Es nuestro momento

"Es nuestro momento" means "It is our time" which was the theme of the 23rd Mi Pueblo Culture Camp this summer.  It was Grace's first time attending this camp for children who were adopted from Latin American countries.

She was excited each day to be with other children, teenagers, and young adults who are "just like her" and learn about Hispanic culture.  Each day there were art, music, dance, Spanish, and culture lessons as well as traditional summer camp sports, but with a Spanish theme.

On the final day, the campers (grouped by grade in school) performed a dance and song.  The 3rd grade group did a Cumbia courtship dance from Colombia.  Grace said that the boys tried to "win the girls' hearts" during the dance.  The boys offered their hats to the girls...first they refused but in the end they accepted the hats.  Cute!

Grace looked beautiful in her costume.  I have to give the sewing volunteers credit - they sewed 140 costumes in one week for the Friday fiesta!

Here are some of the children from Grace's class.  There were 18 total.  I love how they got so close in such a short amount of time.  They were very silly with each other and would not pose for a photo!

Parade the Circle

For 25 years, the Cleveland Museum of Art has been sponsoring this fun event at Wade Oval - right near Case Western Reserve University, University Hospital and Cleveland Clinic, and many of the premier Cleveland museums.

It is a really pretty and culturally diverse area of the city that we enjoy visiting, but this was our first time attending this parade.

The parade includes artists, families, schools, and community groups in a moving display of costumes, giant puppets, stilt dancers, handmade masks, and colorful floats.  Anyone can participate in the parade but all the entries must be handmade by the paraders.

We got lucky with a good parking space and a viewing place right on the curb and then Grace and I went to explore the vendor tents at Circle Village.  We spent a lot of time creating our own art work which we both mailed to President Obama.  They even displayed a letter from the White House in response to the art and postcards they received after last year's parade!

We also got to see some of the costumes and floats in the staging area before the parade began.

I'd say about half of the parade entires were really unique and creative art.

This group was bowling pins.  Cute!

Remember...all the costumes are hand-made.

Some of the groups handed things to the crowd, others came up for "high-fives", and some invited the kids to jump rope or go under their parachute. Grace was happy to run out there as much as possible!

After the parade, when we were walking to Little Italy for a late lunch, Grace commented that she was "inspired" by the bulls.  She meant this costume. They were very cool and Grace watched carefully to see how the people inside were operating them.

With all the music and drums in the parade, their theme - BEAT: to beat, to breathe, to create - was appropriate today.

Let the summer fun begin

We are only two days into Grace's summer vacation and she has been to see "The Avengers" and she took a friend to the pool with us all day.

Usually I don't love how fast Grace is growing up.  But today I LOVED 8 years old! At eight, an adult only needs to be present at the waterpark (as opposed to within arm's reach, in the water).  Since Grace and McKenna are both strong swimmers - and they promised to stay together and check in with me - I let them do their thing and I got to actually READ A BOOK!  

I have a feeling we will be inviting friends to join us many times this summer!

Compared to August

Here is Grace on the first....

...and last day of 2nd grade.  

She is getting SO big.  I can't handle it!