Watch Your Feet!!

We are fortunate to have many individuals who are talented when it comes to wood working in our family.  I have a bookcase and a pirate chest toy box from my stepfather.  The girls both have handmade cradles for their bitty babies from their Papa Jon (Trent's father).  Ashley has an amazing wizard staff from a Halloween costume in 2012 that Papa Jon carved and painted for her.  It clinched the win for her in a costume contest that year.  My girls' toy box was made by my late grandfather, and my stepfather's father has made jewelry boxes for both of my girls and a wheelbarrow for Jon.  Well, Owen's wheelbarrow arrived yesterday to much excitement and fanfare.  My stepfather actually did the work on this one as his father is recovering from some major surgery, but I love the tradition and the wheelbarrow is great.  It bears Owen's nickname.  We call him the Lord of Chaos, but Grandpa Norman has dubbed him Captain Khaos and has made sure that for the time being, he outranks his dad.  : )  We've already had lots of fun with the new wheelbarrow.  The only problem is that we need to watch our feet as Owen loves to get things going and run them back and forth across the house, and if you are in the way, knocking into you becomes part of the fun.

What can be as much if not more fun than a new personalized wheelbarrow?  A big box of packing peanuts to play in of course! 

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.  Here is to a year FULL of blog updates in 2013.  : )

It's Concert Season

With all the other festivities that come during December, around here it has become concert season as well.  Ashley started playing viola in 3rd grade at school, and there is always a winter concert and a spring concert.  Now that she is in middle school, that is no exception.

However, this year she has had new opportunities, and I've really enjoyed watching her learn and grow.  Since this is my blog, I get to be an unabashed proud mommy here.  You've been warned. 

At Ashley's middle school, the students audition early in the school year and are placed in either Chamber Orchestra (the higher more challenging) or Strings Orchestra.  There is a similar situation for band students, but since Ash is an orchestra student, my story will stay there.  I can give a LONG version of the story, but since it really doesn't matter I'll keep it short and say that after auditions, Ashley was placed in String Orchestra but as first chair.  In October, an application came home to audition for the All County Orchestra.  For students who are involved with the orchestra program (they do the same for choir and for band) at their Middle or High School, there is an opportunity to audition for an All County Orchestra.  The experience is relatively short and kind of intense, but it is really neat, because they play in a larger fuller orchestra setting with students from all over the county.  They have a guest conductor and a concert master and the full experience.  Ashley came home with the application and music and immediately declared she wanted to this.  I was torn, because while I don't want to discourage her from trying for things and reaching for opportunities, I was worried about her getting smashed by potentially not making it again.  Furthermore while the strings instructor was encouraging Chamber Orchestra students to audition, he was very much of the opinion that for the Strings Orchestra students, it very much depended on the the individual student.  He even encouraged some to wait another year to audition.

Well, Ashley has been taking private lessons once a week since this summer.  We really like her teacher and only regret we didn't start her private lessons sooner.  Anyhow, she worked remarkably hard preparing for her audition.  She took her music to her lessons and worked with her instructor, she practiced scales and chromatic scales every day and even took the advice of some older students and practiced her sight reading.  It paid off, because she made it into the All County Middle School Orchestra and was seated eighth chair out of 18 violas.  Of the 6th graders from her school who made it, she was the only one not in Chamber Orchestra.  Preparations included 3 sets of 2 hour rehearsals, one full Friday of rehearsals the day before the concert and 4 hours the morning before the concert.  When she came home from her first rehearsal I would say that she was as close to in over her head as I've seen her without actually being in over her head.  By the end, she was doing well and had a wonderful experience.  She had developed her talent more, can't wait to audition next year and is committed to working really hard on improving her overall technique.  Wish her luck on that last part because part of being first chair means that when her instructor allows for challenging in January, she can count on being challenged for her seat.  She is a little bit nervous, and she definitely has some things to work on, but I love seeing her enjoy it so much and love hearing how much she has improved.  She is even considering challenging up to Chamber Orchestra.

The All County Concert was amazing.  I wish I had recorded some of it.  The Middle Schoolers did great, and the High Schoolers were outstanding.  They demonstrated what one could look forward to with hard work and dedication.

Wednesday the 19th is her school concert.  Maybe I will record a little then.  In the mean time, I'm a super proud mommy of this talented young lady.