This morning (after getting up at 5am), Mama entered her 3rd triathlon (second Olympic distance). Despite another super hot & humid race day and not being able to prepare as hard this year, she still kicked butt, and finished in 2:56:03. That’s 1 mile swimming, 25 miles biking, and a 10k run … not bad!
2:56:032:56:032:56:03
Once again, Gabriella attended a local Children’s Musical Theater camp, but this year, Elisa was old enough to join her. If you know Gabriella & Elisa, you know ‘drama’ is their forte 🙂 , and this year the director acknowledged Gabriella’s “star quality” and gave her one of the leading roles … Sneezy! Elisa enjoyed her supporting role, and did not flub here lines, even though one included “Trafalgar Square.” It was a great performance, capped with an animated closing dance number!
Had some photos lying around and thought I’d take a second to post.
The first set is some shots of the new fire pit:
The next are some shots of hiking & biking in Yardley (along the canal, and at Tyler State Park):
This last set is of the girls doing a trail ride in Tyler State Park (they had a great time):
Finally, here are a few pics of our cousin Jessica … totally cute:
Well, we now have another Macera birthday to celebrate around the 4th of July! Not only will we be celebrating Gabriella’s but we’ll be celebrating her cousin’s, born three days earlier (and 11 years later). Elena Grace Macera was introduced to the family (and subsequently to Uncle Felice’s camera) on Sunday.
No one event to highlight – just thought I’d upload a few recent pics. The first is the new pergola that Papa finished this past weekend … now he’ll take some time off to recover, but the next project is looming! (hint: water feature 🙂 )
Yesterday, we took a trip to Ocean City again, and though it rained (very lightly) for a short while, the rest of the day was perfect, capped of with a trip to visit Lucy the Elephant in Margate, New Jersey.
Gabriella had her 11th Birthday Party yesterday, around the theme of Alice in Wonderland. She was “Alice” but she was also, mad as a Hatter – as were all of the girls in attendance! Participants had to enter through the rabbit’s hole at the front door, and attended a tea party with loose tea, in complimentary tea cups. Later they drank from a glass to make them shrink enough to get through the tiny door (a challenge for Papa to get through) into the master bedroom, where they watched the movie and retired (eventually) for a slumber party. The next morning they awoke to tea and muffins with eggs.
After the party, Oma relaxes with a bike ride.
This Father’s Day, Papa was treated with a gift that might seem strange to most Dad’s, a DAY of WORK. They helped him make progress on a project that has been dragging on for a while – the posts to the new pergola have been set! We all slaved in the 90 degree weather to level and set the posts in concrete (Mama was the concrete foreperson). Everything is now set, but we still need to attach the cross-members, and hang the porch swing. Later in the afternoon, the girls got gussied up, and we went to visit Nonno, the hardest working Macera of us all.
The first day of summer was the last day of school for the girls, and the last day of Elementary school for Gabriella. She moves on to Middle School next year and we’re all ‘anticipating’ that new stage in our lives :) Of course, both Elisa & Gabriella graduated with ‘honors,’ receiving the “Principle’s Award” and Gabriella received the “President’s Education Award” for her time at Edgewood Elementary.
During the last week of school, Gabriella performed in their MG class production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The MG program was(is) the high point of the girls time at Edgewood, and the performance did not disappoint! Following the performance, all the MG classes celebrated the retirement of Mrs. Goldstein (one of the MG teachers), and Gabriella helped make & decorate the cake (Mama did all the behind the scenes preparation of the festivities).
Well, we found ourselves in Ocean City, early this June and though our reasons for being there did not work out, we still made the most of our time there (thanks to Zia). Oma had a chance to experience the beauty of the Jersey shore and sleep off some of her jet-lag on the beach. The weather was good for early season, and the water was warmer than we expected, though not warm enough for wimpy Mama :) Papa Hasselhoff was the only one brave enough to go “all-the-way” in.
The beginning of summer is a busy time in the Macera family … lots of birthdays within weeks of each other. Nonna’s birthday is at the end of May, and Papa’s & Uncle Sal’s the beginning of June, and let’s not forget Elisa’s birthday, just a few days later! So rather than creating several posts, I’ll combine them all in this one.
We celebrated Uncle Sal’s, Papa’s and Elisa’s birthday together, and Gabriella created a cake masterpiece to commemorate the occasion.
The next week, Elisa had her birthday party for her friends. The theme was CAMP HALF-BLOOD, from the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series of books. The whole family worked hard to prepare the festivities which included arts & crafts, Percy Jackson trivia, and a Minotaur target practice with bow & arrow. Of course, our resident baker, Gabriella, decorated the cake!
