The Maryland State Championship triathlon is always held in Rock Hall, which is super convenient for us. Last year I placed 3rd in my age group in the State Championships, which qualified me for the short-course Nationals this year, which were here in Atlantic City in the middle of September. When I decided that I was going to compete in the Olympic Distance (I could pick Sprint or Olympic) I also hired a coach because I was super nervous about competing against all of the other state champions. Honestly, I was having nightmares about coming in last! I started training with her April, and was ready when September rolled around. It was a pretty amazing experience. There were thousands of competitors in 35 heats. The first wave started at 6:30AM and mine didn’t go off until slightly after 9AM, so there was a lot of time to stand around feeling my nerves. The swim was in the back bay, which was not the cleanest water and was also salty, which I was not used to. Per usual, it was my weakest leg, but my whole goal was to just get it done without freaking out, which I accomplished! The bike, my strongest leg, was along the New Jersey Expressway. They closed two lanes of traffic for the bikes, which was nice. Going through the toll booths was a challenge because of the rumble strips, but otherwise, it was flat and smooth sailing. Finally, the run was along the boardwalk. By the time I was running, it was almost noon and hot. While it was cool to run along the water, unfortunately, the boardwalk was pretty crowded and thick with weed smoke. I know I wasn’t the only runner wishing for some cleaner air. All that said, I did well, top 1/3 of women, which I’m really happy with. It wasn’t my fastest Olympic distance, but all things considered, it was just perfect!
It’s here – the dreaded and much anticipated first day of school! Lauren is starting 6th grade this year at Bala Cynwyd Middle School and Sophie is starting 9th grade at AIM Academy.
For the first ten days in July, Sophie traveled with the Philadelphia Girls Choir for a tour of Budapest and Hungary. Each year the choir picks an international location and plans for a series of concerts and workshops as well as sightseeing and other tourist activities. This is the first year that Sophie went.
Parents got daily email updates from the tour leaders, which was great, because we got much more sporadic updates from Sophie. Rather than recap what I think happened, here are some pics that we got and the daily updates we received.
While she was a little homesick, I know she had fun and she certainly had experiences to remember forever.
Updates from the choir tour leaders from July 1-10:
Today was an awesome day with our choir! We started the day with a delicious breakfast in our hotel and quickly departed Kecskemet for a workshop at the Kodaly Institute. Our local tour guide showed us Catholic and Calvinist churches, as well as the town’s beautiful gardens and Baroque architecture. We then visited the University where the girls sang in their concert hall and had an incredible workshop with a Kodaly expert. The choir polished their Hungarian pronunciation in preparation for our performance tomorrow and eventual competition.
We returned to Budapest to take a river cruise on the Danube, where the singers serenaded all of Budapest with selections from their repertoire. We finished the day with dinner at Frida, a Mediterranean restaurant where we had gnocchi and apple strudel. Tomorrow will be a big day of touring, and a joint concert with a local choir. It has been so pleasant getting to know your children. They are all having a great time and bonding with each other more and more each day!
What a day we had today! We started with a tour of Budapest with our guide Levi. He showed us the castle district and Mattias Church, where the girls got to test the acoustics with a song. Tourists gathered all around! We then tasted some Hungarian specialties and got to shop at the market.
Later, we met with our hosts, the Rutafa Choir, to rehearse for our joint concert. It was a stunning performance filled with beautiful music! The girls got a chance to get to know their Hungarian hosts, make new friends, and even go to one of the oldest cafes in Budapest for dinner together. The atmosphere was filled with joy and new-found friendship, all made possible by the universal language of music. The Rutafa Choir surprised us with a performance of Hungarian songs, which our girls loved! We felt so welcomed and special.
It was a truly beautiful moment. We leave for Vienna in the morning to start the Summa Cum Laude Festival!
We left Budapest today for Vienna. On our way there we stopped in a charming Hungarian town called Gyor. The girls got to explore with their chaperones and spend some time in some local cafes. We finished our trip and arrived in Vienna and were wowed by the beautiful buildings and gardens! Today was the opening ceremony of the Summa Cum Laude Music Festival and the girls were treated to performances by “coro siamo” and heard the Summa Cum Laude Anthem for the first time. We are all checked into our hotel, despite some hiccups during the check-in process! This hotel is brand new and has very high-tech elevators. We have all now learned how to work some fancy new tech! Tomorrow is the competition and we are excited!
We are so excited to announce that PGC placed second in our category with “excellent success” at the Summa Cum Laude Youth Music Festival. The festival has 38 participating groups from 13 countries including choirs, orchestras, and bands. We are so proud of how well the girls performed and how beautifully they have bonded as a group. Today they performed at the Welt Museum, which is in part of the Hofberg Palace, spent some time getting to know each other better in a royal park for lunch and ice cream, and had a great time in the interactive Haus der Musik. I am writing this to you from our second workshop with experts from the festival. It is such a special thing to be surrounded by their beautiful voices and see them communicate through music. The girls are making memories that will last forever. Now they can all say they have sung on the same stage where the Vienna Philharmonic plays!
As we are winding down our tour, the girls are filled with joy for the awesome experiences they have had, as well as some sadness that it is soon coming to an end. Today was our last concert as a tour group, but there is still one more day of the festival. Tomorrow we will participate in a yodeling workshop and see the closing gala concert. We are so honored that one of our girls were chosen to perform the first solo Summa Cum Laude Anthem at the end of the Gala Concert!
Today we had an extensive tour of the city and had Viennese specialties for lunch at the Schönbrunn Palace. We saw the old city, the Hundertwasser Haus, and the stunning gardens of the palace, among many other stunning sites in the city. Tomorrow we will celebrate the end of the festival with a special party on the Rathaus Terrace (City Hall). It is an absolutely stunning site! We will be heading home early the next morning.
I am sure by now, you are brimming with excitement to see your children again! Today we ended the Summa Cum Laude music festival with a yodeling workshop and big party with dancing, food, and even a marimba band. The girls all had an amazing time and made new friends.
Tomorrow is a day full of travel as we make our way back home to the US. Nathan will be in touch as we make our way back to the states with arrival updates as he gets them. We will arrive in Newark at 7:30pm on British Airways #189. Some of the girls are being picked up at Newark International Airport, and others will be brought back to the choir building. Please make sure to check email and texts for updates as we make our way back home. Thank you so much for trusting us with your incredible children. Tour is a truly magical time where our kids learn and grow, both musically and personally. We hope that you will hear all about the exciting times they had and about the world they have seen.
This weekend I headed “home” for the last time to say goodbye to the house I grew up in. My parents sold it and are moving out in two weeks. It was the most amazing house to grow up in on the most beautify property. I’ll miss it dearly and am also excited for my parents next chapter.
Sophie graduated from Bala Cynwyd Middle School on June 11 and is officially a high schooler! We had our ups and downs in Middle School, as one does, and Sophie was mostly happy to say good riddance to it, but I think there was a little nostalgia there (or maybe that was just me).
Dave and I celebrated 20 years of marriage over Memorial Day weekend! We celebrated with a long weekend in Asheville, NC, a place we’ve never been but have heard amazing things about. We hiked, we biked, we hit an impressive number of breweries and ate, and ate, and ate. We also met up with Carl and his family, who live about 2 hours away. We met in the middle for a hike and lunch and it was so great to catch up.
Our girls weekend this year ended up being a duo instead of our usual trio because unfortunately Sallie couldn’t make it. We headed to Charleston, which we both have only been to briefly and a while ago. Aleen used her amazing talent in finding great Airbnb’s and we stayed in a cute house close to downtown, but not too close. We basically ate our way through the city and it was amazing! The weather was a little iffy at times, but we made it work.
I also enjoyed all of the amazing architecture and took a different route each morning to check out the different areas. It’s a town I could definitely spend more than just a long weekend.
It’s been a packed spring with races, performances and various end of year activities.
Lauren and I did a 5K race for Gift of Life, called the Donor Dash. And Lauren killed it. She came in 3rd in her age group of 15 and under. We’ve got a star runner in the making!
The next weekend Dave and I, along with Justin, Don, and Rebecca did the Broad St. Run. The weather wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst we’ve run in either. First weekend in May, you never know.
I also did a sprint distance triathlon in Rock Hall. Dave unfortunately couldn’t come down to do it because of a crazy schedule, but Don joined me. This year I’ve moved up in age groups to 45-49 (ugh). But it went well and I ended up taking first in the group – first our of 18 in the age group and 61 out of 380 overall!
There were also spring concerts – Lauren’s 5th grade band concert and Sophie’s Philadelphia Girls Choir concert. Both were excellent and both girls did a great job.
Lauren had her 5th grade dance, which she went to with her “crew” of friends.
After two years Sophie finally got her braces off! We finally get to see the full smile again – teeth and all!
And finally, in exciting family news, Shannon Boyle is getting married! Lauren and Kathy represented the Sharp contingent at her shower. We’re looking forward to the wedding in September!
This year for spring break we headed out to California. We spent the first part of the week in Yosemite National Park and the second half in San Francisco. The travel day getting there was very long – we left our house around 6AM and didn’t get to our AirBNB until about 9PM California time, but we made it work and were able to spend four good days in the park. We were also surprised to drive into a snow storm about 30 minutes after we got into the park. By the time we got to our house about 90 minutes later there was about two feet of snow on the ground. Not what we expected, but we rolled with it – though it would have be nice to have a few warmer pieces of clothing.
Lauren surveying the area in her “snow outfit”Fortunately the house had a hot tub, which we enjoyed very much!
The first hike we took was to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which was amazing. Because of the weather there weren’t many people, which made it that much better. In general, we were a few weeks ahead of the big crowds, which was great. We definitely had a chance to enjoy the hikes more.
in front of a giant SequoiaThe Grizzly Giant
Over the next two days we did a few different hikes, including to the base of El Capitan (Dave and Sophie were brave and ventured a little further than Lauren and me), Yosemite Falls, and around the Merced River and Coulterville.
Climbing to the base of El CapitanGroup shot at the base of El CapitanYosemite Falls View of El Capitan from afar
After Yosemite we headed back San Francisco for a few days. We rented a house that was right off the Pacific Coast Highway and overlooked the ocean, which was beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn’t have great weather – it was chilly and rained a bit – but we forged ahead and still did everything we had planned.
We spent some time in the intertidal zone looking for cool things that emerge during low tide, and did a few light hikes to different areas overlooking the water. One day we headed into the city and checked all of the touristy boxes like Pier 39, Chinatown, and Lombard Street.
our housewatching the sunset exploring the intertidal zone at Seal Cove Beachlooking for whales at Moss BeachSea Lions at Pier 39
On our last day we went to the Muir Woods in a complete downpour. While I wish we could have spent more time there, what we saw was still completely amazing.
Muir Woods
Our last stop before heading out was the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, which is across the bridge from San Francisco. It’s a huge facility that nurses back to health any stranded marine animal, which when we were there was mostly sea lions. We also got to watch a dolphin dissection, which was both gross and cool.
Looking forward to the next time we can get out there – especially Yosemite!
For Soph’s birthday this year we took her and a few friends to a restaurant called POD, which is on Penn’s campus in West Philly. It’s a restaurant that Dave and I frequented in college, then it closed for a bit, and now it’s back and has the same vibe. You can reserve a sort of private area called a pod, which is what we did for Soph and her friends. Dave, Lauren, my mom and I sat at a table far enough away so that we didn’t cramp their style, but we could still spy
At our house beforehandIn their own POD
The next day we celebrated at home with a cake and family and her friend Jojo.
The birthday girlSoph and Jojoshowing off her new kicks
