Summer Officially Begins In Bristow, VA, with the Girls

Halle and Granny, Getting Dinner Ready

Halle

Hayden Dancing

Hayden and Jill, At Rehearsal

It's early in Bristow, 6:30, and everyone else is asleep, will not be up for another hour or two or three in case of young Hayden Bissell.  A delightful morning, sun peaking occasionally through the trees that surround the Bissell's backyard.  It looks like a warm day, highs in the 80's, warmer than Chautauqua for sure.

Our seven hour drive yesterday was easy, a beautiful morning to pass through the Allegheny Forest, which is much of our drive through PA.  We did not stop at Gio's, the barbecue place, alas, so I had a Mickey D's breakfast instead, what a downer.  Not much traffic, lots of green on both sides of the road, much different from our drive in December for Christmas.  Everything is so much farther along in this part of the US; we must be about the last area where rhododendrons and peonies bloom in the States.  We left a bit before 7:00, arrived in Bristow just before 2:00, our typical seven hour ride which most people say should take six hours.

The Dancers

When we arrived, we quickly unpacked as Hayden had to get to a long  rehearsal for her ballet program tomorrow evening.  Evie went with Jill and Hayden and I went to the neighborhood pool with Halle, her girl friend and her Mom.  It's a great pool, lots of mom's, few dad's, and good place for the kids to hang out in the afternoon.  It was very warm, in the 80's, quite a difference from this morning's 48º in Chautauqua, so even I jumped in the pool, and played game of tag with the girls.  We stayed for about an hour, then I took them to the nearby playground, where they played for another half an hour before we went home.  Since Halle and I were alone, we had a snack, ice cream and chips, later some gold fish, but don't tell her Mom.  We then took Coco for a walk, Halle riding her bike.  And we looked at pictures on my computer from the past two winters at the lake, when Halle and family came to visit.

The dancers did not get home till 7:45, so I put the lasagna in the oven, to go along with a rotisserie chicken, both easy and everyone was hungry.  It sounds like the rehearsal was one from hell, extraordinarily long, with teachers often stopping the groups, to help the dancers with their performances.  And get this, there were 52 different groups of dancers.  I get to sit through all of them tomorrow evening.   After dinner, I started watching the NBA finals but we all went to bed around 10:30, tired from our long day.  I assumed the Heat would win, with the home court advantage and they obviously did, to the dismay of Cleveland fans.

Nothing on the agenda for today, enjoy the girls then go to Hayden's Recital  tonight at 7:00.