Rap in Romeo's Defense

Last night after the concert, we got home fairly late. Caeden's advanced English class has been studying Romeo and Juliet, and he had an assignment to write a paragraph in defense of Romeo as if he were on trial. He decided to make a beat and write a rap as if he were Romeo defending himself instead.  He did this in about half hour.  His English teacher and class loved it so much they made him do it a second time so they could record it!

Lovedliness

Sylvia recently started a fashion blog, just for the fun of it.  She and her friend Alexis have done a couple photo shoots, and today I had the pleasure of doing some photos with Sylvia in the cold, wind, and rain.  It was pretty fun, actually. 

She styled a black turtleneck and an old pair of Caeden's jeans he grew out of several different ways for her posts this week.  

You can find her blog at

https://lovedliness.blogspot.com

13th Annual Variety Show

This group of students (8 seniors, 4 juniors, 5 sophomores, and 3 freshman) did an awesome job putting together and performing Ridgeview's 13th annual Variety Show almost entire within one week!  Their love for music, the theatre, and performing is evidenced by their hard work, and I'm so proud of each one of them!

Mr. Wyant, checking things backstage before the show...

Shelby, Grace, Lexie, and Kendall, our fabulous backstage crew!

Taylor and Annah getting ready to host, and Jacob warming up to be the first performer...

VIDEO playlist: (the entire show)

VIDEO: Annah and Ryan singing I See the Light

VIDEO: Sylvia playing The Mission/How Great Thou Art

As the cast gathered at the back of the gym to greet the audience, Caeden attack-hugged Sylvia.  

He's always super proud of his sisters.

Sylvia's friends Sarah and Isabella came to support her and their other classmates in the show!

Ryan and Annah love to perform together.

Momma Dawn hugs for Sylvia

Although it was tough to prepare and perform this show at the end of a crazy busy school year, I am so glad the kids decided to do it.  They all did a great job!

Variety Show Rehearsal

It's Variety Show week!  

Usually the variety show has been in February, but it's just become too difficult to fit it in at that time of year.  So, this year Mr. Wyant and the kids decided to do it the only other weekend they could find on the calendar--this coming weekend.  

There were enough kids interested in performing, and Mr. W helped Annah write the whole show based around the fact that it's the "lucky" 13th year for the show.  It's all about superstitions.

We had tech rehearsal last night and dress rehearsal tonight, and I think it will be a good show!

Gathering for notes after the first rehearsal...

Setting up sound for the last rehearsal...

Making sure all their amps and pedals and sound is set...

All cast and crew

The hosts: Ryan, Annah, Taylor

Jacob

Briahnna

Alexis and her poem "Cats"

ShelbiLynn

I See the Light

Kyle: Runaway

Kelsie: Rainbow

Sylvia

She played a beautiful Piano Guys medley of The Mission and How Great Thou Art

Adam

Reach With Love

Annah is taking a dual credit (high school and college) Multi-Modal Composition class this semester, and has been working on her biggest project for it.  The requirements for the project stipulated that it was to address a current issue that her project could bring awareness to in her community.  She chose a topic she is very passionate about--unplanned pregnancy.  Since she is the brilliant result of my unplanned pregnancy, I was very honored that she chose me to be her required assistant with the project!

My job was to collect stories from people who have experienced unplanned pregnancy.  We had many women who were willing to share their stories, and it is an awesome collection already.

Annah built a beautiful website called Reach with Love, that can be found at this link: https://reachwithlove.weebly.com  I think she did a beautiful job of presenting and explaining the 3 options of an unplanned pregnancy--parenthood, adoption, and abortion.  The site also includes the stories I collected, as well as resources for people who find themselves experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

Annah also created and will continue to maintain a Facebook page to get the word out about the website:  https://www.facebook.com/Reach-with-Love-344435099536678/  She will post current articles there, and people can continue to submit their stories to the Facebook page or website if they would like them to be included in the hopes of helping others.

Buddies

We got letters from the girls today!!!  They wrote them Sunday or before, but it sure sounds like they are loving Blue Lake!  I'm so relieved and happy for them!

Caeden's friend Loren has started taking piano lessons with me this summer, and today he stayed after his lesson and hung out with Caeden all day!  They played some Xbox (He really liked Battlefront.) and Wii Sports and Mariokart.

They also had a Nerf battle in the house after lunch.  In the afternoon and evening, we went to SF Park!

We all had fun doing mini-golf, even though we were terrible!

They got in a few games of tetherball!

Loren won 2 out of 3.

They tried out the clay tennis court.

The geese are taking over the whole park--and the whole city, actually!  And they are not nice!  

They hissed at us!

Basketball was next!

Almost too big for the slide, but not quite!

We got some McDonald's for these hungry teenage boys, then hit the pools!  They tried out the lazy river first.  Then, we actually closed out the park, leaving at 8pm.

It was a good day--2 thumbs up!

I love that Caeden and Loren are friends!!!!!

Caeden's writing for school

Just a couple weeks ago, Caeden decided to read all the books on the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award list.  This morning, he decided to eat breakfast at school and took a few minutes at home to fill out a book summary online.  I checked out his Google Docs after he left for school and found some pretty neat writings that made me smile...(He said he did these a while ago.)