Annah's Junior Recital

 Annah is a junior (actually, with all her credits she is officially a senior) Vocal Performance major at SIUe, and gave her junior recital tonight. What an honor it was to be in her audience and see and hear her incredible performance. She has worked so hard through a really ridiculous and difficult few years, and it was such joy to experience her performance!!!

Annah's voice teacher, Dr. T, gave a lovely introduction about Annah. She has been the best blessing about Annah transferring to SIUe and changing her major to performance. She is a phenomenal teacher and support to Annah, and we are so thankful Annah gets to study with her!

The recital was in Abbott Auditorium in the library on campus, which is such a nice place to sing!

Annah wore the lovely dress I wore in her Uncle Travis' and Aunt Erin's wedding in 2001 along with a sparkly taupe shawl I crocheted that happened to match it perfectly. She looked so beautiful!

Annah's accompanist, Nancy Mayo is a fabulous professional, who Annah says is amazing to work with. Annah's was about the 18th recital she has accompanied in the past few weeks, and I heard her talking about accompanying violinists and flautists on the convocation recital this morning. I think SIUe keeps her very busy, so Annah is extra grateful to be able to work with her.

I can't even express how it felt to experience Annah's performance. Of course, she made me think of performing my own recitals 20+ years ago, and even sang one of the same pieces and studies out of many of the books I used in college. I also know how hard she had to work to pull off a performance like this, with such difficult music. 

Really, though, I am just in awe of how much her voice has grown while studying with Dr. T. these last 2 years. She sang with such control, expression, confidence, precision, clarity, and beauty. She was truly absolutely incredible. 

Annah's program was very difficult and included four languages. Her coloratura work on the Handel was so clean and lovely. Her German has really gotten good, and I loved the Schubert set. I did four pieces by Debussy on my senior recital at Capital, and I hold that as kind of a pride point that they're probably the most difficult thing I ever performed. Annah sang all six of the Debussy Ariettes oubliees, and she made them seem effortless! I was not familiar with Ricky Ian Gordon, but her final set was so touching and the perfect way to end her recital. It was all I could do not to sob with tears streaming down my face the entire time, but I couldn't see if I let the tears come and I was recording video and didn't want to be heard sniffling on it! Dr. T. told Annah afterwards that she had given a graduate level recital, and I wholeheartedly agree. She was incredible.

Moving Sylvia to SIUe

Today was the big day. She's been collecting her things for months.

Dad, ever the packing expert, was able to fit it all into the Pilot, even though we planned to take the Kia as well and didn't need to!

We were all exhausted after the long night, but it was a nice drive. It's a little less than 3 hours from our house to the SIUe campus. 

We arrived early for Sylvia's 2pm check-in time, so we we entertained ourselves for a few minutes with SnapChat filters.

  <--Lil bro in denial of big sis moving

Sylvia got her keys and we waited for our move-in group to be called. 

We were allowed 15 minutes in the circle in front of her dorm to unload, so Sylvia and I went up to her room with a few things while Jeremy got everything out of the car onto a spot on the grass. 

I went back down to wait with Sylvia's things while he parked the car. There were students and staff helping with big carts, there are elevators, and plenty-wide staircases to get through. 

Even though it was hot, and there were Covid restrictions, we were able to get Sylvia's things in pretty quickly.

Sylvia loves this shirt, and Jeremy loves that she loves it. 

Eric and Marti gave it to him when we were in college!

The popular thing to do these days is to loft the bed only enough for the dresser and fridge to fit under.  

Sylvia is living in the Honors Focused Interest Community (FIC)

At one end of the hall is a social lounge.

At the other end of the hall is a study lounge. 

Her RA has decorated in a travel theme.

 

Checking out the mailbox--right past the lobby.

I am really in awe of how beautiful this campus is!! This is walking out the back of Sylvia's dorm.

Looking back at the dorm.

 

To the left is forest. The campus is a nature preserve.

We needed to get some food in this girl, since she hadn't eaten anything in 40+ hours. She said chicken salad sounded good, and I happened to remember seeing that there was a chicken salad restaurant on Yelp when we'd been searching for somewhere to eat in Edwardsville another time. We decided to try out Chicken Salad Chick, and we loved it!

We hit up Target and got Sylvia all the rest of the essentials we could--including cleaning supplies so I could clean and mop her bathroom before she used it. We stopped at BestBuy and Jeremy got her some EarPods. And we went back to campus for "the hard part."

Geese. 

Deer!  I feel like you could probably walk right up to them; they are not afraid.

There are art installations all over campus, and this one makes me laugh--a giant walker!

A little more arranging...

I think Jeremy had the hardest time. He didn't want to leave her, and didn't want to say goodbye. 

I especially didn't want to leave her knowing she wasn't feeling well and had so many orientation activities she wanted to attend over the next few days. All day, I kept having flashbacks to being in the hospital with her when she was born, and how we would say, "Sylvie, make your grumpy face." to her over and over when she was a toddler because she was so stinkin' cute when she did it. Time does pass too quickly over the course of a child's 18 years. But we are so proud of her, so amazed by her, and so looking forward for the adventures she has ahead as she sees the plans Jesus has for her unfold.

The Bible app Verse of the Day today is Sylvia's favorite verse and one of mine. Thanks Lord.