It's officially today (4/30), but Abby is the real bubble tea lover in the family. Since she was unexpectedly home last weekend for an interview, we headed to the Farmer's Market to celebrate early. Afterwards, we walked along the Downtown Mall and enjoyed the pre-TomTom Fest chaos:
I managed to not take any pictures, but received this sweet one from Katie. Kiran and I were discussing summer plans and her dream trip to India:
It's an exciting time to live in Virginia and Benji was able to cast his first official vote as part of this special election (Abby did early in-person voting when she was home for spring break, but Benji thought it would be exciting to vote on election day, so we waited and went with him):
Benji opted not to do a solo senior recital (where he would be the only one playing for an hour) and instead opted into his studio's end-of-year recital where he could play a single senior recital piece. He closed out the program with a beautiful 10 minute performance of Fantasia and Rondo by Carl Maria von Weber, which earned him a standing ovation and rave compliments:
Link to a video of the performance
All-Virginia Band, Chorus, Orchestra weekend brings together the best high school musicians in the state for a long weekend of making music. Benji was thrilled to have been chosen as an All-State clarinetist this year:
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| The entire CHS All-state band, chorus, orchestra crew walking in downtown Richmond (courtesy of choir teacher Will Cooke) |
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| Letter from the governor acknowledging this achievement |
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| On Saturday, the band gave a performance that was open to the public |
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| Keira, Benji and Evin ready to play (also courtesy of Mr. Cooke) |
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| If you look, you can see Benji in the second row on the left, 3rd back (in line with the red shirt) |
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| After the concert |
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| Just wanted a nice picture of the boy and his clarinet :) |
This was our original plan for Benji's birthday, but Alex had to go into work unexpectedly on Friday, so we saved this field trip for Saturday:
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| We got on a trolley ride first thing. This was a 1940s era trolley from Blackwell, England, which looked like a boat |
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| Docent led tour through the other trolleys in the hangar |
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| There were several you could board |
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| This is a snow clearing trolley (which you could not board) |
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| Boarding for our second (and final) trolley trip |
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| This is a 70s-90s era Toronto trolley |
We flew back to Dulles on Thursday afternoon (flight was delayed, so we landed closer to 5 than 2:30) and were able to meet up with Alex at the airport as he was also flying back to town from a work trip. We all made our way back to the Lamy-Peterson house to decompress and catch up. Kevin and I I tried to get up early enough on Friday to make some birthday preparations for Benji before he woke up, but he was definitely waiting for us when we arrived with his customary Panera breakfast and balloons:
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| Alex went to the Metro pop-up store to get him this train poster |
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| We decided last minute to add this Lego set to his gifts because they seemed pretty small |
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| Benji noted that he has now seen 2 of the 3 shuttles that actually went to space (the other was at Cape Canaveral) |
And now he's officially an adult!
Last year when we were in Tampa, we saw the Plant museum, which was based in the home of railroad magnate Henry Plant, who developed the west coast railroad line in Florida. We realized we should go to see the Flagler museum while we were in Palm Beach as it is a much bigger and nicer museum and based in the home of Henry Flagler, who built the east coast line, including the railroad that went down to the Florida Keys:
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| Cool clock in entry hall |
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| Library |
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| Music room |
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| Interior Courtyard |
There was an unexpected powerful storm, so it took us over an hour to get back to our hotel and forced us to scrap our dinner plans, but everything was clear by Thursday and we headed back to Virginia.
