Rollerskating and Nutcracker

 Evie had a busy week!  Her school hosts a skate night at the roller skating rink on the 4th Friday of every other month, and because our church has game night on the last Friday of every month, we've never gotten to go before.  This month had 5 Fridays so it was our first change to check it out.  Evie didn't especially enjoy the experience at first.  She's only been on roller skates a couple of times before, and she was pretty unsteady on her feet.  She fell fairly hard within the first 10 minutes and was very frustrated.  But she finally found some of her friends and hung out with them which seemed to turn the night around for her.  I was trying to encourage her to be more independent because she seemed to want to just hang around where I was, which is certainly understandable from an only child who's just lived through an isolating pandemic.

Eating with her friends

Saturday was her costume fitting for this year's production of The Nutcracker.  She is going to be 3 different roles this year: a Big Party Girl, Soldier, and Chinese dancer.  It was really fun to see her dress in these costumes that I've seen for the last 6 years (can't believe this is her 6th year of Nutcracker!) and thinking back to when she was a Little Party Girl, or even a Mouse.  Now she's playing these roles where the girls seemed so much older in the productions we first were in.

She and her friend Raya had so much fun together waiting for their turn for pictures

I am so very proud of her for sticking with dance and finding her friends there.  I know this year has been more challenging because some of the girls are not as chummy as she was used to from last year, but she hasn't let it take away her joy in dancing.