Spring 2017 (Service Projects, Church Activities & Lots & LOTS Of Music)

April and May are often giant blurs to me. Lots going on, every weekend is busy, little time to sit and reflect on any of it. Hopefully I can do a little of that "reflecting" right now!

Besides school plays and hula dancing, this spring was filled with a lot of other sundry activities, most of them either school- or church-related. One activity that was neither of those things was Coco's obedience training. When we adopted her from the Animal League of Green Valley back in December, one of the perks we received was a large reimbursement for obedience training. Our local PetCo store offered a six-week course that the Animal League reimbursed us for in full! It was a great deal, and we were happy to take advantage of it.

Since the rest of our month was so busy, it was sometimes a bit hectic getting to & from the training sessions, but overall we were happy with the way they turned out. Bree, the trainer, was very knowledgeable and good with every dog she saw, and she was great at educating them very quickly. She also praised Coco, telling us she was one of the smarter dogs she'd trained recently. So that made us extra proud of our furry gal.

Ain't she pretty??

Our biological children had a lot going on in late spring, too. Lorelai went on the second of her two band trips this spring in late April; this was her out-of-state extended trip to Fullerton, California, for the annual Fullerton Jazz Festival.

 

 Even though this was her second year doing this trip (and she'd also taken the jazz band's annual trip to Flagstaff in February), I was a little sad & melancholy watching her drive away in the bus. One of these years, I hope I can go on the trip with those kids; I miss her when she's gone!

This year, the jazz band performed a lot better in Fullerton than they did in 2016. Unfortunately, their score ended up lower than it should have been, due to a clerical error. They were annoyed with that, but overall happy with their improved performance over the previous year. Besides the festival, the kids also took trips to the beach and Knott's Berry Farm. It was great fun for all of them.

The same weekend Lorelai was away, Celeste had a big activity of her own. Our LDS stake had a "Super Saturday" event for the Activity Day girls (all girls aged 8-12). This was the second straight year our stake had held this activity, and I think it is such a great idea...the girls really love it, and it makes them feel valued and special!

This year, there was no Pinewood Derby for the girls, since that activity was held earlier in the year. But there were still several fun activities, including a choir class; a "rain-gutter" regatta, in which the girls built & raced their own mini-boats; several small craft projects, including a mini "lighthouse;" and a ballroom dance class!

 

I got a kick out of watching the ballroom dancing. It was so awkward/adorable to watch all these young girls try to dance the fox trot together (not always very successfully!). They had a great time doing it.

At the end of the Super Saturday, the girls all gathered together and sang a final musical number for their parents.

I felt the Spirit of God very strongly, looking at all those girls; they will soon grow up to be beautiful teenagers and awesome adults, and I felt like I was seeing a taste of the greatness they will be bringing to the world.

The next weekend (April 28th & 29th) had about five or six different activities, and our family was divided between a few of them. In the morning, Lorelai had to go to the church building because she was attending Girls' Camp orientation. That's right...my oldest is attending Girl's Camp this summer. I am still somewhat in denial about it. But it's happening! She is a little nervous about going (she is going to be one of the youngest girls there, as her birthday comes just inside the deadline), but she is very excited too, and she had a great time at the orientation.

While Lorelai was getting ready for camp, the rest of the family headed for the LDS stake center to participate in the annual Day of Service that our church hosts. Of course, the church participates in other service activities throughout the year, but the Day of Service is sort of a "Super Saturday" of community service events. Nathan helped clear an overgrown path from the community library to the municipal building. It involved a couple dozen people, some shovels, and a lot of manual labor, but they did a good job that was praised by the city! (their group even got a picture in the front page of the local paper, and you could kind of see Nathan's arm in the picture!!).

The girls and I headed over to our charter school to do some painting...

The kids' bathrooms at Great Expectations Academy were way overdue for a new coat of paint, and we were happy to help out for an hour or two. Those bathrooms looked a lot better when the painting was done! Unfortunately, we only had time to paint two of the four bathrooms, but some progress was better than none, I suppose. After a couple of major painting jobs at my own house, I was in a "painting mood" and didn't mind the work one bit. The kids got easily distracted from the work, but occasionally did some good work!

April, all in all, was an exhausting month. May was still busy, but a little bit less stressful. We ran around a fair bit, whether it was picking up DELICIOUS CHEAP TACOS downtown for Cinco de Mayo...

Street Tacos & Beer, one of our favorite places...the line for tacos was out the door!

Mmmm...nothing like a good street taco

...cheering up our friend Aiden and his family, who spent much of the month in the hospital recovering from a burst appendix...

We also took a couple of Aiden's sisters out to dinner one night, when their parents were busy.

...and receiving a lot of WONDERFUL gifts from my sweet girls for Mother's Day. How did I get so lucky?

 

 

This was Nathan's gift to me...hooray! It will be fun to play songs out of this.

Most of May was taken up with MUSIC, of many different types. We had my annual spring piano recital, featuring performances from all my students. This year we celebrated a first; we were able to use the activity room at Casa Community Center, which is part of an assisted-living community. I have sometimes helped them out by playing piano for the seniors' "music hour," so the staff repaid me by letting me use their facility free of charge. I was so grateful for their generosity, and I think the program turned out really well!

As always, I was very proud of the performances of all these talented kids. I was especially proud of my own kids, because I am pretty biased. Some of them (*cough, Lorelai, cough*) don't like it when I record their performances, so on this occasion, they never saw me do it this time! All the camera can see are their backs, but I think their beautiful music speaks for itself.

Celeste's songs are getting better & better all the time. She is a little flaky about practice sometimes, but when she has a song she likes, she really commits herself, and the results are quite good.

Lorelai is getting advanced enough that she is willing to try more challenging stuff...stuff like the main theme of "Fur Elise." All told, she did quite well. I hope she continues to progress and deepen her love of piano.

Another big music event in May was Lorelai's end-of-year jazz band concert. Due to scheduling difficulties, there was no winter concert, and we really missed hearing them. Thankfully, the end-of-year concert made up for it, with all the bands performing--beginning bands (4th & 5th grades), and the Blue Band (made up this year of  some 5th graders and middle schoolers).

I didn't record the whole performance...some jazz songs can be really long, and my phone was running short on memory! However, here are two of my favorites from the evening: "Arnge Drank" (actual spelling!) and an arrangement of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground."

There was one more night of music this May, at least for Celeste, Aurora and myself: we got to attend the Christian Youth Theater production of the musical James & the Giant Peach. It is a relatively new musical, and we were all very curious to see it!

Story-wise, it's definitely a musical more tailored for kids, but I found the acting great, the costume design awesome (it was very steampunk-inspired!), and the music quite nice for the most part!

 

Of course, we had to stuff our faces with pizza before enjoying the show. It was a fun evening!

We finished off our May (or kicked off our summer vacation, if you want to look at it that way) not with music, but with the snarls & growls of two wrestling dogs:

 

 

 

Coco's friend Maz came for a visit over Memorial Day weekend. We agreed to watch her for some friends of ours, who went camping for a couple of days. For the first time since adopting our own dog, I was introduced to the spectacle of two energetic, athletic young dogs really going at it. They wrestled & goofed off for four straight hours; I was exhausted just watching them!!

 

Thank goodness we had a quiet day of hiking after that; we got to explore high up on Mount Lemmon for Memorial Day weekend, and we loved every minute of it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather high up the mountain was delightfully cool & refreshing (it was at least 20 degrees cooler than in Tucson!), and it was fun to take Coco on an exploratory adventure.

After the hike, we went out for a snack & crashed at home. We had some friends over for dinner on Memorial Day, but that was the extent of our holiday weekend; nothing super elaborate or fancy!

Blogging-wise, I think this post is taking us up to the end of the school year. That's a good thing! The bad news is, you'll have to wait a bit before I can start blogging about summer. Our June has been very busy with Tucson Temple-related stuff (more on that soon!). Plus, we are about to head out on vacation--to Colorado and then Utah for the Nash family reunion! Hopefully we'll have some great stuff to share when we return. Stay tuned!