April started with 19yo and 17yo's first concert. 17yo had found out about a Stardew Valley concert and as she loves the game she asked if we could go. 19yo was interested in coming along for the ride but 15yo refused. However the system wouldn't let me buy three tickets and forced the purchase of four, so 17yo invited one of her besties (who has not played Stardew Valley and knows nothing about it) along. Bestie came along because she likes classical instruments and is in a school ensemble (I call them baby orchestras).
Unlike my phone camera focus our seats were halfway decent.
The concert was quite magical, and even though the three of us had to get explanations from 17yo for some of the in-jokes that the conductor was sharing with the audience, the music was thoroughly enjoyable and the conductor's delivery was still entertaining even if we had precious little idea what was going on.
April is also the month of the Kalamunda Show and the Tumblers (which 19yo and 17yo are in) once more performed. (link to a video; one day I might actually get around to requesting video tag support on PeakD because this annoys the ever living hell out of me the few times I want to do it)
We had a minor issue with the clown makeup as we weren't doing full face (with the white base coat) this year, and probably because of that one of the coaches decided that the clown faces "needed more colour". We couldn't really add anything more without it looking awful. Fortunately an easy fix was just adding adjacent or complementary coloured outlines to the existing shapes.
15yo asked if I would buy him a basketball and as they're pretty cheap (think this one was $10 ffrom KMart) I had no problem with that.
He would mostly take himself out to one of the nearby parks with hoops to play but every now and again one of us would tag along. He wasn't interested enough to join even the casual groups (there were some basketball workshops being run by youth workers in the area where the idea was more hanging out and having fun as well as learning basketball tricks over actually full on learning how to be a basketball superstar) and apparently didn't want to play with anyone at all til he felt like he was good, and refused to accept the logic that playing with other people would accelerate that process.
He didn't seem to mind mucking around at youth group when they were playing so there was that.
In May, 15yo became interested in Kill Team, which is some variant of Warhammer with quicker gameplay. He bought a starter set and roped his brother into helping assemble and paint.
They had a few games and he also roped J and I into at least one game each. There is a bit too much strategy and tactics in there for my meagre brain.
Mother's Day happens in May and we pay some token attention to Hallmark Holidays. 19yo got me a box of chocolates, 17yo made me a flower (after she'd failed at making what she actually wanted which was some complicated sounding popup card which happened because she learned that sometimes you do actually have to measure things) and 15yo totally did not last second throw together a candle.
15yo also made me an interesting dessert after dinner.
Probably too much energy for that time of night but it was pretty good.
in the background is something I was finishing off for my mum, she loves her cut flowers but I can't send her any because nothing ever goes to Christmas Island, so this year I drew her a bunch and now she wants one every year
Due to belligerence (not unexpected as the big two had done exactly the same thing at the same age) it has been really hard to get 15yo to do much of anything, but he did sign up for a Warhammer tournament being run by the local Good Games. The rounds were drawn up by the organisers but the competitors had to organise meeting up at the shop to play their round out between themselves.
Also at some point (not precisely sure when), 17yo decided to defer her bridging course to next year as she realised that between her own competition training and taking a group to comps for the first time as a group coach as well as learning to navigate a new education system might be a bit much.
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