Afternoon Tea at Serenity Tea House/A Beautiful Noise

As predicted, the weather was rainy on Tuesday (although with periods of sun that made us wish we were at the beach). To fill the time, we decided to try out afternoon tea and also picked up some last minute tickets to the Kravis Center to see the Neil Diamond musical, which was surprisingly excellent:

Singer Island 2026

We arrived to PBI late Sunday night and went straight to the hotel. The weather was beautiful Monday (and predicted to be bad the rest of the week), so Kevin and I spent some time at the pool Monday morning before meeting Grandpa Steve at Singer Island mid-day:

Easter 2026

We had a chill Easter this year because we were headed to Florida Easter evening. Because it was supposed to rain Sunday morning, we decided to have our egg hunt on Saturday night and then just brunch with Gammy on Sunday:

Easter Basket

Abby's basket arrived a few days before Easter and she called to say thank you:

CHS Band Trip to Chicago

At the very end of Abby's spring break, Benji took off for his band trip to Chicago. The band/chorus/orchestra took a combined trip this year, setting out on an overnight bus trip on Wednesday and returning very late Sunday night. Benji was kind enough to share some of the highlights with us:

After the overnight bus ride, the students spent some time Thursday enjoying the Miracle Mile

They went up the Hancock building

For lunch, Benji's chaperone - Evin's dad, who is from Chicago - treated them to his favorite deep dish pizza (which turned out well because the pizza place the program sent them to for dinner did not offer a cheese deep dish and was also not very good)

After lunch, they took a Chicago architecture tour by boat, where Benji was particularly tickled by being able to see the Metra running below ground level

They got back to the hotel late, only to find that the hotel on the itinerary did not have rooms for them. They eventually found space for them at the Marriott, but look how tired they are waiting around that the Hilton!

Day two (Friday) started with a master class, followed by a trip to the Field Museum:

Later in the day they explored Millennium Park and visited Millennium Cloud Gate (aka the bean):

Benji missed the big group picture at the bean because one of the chaperones offered take him on the L (after hearing Benji discuss it in detail)

In the evening, the group split in two and Benji's half went to see a jazz concert at the Symphony Center (home of the CSO):

Benji sat with Mr. Hackworth and his wife

Group picture outside the CSO

On Saturday, the group performed/competed in the morning and finished the day at Medieval Times:

Hard to see, but Benji has 2 crowns

Awards were held at the end, and CHS were the grand champions (Benji is holding one of the award plaques) 

Date nights

 After Abby left back to New Hampshire and before Benji got back from Chicago, we had some time to ourselves for an extended date night. While still in Chicago, we went to Carytown, had Ethiopian for dinner and went to see The Outsiders at Altria Theater. On Sunday, we went to Silver Linings Day Spa and then used our Christmas gift card for dinner at Mockingbird:

Quilling

Abby and I signed up to do this class at the library. I had never even heard of quilling before, but quick internet search told me it was making art with rolled up scrolls of paper, and that sounded fun. We both liked our final products (and both, randomly, chose to do floral-- there were no instructions on what to make):