It's been a good week.

Sylvia got to participate in an awesome virtual drum major camp through Phantom Regiment Drum Corps. The entire DCI season has been canceled for the year, so they are running several online camps. Regardless of whether or not there ends up being a marching band season, this camp was an excellent  learning experience and wonderful opportunity for Sylvia.

Some of her conducting notes

Working on her conducting in her mirror

On Wednesday night, Sylvia and Caeden went to a special youth group talk about race reconciliation.  They both said it was really good, and they stopped to get McD's on their way home.

Gram hosted a tea party with fresh fruits, zucchini breads, and Bengal spice tea on her porch!

Caeden spends a lot of his time at his music production station these days. It is very therapeutic for him, and we really enjoy getting to hear the music he creates!

Sylvia had her dearest girlfriends over this evening. Jeremy made a fire in our backyard fire pit, and they all brought snacks and just had a wonderful time together. They talked about their fears and frustrations during this time of Coronavirus and prayed over each other. 

There are blessings in the midst of our struggles in life, all because of the grace of God and the hope of Jesus. Thank you, Lord.

Band Camp

This was band camp week!  

Monday morning, junior brass section leader and freshman center snare ready to go!

Mid-day sweaty hat-head hair

"Mom, I'm bored" text mid-day Thursday

Friday after-lunch water games

Attention contest

Sylvia, getting the brass section read to do their cheer

They were intense!

VIDEO:

That's some energy!

The percussion section is a bit smaller than the brass.

VIDEO: 

The brass won and percussion came in last of the cheers.

Box-drill march-off

Warming up for the preview show

Pieces of the preview show VIDEO:

Swing those hips now!

Mr. R greeted some recent grads/band alumni who came to watch the preview show

Siblings!!!

Yay for marching band!  Fun times doing hard things!

To Blue Lake and Back

We went to and from Michigan today to bring Sylvia home from camp!

We left home around 5:30 a.m. 

Beautiful sunrise on the way to Colfax

Made it to MI about 8am

We met Sylvia at her cabin. She cried really hard when she saw Annah was with us, because I had written her and told her I wasn't sure she would be coming up.  After all the hugs, the guys carried her things to the car.  We had a picnic lunch at Main Camp.

We checked out the instrument museum.  It was pretty cool, including the theremin a little boy played incessantly for the entire 20 minutes we walked around the place. 

Among the violin display was this article on a music stand about the McEwen Stradivari violin...very interesting!

We were all so glad to see our happy camper!  

We got some Dole whips and walked down by the lake to sit for a little bit.

The recital hall was packed for the Masterworks Orchestra performance! I had brought my tripod and good camera and planned to record the whole performance, but I couldn't find space to set it up, and ended up sitting where I couldn't really see Sylvia once they started playing.  Many people were standing along the outside walls for the concert.

Sylvia and her 18 other cello buddies

VIDEO: just a few clips of the amazing performance of Dvorak's 8th Symphony

It was incredible.  

Sylvia loved her cello gang during this time. They were an awesome group, and really came together as friends as well as musicians.

Wendy, Jim, Aidan, and Esme all made it over for the concert!  

5 McEowen cousins, none of whom are actually named McEowen

Jeremy and Jim cozying up for a photo

We tried to recreate the photo below, from when Annah and Aidan were babies and Wendy and Jim visited us in Columbus and we did a switcheroo photo, but...well...

Awkward!!!

Sylvia had been dreaming of Crackerbarrell for about 10 days she said!  We stopped at the first one, about an hour and a half down the road.

It was a verrrrry long day, getting there and back--with a couple super scary near-accidents Jeremy navigated us away from like a genius NASCAR driver!  But, we are grateful for the adventure, for God's protection, for the blessing of Sylvia being able to have so many wonderful experiences at BLFAC, and for the time together!

We saw her!

It's been hard not having contact with Sylvia the past few days, and I've been repeatedly checking Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp social media for any glimpse of her in the sparse photos they post.  Today, I saw her!  There were several photos of rehearsals around camp posted, and when I saw this one of the cellos in orchestra from the back, Sylvia's in her space buns stood out!

Annah noticed she was sitting third chair, and I recognized the same director she had last year and knew she had made Masterworks Orchestra again!

I also noticed her wrist brace was on, and that there are TONS of cellos in this orchestra!

I hope we will get a letter from her, but it was so wonderful to get a little peek at her this way!