Category: Connolly Family

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Super 9 Shakes Up Salmagundi Club’s 2016 Photography Exhibition

John & Irene Liebler at the Salmagundi Club

Times are getting fewer and fewer that all nine of us can be in the same place, so these moments are precious to me. My best friend and business partner, Irene Liebler, submitted some of her work to the Salmagundi Club’s 2016 Non-Members’ Photography & Graphics Exhibition in Manhattan and got three pieces into the show (congratulations, Irene!), so it was a great excuse for all of us to go down… especially since all nine planets lined up, and no children had anything more interesting to do than hang out with their parents in the Big Apple.

As it turned out, not only did we all make it down, many, many friends showed up out of the woodwork to party with us! So much fun to see familiar face after familiar face turn up in places like the subway (Stephanie Hart), the restaurant (Deirdre Lonergan, Stephanie Gosteli, and Wendy Mackey), and the show (Jil Grey, Ellen Bean, Lauren Mallow (sp?), and Diane Heriot). It’s no small task to get to Manhattan from Guilford, so we were thrilled, and Irene was moved at the show of support.

One cool thing is that Rachel and her friend Scott Weady are the models in one of Irene’s pieces called “Sign of the Times.”

And, yes, that would be Abigail wearing four inch heels to traipse around Manhattan. Only Abigail.

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When Sal Khan Gets Really Excited About Triangles

In an effort to support Abigail in her quest to be able to take Calculus BC by the time she’s a senior (she’s taking Geometry and Algebra II this fall as a freshman under special dispensation from the guidance office… I love Tammy Lizotte!), I am taking Sal Khan’s course in geometry with her over the summer. We had a bumpy start with her wanting to just skip over the tutorials and go straight to the exercises. I like to understand things before I take tests, so I was watching every tutorial all the way through. “No way am I going at this pace all summer!” We compromised with the idea of her explaining what she was doing as she was taking the exercises. (It’s been 38 years since I took geometry, but she’s been getting basic geometry concepts in math at school long ago. Thank you Guilford school system!)

We just jumped in and started from the top. After a few of these, I decided I really wanted to know what I was in for. (Can you say, “Leap before you look”?) How many of these tutorials would we have to do? Abigail didn’t know. I went and found a table of contents, and, to my delight, I found that we had already completed four out of the eight units. WOW! This was easy! Here is the table of contents:

Basic-Geometry

Upon explaining this to Abigail with joy, she said, “MOM! What I’m going to have to do in school next year is going to be MUCH HARDER! I already know most of this stuff.” I was crest-fallen. So we went back to the course descriptions and found that Khan Academy had TWO geometry courses: Basic Geometry and Geometry. We were only taking Basic Geometry. I opened the table of contents for Geometry and gasped:

Geometry3

S%#$!!! I guess there’s no going back now.

So now we are in the midst of trying to do three units a day. Fortunately, Sal Khan is a delightful instructor and really loves the subject matter. We came across this unit description today which had us in stitches:

Special-Properties-Triangles

Thank you, Sal Khan, for all your hard work toward making this kind of learning accessible for all!

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Dinner Conversation with Rachel & Abigail

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Rachel: What kind of flowers are those?

Me: Here! Here’s the [wildflower idenfication] guide. Take it out there. Is it Wintercress? Golden Alexanders? Yellow Milkwort? Go look at it!

Rachel: My life is hard.

*********

Abigail: I’m feeling really poopy… literally… I just pooped a lot.

*********

Me: I LOVE GOOGLE CALENDAR! You can just make up all kinds of crazy events [that you want to have happen], fill in all the blanks, and invite whomever you want! Press send, and VOILA! Stuff happens.

Rachel: That’s too much power for you to have.

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More Pointe Shoes

Pointe Shoe Success!

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You might say I’m obsessed with this topic, but when you’re driving to the outer reaches of the planet to drop $100 on a pair of pink, satin shoes every three months, you start to get very interested in the process. All Abigail wanted for her birthday this year was for me to take her to Beam & Barre in Greenwich, an hour away, to shop for Russian Pointe shoes. (One thing I learned is that Russian Pointe is a brand, not a kind.) I decided to do it.

I am very grateful to Marissa Behuniak for going down with us to help! She even brought her delightful Jeffrey. As you can see, I had a fun time photographing him as well. Toward the end of our visit, he became very interested with the dressing rooms and learning how to open and close the doors and what it felt like to stand inside of each one by himself.

Our fitter that day was Gretchen, and she was incredibly helpful and patient, pulling out what seemed like 50 pairs of shoes, taking them out of the boxes, and discussing the good and bad characteristics of each shoe for Abigail’s foot.

Between Marissa and Gretchen, I felt very confident that Abigail would leave the best fit for her!

Happy dancing, my little lovely one, and happy 13th birthday.
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Abigail Participated in Her First Ballet Competition

Fooling around in the hallway during the competition

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My little lovely one, Abigail, participated in her first ballet competition this past Sunday at the Holiday Inn in Bridgeport. Linda Giancaspro with Artistic Dance, Inc. ran it very beautifully, and I am grateful to her for having created such a friendly and welcoming environment for all the dancers.

Abigail placed 8th out of the entire 28 who were competing, which included high school students.

We were especially grateful for the visit and support from Kara Engstrom, Anna Cerino, Marissa Behuniak, and Joyce DiLauro. Thanks, guys! I know it was no small task in the first place, but for all of you to face that snowstorm on the way home! We’re feeling the love.

Scroll down for photos and a video!

 

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http://youtu.be/54l69C0WKnw

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Driving Cuties

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We have driven all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania in an effort to overcome the resistance in Rachel’s body to going west.

I think we’ve done it.

I’ve discovered that while I enjoy being chauffeured, it’s not the most reliable transportation with Zach completely unable to navigate (for the sole reason that he lacks training) and me succumbing fully to my ADD in the back seat.

My very favorite moment was when all of the following happened in the space of about five minutes:

1. Rachel missed the exit off of the NJT for I-78 West.

2. I took an important call from a client that involved giving detailed information about Sunday’s photo shoot because I didn’t know when else I would be able to talk to him.

3. In an effort to turn around, Rachel got stuck in big traffic going to Newark airport and was driving on and off all kinds of crazy ramps going WHO KNOWS WHERE.

4. I’m thinking she can just drive wherever until I get off the phone so I can use it to turn my GPS on.

5. I get involved in a deep discussion with my client and friend about all the philosophical, spiritual, and political issues surrounding this particular shoot at the very moment of #6.

6. Zach and Rachel discover a little ramp that looks like it’s going to save us from ramp and traffic madness, so they take it only to find that it just brings us right back to where we were.  Somehow, it was so entertaining and frustrating to them at the same time that they are SCREAMING with delight and madness “It was just a slide!!!!”

I think Rachel was a little annoyed that I took that call when she needed help. Oh well. I tried to explain, but I should have apologized.

It’s so very lovely and peaceful to be in the company of all three children while we are traveling. There’s nothing like it in the world.

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This Came Out of My Body?

Sometimes I am in complete disbelief over what my children are doing. How could this possibly have come out of me? I would never in a million years be able to do that or even know where to begin, or even think of doing it!

When I hear Rachel say something like, “Oh yeah! The Enigma Machine… I learned all about that in 8th grade,” or when I watch Abigail perform the most beautiful of ballet moves, I am awestruck that this came out of me.

Today, I witnessed something of a ballet by Zachariah: soldering. Who knew he had this in him? The level of concentration and precision necessary was blowing me away. He has 64 x 4 of these to do:  256 he tells me. Whoa. I think I would crawl out of my skin before I could finish anything like that.

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Using Your Wet Car Window as a Lens Filter

And to think that I was annoyed with Abigail for getting in my shot while I was “setting up.” Turns out this photo is better than the one I had in my mind to get. How cool is that, with the rain drops on the car window? To think that this is where Abigail has to swim on Connolly vacations. Should I feel bad?

NoSwimming-Abigail-1

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Connolly Girl Trio performs “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers

Rachel, Abigail, and I had so much fun singing this song together, I wanted to record it before Rachel went off to college.  For some reason, it felt like she was leaving forever never to return or sing with us ever again. Then I remembered that she would need a place to live over Christmas breaks and summers.  HA!  So maybe I’ll be able to twist both their arms to sing with me again.

Many thanks to my son Zachariah who did all of the following:

  • helped me pack the car with all the audio equipment
  • set up all the audio equipment in the GCTV studio
  • put up with my crazy ideas about how to shoot this
  • directed several takes
  • engineered all the audio during those shoots
  • helped pack up all the equipment
  • helped me upload all of it at home