I Can't Believe It's JUNE!

I should say "I can't believe it's almost JULY!" Well, school is out - First Grade is a memory and Second Grade is on the horizon - and things get even more complicated than they were during the school year. Scheduling is so danged difficult. First off, what do we do with Mickey all day now that he's not in school. Well, summer day camp, of course. Summer camp for Mickey is Flying Cloud. Flying Cloud is not far from our house, luckily, and it is great because the kids have fun while learning music, singing, dancing, art, pottery, gardening, nature and tending chickens and goats. Last year our summer was about nothing but rain, and Mickey would come home soaked, wound up and exhausted. The photos below are taken off Flying Cloud's Facebook page. I thought I had better hurry and get last years' photos posted before I have photos from this year to post.

I did have a video to share. It was taken by me during the performance on the last day. I tried uploading it to the blog, but it failed. And then my computer crashed, and of course, I didn't have anything backed up. So much lost. Again. I'm so sad to lose the video, but at least I still have the memory. The song that the kids were singing was composed in part, I believe, by the older kids, but all the age groups got to sing it. Mickey was so taken by the music and the rhythms, he couldn't hold his body still. He was so hot and exhausted, his eyes appeared to want to pop out onto the floor. He looked crazed, maniacal, hot and miserable, but oh so happy. And you could clearly hear him belting out the song. As the music began, his body began to move, and you could hear some adult off-stage trying to get him to stand still, but he just couldn't. During the verses he would stand quietly, pretty much, and then he'd belt it out during the chorus and during each musical bridge his body would unleash. It looked like a cross between Irish step-dancing, African dance, and some sort of seizure. I couldn't decide if I should be proud or mortified. Afterward, when parents were coming up to him telling him how much they loved his dance, I decided I was proud AND mortified. I'm so sad you'll never get to see it. (Never mind. It's there! Hurray! Something told me not to delete it's place marker in the edit view version. After I published the page, it actually worked!! I can't tell you how wildly happy this makes me.)

Here's Mickey with his best friend Alek working with Jane Burke, the owner and director of the camp. She's one of these crazy smart people who is good at a lot of things. She's a potter, dancer and scientist. And she loves Mickey.














Here's Mickey and the crew building this hut they held classes in during camp.














Here's Mickey with his crew and I have no idea what that mess is on the blanket in front of him. The little blonde girl in the orange pants across from his is Lily. Her dad bought a house just up the street a piece and these two played together a lot last summer. She's there with her dad about every other weekend during the school year. She lives with her mom in Lincoln, Mass the rest of the time. I wish she was here year round so Mickey had a playmate nearby.














Flying Cloud, being a 200+ year old colonial farmstead is big on gardening. Here's Mickey tending to some tomatoes they grew up an arbor that was just built last summer.


















Here's Mickey and the crew in front of the arbor that was built last summer. It reminded me of some of those wacky buildings built by architect Frank Gehry.