Caeden working on music in his closet studio

Eating in a restaurant!

 All 5 of us ate IN a real restaurant together today, for the first time in over a year! 

Chili's for Valentine's Day!

Honoring Fall Play Seniors

 We had a small cast party for the Fall Play today after school.  Some of the juniors made beautiful posters for each of the seniors and included photos of their performances throughout high school.

I can barely hold it together around these kids; I am so sad that I couldn't help give them a performance. They've now lost 3 shows in the past year. We did have good times and good memories putting It's A Wonderful Life together, and it occurred to me today that I have directed all the Fall Plays for this class. I am really proud of them.

It was surreal to see Sylvia with her senior poster, I must say. She has been a shining star on that stage, and I am constantly amazed at her leadership and stretching of herself in theatre.

College Cello Audition

 Sylvia has been working hard to put together a video audition to send to several colleges she has applied to, since none of the schools are currently allowing in-person auditions or visits. Usually, a cello audition would be accompanied by a pianist, but nothing is done "as usual" these days. I think Sylvia has done a beautiful job here. We are so proud of her, and just love to hear her play.

2021!

Happy New Year! 

We’re having an ice storm.

Our northern and eastern windows are covered in ice.

The front porch is a sheet of ice right up to our door.

The branches are heavy with ice.

Our side yard is a thick puddle of ice.

We are staying inside and relaxing today...definitely not going anywhere!

It is beautiful though!

 

Merry Christmas 2020!

 Merry Christmas!

How blessed to be able to spend a day together, our family of five at home, 

celebrating the birth of Jesus, our Savior.

Caeden was chosen to open the first gift. His sisters have been talking about the gift they got him, and quite honestly, he has been worried and wondering!

He was pleasantly surprised and found it very funny that they bought him...

 ...a very soft and fuzzy tortilla blanket!

Sylvia was thrilled that Annah gave her a fingernail drying light!

Annah got her dad some of his workout drink mixes.

I gave him Crocs of his own so he doesn't have to wear mine when he wants to throw on some shoes to run outside! Sylvia gave him "The Man, The Myth, The Legend" slippers!

Sylvia received some items for her future dorm room and college life.  She was confused about receiving a tool kit and so excited to receive a vacuum cleaner!

some of the aftermath

Jeremy and I roasted a 20-pound turkey, and it turned out fantastic! We all were stuffed.

We spent the afternoon relaxing, Annah with her new FRIENDS puzzle.

We also played Jeremy's new game...

...Poetry for Neanderthals: a word game where u must speak good or get hit with stick!  

It's very fun and funny!

I know we probably won't have many more years with the 5 of us at home for the holidays, and this year has definitely shown us that nothing in life is guaranteed. So I am extra thankful for this beautiful day with my favorite people. So much love. Thank you, Lord. 

Welcome, Jesus.

Merry Christmas Music

 Merry Christmas Music from my studio!

Music Room

 I’ve been making some significant changes to our music room this year, and it’s very exciting (to me, anyway.)

The biggest thing, of course is the  baby grand, which I so love having and playing and looking at. the story of Fischer’s arrival at  my studio blog here: http://musicinyourheart.blogspot.com/2020/07/meet-fischer.html?m=1)

My mom recently gave us the clock that always hung in the living room, and for now it’s hanging behind the piano. Mom reminded me that its loud ticking used to bother me and Travis while we practiced piano, and I am noticing that. I may just have to play everything at 60bpm from now on. Haha. Will see what my students have to say about it. I do like the comforting ticking when I’m not playing piano, and it’s kind of nice to hear it chiming every hour and every half hour.

A few weeks ago, Jeremy and Shannon took our other piano up to school, along with Shannon & Dawn’s piano. Eventually, they will be in practice rooms, but for now Kimball lives in my office. It’s nice to have it there—especially now that I’m teaching remotely and doing a lot of Zooming from there!

Over the summer, when Shannon was working on the entry way, he commented that he needed to build me some shelves for all our music because the little Sauder ones were about to collapse under the weight of all the music! Dawn looked up photos and we found a design we loved. Shannon got to work right away, measuring and building bookcases for the corner. Before Thanksgiving, he came to install them. Dawn brought Reece and he and Jeremy helped Shannon get them in. They are massive! 

This is before priming and painting...

Jeremy picked up some oil based primer so I could start the day after they went in. I only primed the mdf parts so they wouldn’t swell with water based paint. That took a couple days since I can only do 2 of the 14 shelves at a time on sawhorses in the basement. Then came 3 coats of brown semi gloss paint on everything...

The brown paint is the same as on our “Shannon shelves” in the living room. I had a gallon left from almost 8 years ago, and bought some more to match. I finished painting the last of the shelves yesterday, and Jeremy put the last 4 of the long shelves on the left side in up top for me this evening. 

I love how the shelves on the left go all the way to the wall on the right and have some useable hidden space behind the shelves on the right instead of an empty unusable corner behind them.

I’m going to wait a few more days for all those layers of paint to quit being sticky before I put any music on them, but I am just thrilled to have these and excited about how nice they look and sturdy they are!!! What a blessing!!!

ILMEA 2020-Style

ILMEA, like everything else this year, is different for 2020.  District festivals were all canceled months ago, so ILMEA decided to have students submit audition videos. Sylvia auditioned for both orchestra and vocal jazz and made it into both.  Instead of district festivals, today they hosted online masterclasses for the students.  Sylvia chose to attend one workshop for each ensemble she auditioned into, so her first one was cello.

Her second masterclass was with Kim Nazarian of New York Voices. She was awesome, and Sylvia loved every second of this workshop! Kim talked about how she got into vocal jazz and made it her career, as well as how she and other friends have made having a family a priority while also maintaining a career as a performer.  

As Kim was teaching the students over Zoom, she could see their names on the screen as she was watching what she was having them do.  She was calling out students who didn't look like they were participating, and 4 different times she encouraged Sylvia and told her she was doing great!   (Annah, Caeden, and I were all listening in off-screen.) It was pretty darn cool, really.

The sunset was SO spectacular tonight as we were heading home from play rehearsal. The light was golden all around us, and the colors were so warm and bright.  

It was so overwhelming that Caeden asked if we could just pull over and look at it for a few minutes.  

So we did!

We knew that photos couldn't capture the real beauty of the sunset, but we took a few so we could savor the memory in the future.

So much of what is going on in our lives right now feels so heavy and sad and difficult. We really felt like this was God reminding us that He is with us, and He is in control, and there IS still beauty in the world and good around us.

 We heard you, Lord.  Thank you.