Merry Christmas!

 

Not a creature was stirring.

Christmas dinner prep

Making the hot wassail

Tiny toy instruments to serenade the last sleeper with Felix Navidad

Pancake squares for breakfast

Dad and the traditional reading of Moostletoe

"Check! Check! Check! Aaaaand check!"

Watching movies in the afternoon

Annah wrapping presents for the next celebration

A little Christmas Fortnite together

I finally finished my Christmas Tunisian cowl before bed.

And to all a good night!

Wrestling @ Westville

Wrestling season is off to a great start! As a team, they are 9-0! It's pretty great to have a full roster for the first time!

Caeden is wrestling really well too, and so far has been at the 160 weightless easily! 

They had a meet at Westville tonight. I wasn't able to go, but one of the moms streamed live on Facebook, so I got to see both of Caeden's matches.

VIDEO: First match of the evening:

VIDEO: Second match of the evening:

Trip to SIUe for Sylvia's Orchestra Concert

Yesterday afternoon I picked Caeden up at school, then we picked Carter up at home and headed down to SIUe for Sylvia's orchestra concert. 

We got to campus at supper time, so we picked up Sylvia and her friends at Bluff Hall and drove them to the MUC to eat. 

We had to be masked, socially distanced in groups no bigger than 3, and Sylvia had to provide our contact information when she ordered our tickets.

Annah had class until almost time for the concert, but I got to sit with her! 

VIDEO: Finlandia by Sibelius was the only piece I recorded all of, but it was fabulous!

Sylvia's "fan club" quickly surrounded her when she came into the seats after the concert.

What a great group!

The kids walked back to the dorm and I drove around and waited there while they went to Sylvia and Claire's room for Carter to see it. At 10pm, the students had a time of screaming in the dorms, for some reason, so Caeden wanted to stay long enough to experience that. It was pretty funny to hear it while waiting outside the dorm, but if I hadn't known it was a planned thing, I'm not sure what I would've thought!

It was tough to leave, but it was a great visit even though it was short. Sylvia is so blessed to have a wonderful group of friends at school.

We dropped Carter off at home at 1am and got to our house about 1:30 because there was very thick fog. Thankfully we made it home safely.

First concert band concert in 2 years

Although the HS choir had a concert earlier this semester, tonight was the HS winter concert, and it was the first time the concert band had had a concert in a full 2 years. Surreal. The freshman and sophomores had never played a concert before tonight. So odd. It was more fun with the appreciation of getting to perform.

During rehearsal this afternoon, I caught a little bit of Caeden practicing his part in Sleighride. When Mr. Marchese first handed out the music this fall, Caeden asked if he could play the whipcrack (because that's what every percussionist wants to play in Sleighride) and Mr. M told him, only if he "pranced about and jumped" while playing it. Caeden followed directions very well this time:

 There were only 9 singing in the HS choir this evening, but I thought they really did a great job! I don't have any photos or video though, since I was accompanying, but Caeden sang wonderfully. We are truly blessed to have Mrs. Aupperle at Ridgeview; she is fantastic!!!

Caeden played a lot of timpani, some snare, and various other percussion instruments. 

Because half of the percussion section was under quarantine, Mrs. A and I got drafted during this afternoon's dress rehearsal to join the band! She played the things that sound like horses clopping and I played Caeden's bells part so he could play the crash cymbals. Mrs. A and I both said we had never played a percussion part before, so my goal was to play 3 notes. I didn't play them all, but I did play more than three! You can see Caeden "prancing about and jumping" while playing the whipcrack in this photo!

So grateful the opportunities to make music are returning.

SIUe Choral Concert

Last night I drove down to SIUe for Annah's choir concert! She was in rehearsal when I arrived, so I picked Sylvia up at her dorm and went to the campus center with her while she had supper. It was so nice to get to spend a little time with her--especially since she couldn't go to the concert.

I had to sign in with my contact tracing info before finding a socially distanced seat for the concert. It is such a weird world we are living in these days.

 

Concert Choir

Annah joined a new Treble Choir this semester, even though she is only required to sing in Concert Choir. She really likes the director, Dr. Canterberry, and the ladies sounded so lovely this evening. 

I didn't record any full songs, but here is a lovely clip in which Annah is featured. (She sings the first parts of the echo duet.)

VIDEO: Love Is a Rain of Diamonds

Annah had her friend Julia

Back to her room

Annah, Ryan, Abby, and Blake have their apartment so festively decorated!

I did take my things to stay the night with Annah, but decided it would be best for everyone if I just went back home and slept there. I got home around 1am, and was very grateful to Caeden for talking on the phone with me until I got through Springfield.

Although Annah is finding her choral experience at SIUe frustrating and it is maybe not the caliber of some of the other choirs she's had the privilege of singing in, I really did enjoy the concert and getting to see her singing on stage again. 

Fall Play

 We got to PERFORM our Fall Play! We moved our Saturday show to a Sunday matinee since the football team had a playoff game on Saturday, so that was a new experience. And it wasn’t easy rehearsing more than 40 roles with a cast and crew of 20 and never once having everyone present due to quarantine, actual COViD, mental health rest, and other illnesses until opening night! So I am proud of these kids. And since this is my personal blog I will be biased and say I’m especially proud of Caeden. He stepped up! He was such a leader and encourager and example. He convinced friends to try it out, he took risks with his acting, he portrayed a variety of roles and did them all SO WELL. I’m incredibly proud of him and so thankful to get to do theatre with my kid.

We did 2 one-act plays. The first “Appropriate Audience Behavior” was our actors portraying an audience behaving badly while watching a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” In this one, Caeden played Tony—the frat guy superfan of Claudius, and he also played Hamlet.

Our second one-act was “When Bad Things Happen to Good Actors,” and it was a production of The Wizard of Oz gone completely wrong. In this one, Caeden played the Scarecrow who didn’t realize he wasn’t in the musical version of Wizard of Oz, and he also played the Building Manager who was having marriage problems. He even debuted a southern accent on opening night that was never rehearsed, and he did great. It was really fun!

Here is a link to my photo album:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HWHUGCAFJe6o2652A

And here is a YouTube playlist of the show!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEki_UXnMZzCtWK4JxLrIrY-0VcVwXeHV

Caeden's17th birthday

Caeden was "less than thrilled" about having an orthodontist appointment at 8am today--on his birthday, which also happened to be a day off school! However, it was THE big orthodontist appointment--BRACES OFF DAY!!!!

Almost forgot to get the Before shot!

Popping them off!

Checking out the real Before photos--whew, that was a few years ago!  

Hard to remember pre-braces days!

Caeden was most nervous about the part where they "grind your teeth off." Uh, not exactly what they do, but it's not super fun having the glue that held your braces drilled off. Once Dr. B got started, he found it was not bad at all.

"My teeth are back!"  Look at that beautiful grin!

We celebrated with breakfast brunch at our favorite--Fort Jess Cafe! 

Then we went shopping for some new "drip." 

Caeden found some good stuff at Rue 21 and Ross.

The only birthday items he actually got to open this time were cards 

from Gram and Krampa and G'ma Sandi.

Happy 17th to our dear, wonderful boy!