End of Summer / Start of School

Today was the first day of school for Alex (Day 4 for Nicole).  It's tradition to get a porch shot on the first day.  I had hoped to capture the fact that it was a bit chilly (50F?), windy and wet (good ole  English weather).  

Nothing fancy to report from the weekend.  We had a bit of catching up on domestic issues.  However, we did attend the traditional end of summer classical concert in Darley Abbey park.  Fortunately, that's our neighborhood and we were able to walk to it.  Even better, our neighbors allowed us to tag along.  Since the price is right (free) it draws quite a crowd.  Estimates were north of 30,000 but I'm not quite sure if I'm buying into that.  A few photos below.

Here's some of our group (including our 2 kids) walking to the concert.  We are outside the "the village" and had crossed the street and are now walking down into the village.  The park is along the river at the bottom.  It does make for a harder walk back (up the hill) but it's still nice to have it so close.  We took enough for a weekend with chairs, food, drinks, etc. (wouldn't want to have to pay for any of that at the concession stand you know).

The weather was looking dodgy early in the day but the blue skies came out at just the right time.  The rain held off until we were just walking home (just a few sprinkles).  Perfect.

Quick shot of the stage set up in Darley Abbey park.  The Derwent River is just beyond the stage where all the trees are.  We arrived an hour before it was set to start and it had started to fill in already (but more would come as well).

Quick candid shot.   Our neighbors had both sets of grandparents with them and then we met 2-3 more families from the greater neighborhood--two of which were classmates of Alex (the benefits of going to the local, public school).  It was really nice to chat in this setting (this is before the concert started).

The boys were all chums.  Even the addition of a plate of chips (fries) couldn't get Alex away from his DS.  (That boy . . . . we hadn't planned to bring it but his friends were -- they show better restraint than he does though)

The evening was capped off by fireworks.  It was a nice 5-10 minute burst and we were sitting much closer than we do at the 4th of July ones in Indy.  My photographic skills and equipment aren't up to the task, but they were nice.  Great time all around.