Little Moments Like That: July 2012

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

String Camp Day 2

The girls are loving String Camp!

Sylvia playing in the beginner orchestra...

Sylvia's Musicianship class looks fun...bare feet, and relaxing on the floor...

She looks comfortable, and even a little bit ornery...?

I'm so glad the girls have this opportunity!! There is no orchestra at their school, so it really is awesome for them to get to experience being part of one and to have a little more intense music study.

Sylvia told me this afternoon that she loves getting to play in the orchestra. She said playing with all those other kids who know the same things she knows makes her brain feel alive, and that she feels like she is doing what she was born to do!

Monday, July 30, 2012

String Camp and Move-In Week

This week, the girls are attending Illinois State University String Project Camp. I'll drop them off every morning at 8:15 and pick them up at noon.

They are each part of a quintet, a musicianship class, an orchestra, and private lessons. The director of the String Project is posting photos on their Facebook page this week, so we get to be a little "fly on the wall"--at least in the visual sense! Friday, at the end of camp there will be a concert.

Sylvia's quintet

the advanced orchestra --(Annah is in the pink.)

As we continue to get ready to move PoC into the IBEW building for our worship service on Sunday, we are meeting every night this week to do the physical work of design elements.

Tonight, we met at Tony's and Lynn's house, where Tony and Tom were finishing up gluing the beautiful carpet to the stage platforms. I can't wait to see the stage set up; it's really going to be very nice looking, I think!

Some of us went from there to the IBEW (which, I have decided, I am now going to call the church, since it is official now!) and worked on painting. Last week, design team members built many large stretch canvases and applied gesso to the surface of each. Tonight, we started painting them with the bold color palette we'd chosen.

I think these colors look gorgeous together!

It's a lot of planning and work, but we are having a great time

and praising the Lord through the process!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Moving Out

We had our last worship service at the Friends and Family Fellowship church's building this evening. What a rare and wonderful blessing it has been to be able to worship in this space until we could secure our building for use. F and FF has allowed us to use their facility every Sunday afternoon/evening/night for the past 5 months, rent-free!! Truly, they and their pastor "get" that churches are not in competition, and that we are working together to help people grow close to God. We are deeply appreciative of their generosity to us!!

After our service and before our launch team meeting, we spread all throughout the church and prayed for Friends and Family Fellowship to be continually blessed in their efforts and ministries for the Lord.

While we have loved having a place to worship and meet, it is exciting to look forward to having our own space. This process has grown us closer as a family, as a church family, and definitely closer to the Lord.

We can't wait to see what God has in store for PoC!

Goin' to Gram's

We were happy to have Krampa and Gram here, even for a short time.

This morning we watched the video they took of the show last night.

Caeden showed Krampa some of his favorite games on the iPad, and got seriously trounced by Krampa in air hockey!

The kids showed Gram how they like to make ice cream now...

Caeden was so antsy that Gram told him to go outside and run 3 laps around the house.

Sylvia decided she would go too, and make it a race. She lapped him.

We love you Krampa and Gram!

Caeden got to go home with Krampa and Gram for the week! He gave us lots of hugs before he left.

And he couldn't wait to go!!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Closing Night

It was a big decision to even have the kids audition for ACT's summer musical this year. The girls have been part of the show the past two summers, and while we love it...it feel like it takes up our whole summer. Sometimes we feel we are missing out on other things (like taking a family vacation). Then we get to show week and have such fun with tech rehearsals and performances, and we remember why we do all that rehearsing! We've really had so much fun with Willy Wonka this summer!! And, we had two great performances, so we are very happy!

Krampa and Gram made the very long trip from Indiana today too, to watch the kids' show!!! The kids were so excited to have them here, and attacked them at the door when they arrived! They gave each of the kids a rose after the show, which the kids thought was awesome. I think they felt like stars, and were so happy to have Krampa and Gram there to support them!

What a wonderful surprise when 9 of our PoC friends made the long trip out to Gibson City tonight to watch the kids perform! Kim brought Adam, Jillian, and Samuel, as well as Celia, Sierra, and Savanna. And, our children's directors, Mark and Lisa came too! It meant so much to us and the kids that they were there, especially in the middle of all the things we have going on with the church plant! For them to take a Saturday night and make a 45-minute (each way) trip to show the kids they love them was so appreciated! We love our church family!

We also really enjoyed getting to stay for the "big kids" (jr high and high school) performance of Seussical last night and tonight. I had worked with them on music too at the beginning of the summer, and it is just a really fun show!

And, our friend/my student, Addie, was one of the Who's!

Solla Sollew

We've been blessed by being part of the ACT community again this summer!

Show Night!

Opening night tonight was absolutely wonderful!!!

Sisters backstage before the show...only a little bit of nervousness...

cast friends

The girls and all the principals went from the church (where we do makeup) to the park (where we perform) to get their costumes on before the rest of the cast. I decided to go once all the other kids' makeup was done, and when I got there Sylvia ran up to me, all excited. She said that in the girls dressing room, once they were all in costume, they got in a circle and held hands and Haley (Sylvia's friend since preschool, who is playing Charlie) prayed!! Love it!!

Caeden, Kaitlyn, Annah

Kaitlyn (The Candy Man) and Annah

Ann giving the pre-show pep talk backstage...

After the show, we were pleasantly surprised to see Sylvia's friend Isabella and her family! They had come to see Sylvia perform, and Isabella brought Sylvia a precious card with friendship bracelets she made and seashells she found on the beach on their west coast vacation. It was the sweetest thing!

There was a great crowd in the pavilion for the shows!! Several hundred people!!

We had a great time, and even though we're all exhausted, we can't wait for tomorrow night!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Final Wonka Rehearsal

The excitement is still running high about opening night tomorrow, and rehearsal went really well again tonight! These kids are ready!

I popped backstage to help move the drum set and some props and had to catch some cute details...

Set crew and stage managers and many volunteers were working on lighting the factory when we arrived for rehearsal. It looks really cool now, when the ticket winners and their parents enter the factory during "Pure Imagination" and the lights come on!

Our director, Ann, has a rule that everyone must wear close-toe gym shoes to every rehearsal all summer long--NO flip-flops--or they don't get to rehearse! One kid came to rehearsal tonight in flip-flops, and Ann (though frustrated) took her brand new expensive running shoes off to loan the kid so she could rehearse!