There has been a distinct lack of blogging on my part the last couple of months. That is mainly due to the cruise, which was totally worth it frankly. You'll see when I actually get around to blogging about it. It has been this pipe dream to get caught up on blogging. I know it is within sight, but it is such a wiggly goal. I have so much going on and like the laundry, it never is really complete. We keep living life even as I try to document it.
So, I'm going to make a concerted effort to get caught up. I'm going to do NABLOPOMO. You know that thing where you blog every day in November. In order to get a handle on it, I'm trying to write some blog posts now, but I'm not publishing them until November. I'm hoping to have a nice nest egg to begin with.
But that means you won't see me again until November. That isn't strikingly different than what I normally do. I'm just giving you a heads up. It is the 5 day calm before the storm. Then you should be pleasantly inundated with more blather from me than you really want. And here's hoping that I can catch up to my life. (It hasn't happened in years, but I'm not giving up hope.) I'm not totally crazy right?
Please notice the fun bands I'm wearing on my braces right now. I was a whole heap of sore when I came home that day from the orthodontist. They added a power chain on top, the biggest wire on the bottom, and the nice bands on the side. My mouth was all kinds of hurting. It isn't so bad now, and hopefully I only have the bands for a month and it should mean that I'm getting to the end of this road of braces. That may also be wishful thinking. Oh, that's a great goal. Be caught up with the blog by the time I get my braces off.
Anyway, let's do this!! It is a bit anticlimactic since it won't start until November 1st. But you know what I mean. Stay tuned.
Mother's Day is an interesting holiday since really every day is mother's day. Not that my kids celebrate me every day, but I hear the word 'Mom' almost every day. Ivory likes to call me madre now and I like that just as much. I sure love being a mom. Hardest but best job in the world. It helps that my kids are pretty awesome.
They brought me breakfast in bed. Well, I wasn't in bed, so I ate it downstairs, but they made it and it was tasty. Honestly, this is more than I normally eat. It was very nice of the kids.
These are the ones that make it all worth it. I am so lucky. These girls are the tops!
They got me some perfume mists. They picked out some fun scents I haven't tried before. Ivory says Champagne Toast smells like Sour Patch Kids. :)
If I could chose anything to do on Mother's Day, it would be reading, taking a nap, or playing Spikeball. I don't read regular books on Sundays and I didn't get a nap, but all my Spikeball dreams came true. One of my honorary sons even came down to play and Zach came over for dinner making a nice addition to our game. I didn't even have to cook. What could be better? It was basically a perfect day.
I would say it was a pretty sweet Mother's Day. I would also say that in kids and a mother, I have been very blessed. My own mother is fantastic. She has been and still is so good to me. Thanks Mom!
It was a little bittersweet going to June's last orchestra concert because she had already decided not to take orchestra the following year. She was not getting what she wanted out of it. However, she was planning on joining the Utah Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra or UVYSO so there will still be beautiful violin music to look forward to.
June was 3rd chair most of the year, even though she was a Sophomore. Here she is ready to play.
Here is the whole orchestra conducted by Shelby Hornback. Shelby was the only reason June stayed in orchestra second semester. She did a great job, but only got to conduct part of the time.
The theme for the end of year was video games. (The Seniors got to pick the theme) My favorite song was the theme from Kingdom Hearts. It was gorgeous. But I didn't record that one. :( However, this one wasn't too bad. It is the theme from Zelda.
The orchestra also combined with the wind symphony. It is fun to hear them all play together. Please notice the lovely decorations on the stage. It was the band teacher's 25 year anniversary.
That actually made the performance so much longer. They did a celebration for Mr. Bowman and invited former students to speak about him and do their own solos. It took forever. There was one guy who did a drum solo that was spectacular, but the rest of the time I just wanted it to end.
Finally they reached the close of all the extra fanfare and gave the band teacher a new chair. That's actually a really useful gift. Good job band peeps.
Yay to all of us who made it through the whole evening. And good job June!
Next up—the end of year band concert at the Junior High. This one was really fun because both Ivory and Robyn were playing. Here is Ivory on a marimba. She enjoyed percussion but not enough to take it the following year. She is more involved in choir and as long as she keeps up her musical talents, I don't care where she uses them.
Listen to this fun beginning band play the theme from Star Wars. Ivory is on the snare drum. She does a great job.
Robyn did a lot of crash cymbals during her performances. She got really good at holding those heavy cymbals. The symphonic band played a fairly difficult piece called Rolling Thunder. Listen for those cymbals.
The percussion number is always a favorite of mine. Robyn and Ivory were up front. I wonder how people can tell they are sisters?
And the Jazz Band of course. I'll add some of their music in the 9th grade graduation post, so just a picture here. Robyn did great on piano.
Each year at the last performance, someone gets flowers for Mrs. Taylor. How do they decide who does that? This year, I thought she would like something besides flowers. I got the kids organized and they all chipped in money and we got her a very nice gift card to the mall. When I told another mom about it, she said, "That is a great idea, and you can give it to her... with some flowers." What's with the flowers? They just die. But I was dutiful and we got her both.
Robyn got her own award too. Every last concert, Mrs. Taylor takes the opportunity to give out awards to dedicated students. In percussion, she has a outstanding award for each grade level. Robyn won the 9th grade award and that makes three years in a row that she got it. She always worked so hard and I think she earned it every year. She was the percussion mom. She would make sure people were on task and help out the younger students. I think she will have fond memories of her Junior High years in percussion.
I think we got them all. Choir (in a previous post), Orchestra, and Band. May is always busy with concerts, but I enjoy seeing how the kids have developed over the year.
Three years running I've been helping out with Music in the Parks. It is such a fun day and I'm glad I've been able to share it with my kids. We were over at the school by 7:15 am. I got my chaperone group. It was mostly Jazz Band kids, so I got my own kid this time. Last year, I wasn’t with Robyn. This year, I was in Mrs. Taylor’s bus and helping her check off kids. We went to Farmington High School first where the Symphonic Band played. Then Viewmont where the Jazz Band played. Last year I had to go pick up tickets at another school and missed all the performances, but this year I got to stay and listen. First up was Symphonic Band. This piece is entitled Curse of the Pharaohs. Robyn was on the bass drum, although the picture after it shows Robyn on the chimes. It must have been from a different number.
Next up, Jazz Band. I may have fallen asleep during a guitar ensemble and didn’t wake up until after an orchestra played. They was a bit boring. Jazz band was amazing though playing Bringing Down the House. This is a great group of kids and probably Mrs. Taylor's favorite band. Not just these kids, but Jazz Band in general. Robyn played the piano all year and did a great job. See if you can hear her in the number. (Listen at the end.)
From the performance, we packed up and headed to Lagoon for a day of fun. No June this year (although she thought about paying for her own ticket and coming). Robyn wanted to hang out with me, but she wanted someone with us, but her good friend, Bella, was hanging out with a guy. But Lily wanted to join us and that was perfect. Lily is a blast. She hung out with us two years ago. We were a good group. Check out these smiles. (Please also notice Lily's funny shirt. It really says Hello.)
We actually didn’t get on that many rides. We spent time eating, and playing games. Here we are stopped for lunch.
We played Concentration 64 quite a bit, but we spent a lot of time on the Costco game. We had some great moments, most of me gasping and scaring everyone when I saw something I was looking for. Robyn told me to find someone wearing 90% pink. Hard. But when we were over by Rattlesnake rapids, I saw this little girl. Pink bow, pink shirt, pink shorts, and grey shoes with a pink swoosh. I pointed and gasped and this park worker worked thought I was pointing at him. I was so proud that I found 90% pink.
Then later, Robyn told me to find a guy with the Incredibles logo. Every time I saw someone wearing red, I kept hoping they would turn around. Sure enough, while in line for the Spider, this guy in line behind us turns and he is wearing the Incredibles logo. Like it was MADE for me. Big gasp again. But I was so proud. Here are the girls on the Spider.
These two are characters. It was really fun spending the day with them.
The best was the one I gave Robyn. I told her she had to find someone singing and be able to identify the song. When she was in the bathroom I heard someone singing Froyo. When she was getting dinner, I heard someone singing the Star Spangled Banner. She missed them both. But then in line for Terror Ride, she heard someone behind us singing Jolene. I almost didn’t believe her, so I asked the lady behind us if they were singing Jolene. Sure enough. Boom. The Terror Ride is pretty cheesy, but I told the girls it was important to go once.
We had to get ice cream. It is a tradition, even though the ice cream shop still smells really weird. While eating, we even saw a peahen that came up pretty close.
It was a really fun day, and our school killed it at the awards. We swept everything. We got first in everything I think, and several overall awards, and the spirit award at the end. It was crazy. It must have been a good last year for Mrs. Covington.
We had an extra meal ticket, so we got a Funnel Cake to share at the end. So delicious. It was so great to have Lily. She is so funny and she packs away the food. Good girl. Sadly, she moved to CA this last summer. That is a total bummer. We will miss her.
Lagoon is an interesting place, but always made better by who you go with. I've enjoyed every trip so far. Thanks for the laughs, screams, awards, and a gazillion things to look for in the Costco game!
One of the best posts of the year is the art show at the Junior High. However, the show was much different this year since there was a new art teacher. The show was much smaller, the art was all mixed together instead of in categories and I think there were awards but I'm not sure how they were chosen or if they were given out by category. I'm not sure that matters anyway. I took all my pictures before awards were given. Since I work at the school, I did my own tour around and enjoyed several pieces. So I took pictures of all the ones I liked.
I'm going to put Robyn's pieces on first. I shouldn't say anything negative about Robyn, and I don't have anything negative to say about her artwork...there just isn't enough of it. The new art teacher didn't know what the studio art kids were capable of, so he let them have way too much time to complete each project. This meant that they did possibly a third of what the kids have done in other years.
They still did ceiling tiles, but somehow neither I nor Robyn ever took a picture of hers. How is that even possible?? I'll have to go to the school on Monday and take a picture of it on the ceiling. So that picture will be coming soon.
The ceiling tile took up a fair portion of Robyn's time. She also did a couple pieces that were shown earlier in the year at the mini show before Christmas time. You can see them here. Other than that, the second half of the year was pretty slow. There was a piece where you had to use song lyrics and create an original artwork. Robyn spent a lot of time on that one and it turned out really nice. It was displayed at an art show at the mall.
Other than that, the other prompt of 'big and small' she did right before the end of school. It barely made it into the art show at graduation.
Other art from the 'big and small' category that I liked were these two.
Now back to the end of year art show. These are the pieces I enjoyed the most and took pictures of as I walked around.
I think I am most intrigued by the snail one. What is going on in that picture? Is it a snail's nightmare? Are they underwater snails? Is it an angler snail? I just don't know.
The elementary school did an art show as well. They put up art from all the different grades. That ends up being a lot of art. Most grades were copying a certain style of art. Pearl's group did a fish bowl drawing. I think hers turned out so cute.
Daisy's grade did impressionists and they did Monet's Lilies. I think the grades were using different mediums as well, since Pearl used marker and Daisy did paint. But I like how it turned out.
All these pieces of art were well before the Summer of art, so you can see that the kids were just building skills to use later. It is always good to let some creative juices flow.
