very close this year, too. Is the matching dress snuggles just the cutest or what?

Happy Halloween!

A very happy halloween from Merida (from "Brave") and her triplet brother bears. Amity was all three bears (she has 2 on her back, as can be seen pretty well in the first photo) but you'd be hard pressed to know who was who. For trivia purposes, their names are Hamish, Harris and Hubert. Kiddos had a great time trick or treating in Johnson Village (next neighborhood over).

Blue Ridge (Crozet) Tunnel

I wasn't actually here for this very cool tunnel exploration. (I had a job interview. More on that later, perhaps.) But, to sum up, Zara and her BRIMS buds danced and played music in this no longer in use but total feat of engineering tunnel as part of a documentary. Perhaps more on that when it comes out, too.

Amity's Turn

Amity was very excited about the Mountaintop Fall Festival this year as she had grand plans to take a pony ride. She very patiently waited in line for over half an hour to take her turn riding Gentleman. As you can see from the video, she's a natural on horseback. Like a certain sister and a certain aunt. Looks like the horse love runs deep in this family.... and now we're living in Virginia, it will likely be harder to sublimate these desires....

Halloween Preview

The first picture is how Zara's halloween costumed look a few weeks ago, and the next one is of me modeling it about 5 steps into the process (the design has about 30 steps, though 7 of them pertain to the neck ruffle!). The last picture is Zara's hair in prep for the big day. We'll have more pics of Zara in her costume, and Amity in hers as well, on the actual day...

Fall Fiber Festival

Though it is supposed to be the "Fall" Fiber festival, a heat wave swept across Central Virginia and so the Fiber Festival was distinctly summery. Despite the sweltering temps, here are a few clips of Zara and her BRIMS buddies performing.

Dancing... in a bar

Zara and a few of her BRIMS buddies were asked to dance at the Sean Keane (and friends) show at the Southern. Which to be fair, isn't just a bar. It is actually a lovely little venue, one at which I hope to see future shows, even. They performed beautifully (and seemed to be having a great deal of fun, which is really the important part) as evidenced by the above video.

Zara and her buddy L lead off, and the amazingly awesome dancer in the middle is Marina (Zara's soft shoe teacher this year). Incidentally, Marina ran the kiddos for the majority of the show, so Wes and I got to sit in the audience, together, with no one squirming on our laps or screaming whispering in our ear about how they were bored or asking us compelling but completely unrelated to the show we were watching questions. Nearly a date. It was delightful. As was Sean and his co-conspirators Fergus and Pat.

Editor's Note: This is the second time in recent memory we've had Zara dancing at a bar considerably past her bedtime on a school night. Well, school-ish night, she actually didn't have school the next day. And it will likely happen again in the future. Because that's how we roll.