Cincinnati Walks for Kids!

Last weekend as a family we did the Cincinnati Walks for Kids fundraiser for Cincinnati Children's Hospital. It was a nice opportunity for David and Mary. What's so fun is that the walk is through the Cincinnati Zoo (isn't that cool?)...and afterwards the zoo stays open late for all the walkers! So after our walk, we spent a fun little evening at the zoo.

Here are a million and one pictures. A lot of Sara--she's such a little cutie. Seeing the animals was magical for her.

And you'll notice an AMAZING picture of David WITH A SNAKE AROUND HIS NECK!! Are you shocked??? You should be! I think he's even more shocked that he did it. We 're super proud of him for overcoming his fear--especially since no one else in the family was brave enough to wear a snake!

And you'll notice Mary and some polar bears--she's working on a research project on polar bears right now. So she had to get some pictures, of course!

Enjoy...

David Sings the Star-Spangled Banner!

David is in the KME 4th grade chorus this year. They were invited to sing the national anthem at a Kings football game. We live in a very well-supported school district with one moderately sized high school--it makes for a lot of school spirit. So to sing at a high school football game was really exciting for these kids!!

The game was rained out and rescheduled, so not all of the members of the chorus were able to be there for the rescheduled game. But they did a great job even though they were short some voices!

I sneaked in to listen to them warm up--I was so impressed!! Mr. Jenkins, their director, is very dedicated. He has high expectations and treats them with great respect. Their warm-up was pretty amazing--gave me chills!

You can see a VIDEO OF THEIR PERFORMANCE HERE.

David is in the back row, smack center.

(All of the pictures in this post were taken and graciously shared by Katie Heagan, KME's awesome
art teacher, who also has a daughter in the chorus.)

Mary marches in a parade! And dances too!

This year Mary is part of a performance group at her dance studio. Last month was the city of Mason's giant bicentennial celebration, and all of the performance groups at Mary's dance studio marched in the parade together and performed at the festival. It was a big day!

Waiting for the big parade. These two are best buds.

It's an old fire truck! Must be a parade!

David loved these little Corvettes zipping around!

Hooray! Here they come! What we had been waiting for...for a very long time...they were near the end of the parade.

It's not easy dancing and marching at the same time...for miles! But they kept their pep!

Near the end of the parade, the dancers stopped and did a short performance. You can WATCH IT HERE. Mary is up front and on the end, so this video has a good view of her. Cute!

Later that afternoon, the dancers gathered together...in the rain!...for performances by the different dance teams.

Did I mention it was raining and kind of miserable?
(Mary seems to be dealing with the cold rain better than teammate Emma.)

It was rainy and miserable that afternoon. Because of the rain and delays, the dancers weren't able to perform at their scheduled venue. They performed in a wet parking lot! But they handled it well. Mary's group was so cute. They are the youngest group, and they'd only had a few weeks to work on the dance. But they did a great job considering they were performing in a big wet parking lot. It was disorienting for them not to be on a stage--and at one point they started performing the whole dance backwards! But, of course, Mary kept her cool and powered through--they all did!

You can WATCH THEIR PERFORMANCE HERE. Mary is in the front center (but I'm recording from the side). She has a cute short little lip-sync solo at the beginning.

After all of the groups, they invited all the dancers (and anyone else) to jump up for an impromptu dance together ...

Watch me whip!

Watch me nae-nae!

 It was a fun way to end the afternoon!

On our way out, we stopped for some fresh, yummy pretzels.

That is a big pretzel.

This is Sara.

She got a pretzel too.

And she liked it a lot.

Way to go, lovely Mary! You worked hard, and we're so proud of you!