Week in Review: In Which Mommy Escapes for Mother Culture at the Hollywood Bowl, and Daddy Teaches Gemma How to Spit on a Tire

We're currently on:

• chapter 17 of Life of Fred: Farming
• chapter 10 of Prince Caspian
• question 6 in Training Hearts, Teaching Minds
• "Little Things" in piano
• chapter 24 of Who is Stealing the 12 Days of Christmas (the book Gemma is reading aloud to me)

Some of the things we did this week...

Sunday, we went bowling after church.

My husband's band needed to test out their equipment before an outdoor gig. Gemma helped.

I taught a three-day Trigonometry Camp. While I worked my dream job (only 10 students! not 1 but 2 helpers! students all got along with each other! challenging material! enthusiastic learners! happy parents! I got to have an hour lunch with my family!), Pete attended Classical Conversations Practicum and tutor training for Foundations, and Gemma got to go to play camp.

My friend Anita treated me to an amazing evening at the Hollywood Bowl. It was Gustavo Dudamel conducting the L.A. Philharmonic playing Tchaikovsky. Prior to this, I had only been to the Bowl once, and I had never seen Dudamel. He's not stiff and serious; he smiles and conducts with his whole body. During the selections from Swan Lake, dancers from the American Ballet Theatre performed, and the finale - 1812 Overture - was accompanied by fireworks. It was spectacular.

Did you know that Tchaikovsky actually hated 1812 Overture? He called it "very loud and noisy and completely without artistic merit, obviously written without warmth or love."

Tuesday evening was National Night Out. In the past, our community has had a big to-do in the city's civic center parking lot. This year, they split the Night Out into four locations. I'm just going to say that I thought the way they used to do it was better, and leave it at that. Gemma had fun playing with bubbles and dancing to the '80s cover band.

We went to Romeo and Juliet at Theatricum Botanicum. (Earlier this summer, we tried to see it, but the Calabasas fire caused the theatre to evacuate. In preparation for that experience, I had shown Gemma a cartoon version of Romeo and Juliet. Her summary of the cartoon: "In the first half, they're not dead. But in the second half, they're dead.")

I captured some of the handiwork lessons my husband taught Gemma. He taught her how to air up a bike tire...

...and spit on it to find its leak, 

how to sort automotive electrical components,

and how to test a fuse block for continuity...