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!

The Season With A Long To-Do List (February-March 2017)

So far, 2017 has been the Year That Just Wouldn't Quit. Every time we think we are hitting a "slow patch," about ten new events/responsibilities/chores pop up. At least life hasn't been boring! However, as you can see, the blog posts are getting fewer in number (and longer in length) to compensate.

February was more than just cruises and cheerleading for the Barretts. We had a little of everything, starting with an uncle visiting from out of town.

My brother Ray and his family live all the way in Massachusetts, and thus far it has been too cost-prohibitive for our family to travel to visit them. Usually, we are only able to see them at our every-other-year Nash family reunion. This February, though, we were lucky enough to have Ray come to Tucson for a quick weekend visit. He had a conference in Phoenix earlier in the week, then decided to come down to Tucson for a couple of days. We missed seeing the rest of his family, but it was good to bond with him, even for just a little while.

We didn't plan too much for that weekend...most of it was spent visiting. However, we did take Ray out to dinner (Sonoran hot dogs at El Guero Canelo, mmm), and then took him on a short visit to another fine Tucson tradition: the Gem Show, which visits our city every February.

The Gem Show features thousands & thousands of vendors, and they set up all over town, so it's not really possible to visit the whole thing. We chose a large tent in the hopes we would get to see some cool stuff. We were not disappointed!

 

 

 

We also took him to take a look at our soon-to-be completed Tucson Arizona Temple. At this writing, the temple is about to start its open house, in preparation for its final dedication/opening in August.

But on this day in February, there was still a lot of construction around, so we had to settle for a few distance shots.


February had a lot of other "this and that" activities. Weather-wise, it ended up being a fairly warm month, and my swimsuit-loving girls were quick to take advantage of that.

 

 

Sunbathing in mid-February...I never did anything like that as a kid! We even visited the pool once in February (at least it was heated!).

We had a handful of warm days in March as well; so much so that we were able to take a short trip to nearby Madera Canyon, and frolic in the small waterfall that's hidden at the canyon's base. We went with some friends and had a terrific time!

 

 

 

 

In other (slightly alarming) news, my oldest daughter attended her first school dance. I thought I wouldn't have to worry about dances until high school! But our little charter school throws a dance for the middle-school students every few years. This year, the theme was "Yule Ball," and the kids at school were all so excited for it.

 

Even Lorelai! You know, the daughter who can sometimes barely be bothered to brush her hair, apply deodorant, or wear a bra. The girl for whom makeup, earrings, and dresses are either not worth her attention or a millstone about her neck, depending on the day. Lorelai talked about the Yule Ball for weeks in advance. She insisted on buying a new dress for the occasion; she even found YouTube hair-braiding videos to demonstrate how she wanted her hair to look.

This was all a little overwhelming to poor Mom, who hasn't ever had to deal with Lorelai's "makeovers" or discuss beauty tips with her in any way. I'm sorry to say I didn't do the braid justice; I am not the greatest at doing hair. At least she was polite about it to me! We also had a mishap with the dress in the washer, and had to buy a replacement for it online; it arrived just a few days before the dance.

But it all turned out okay. It may not have been the outfit of her dreams, but Lorelai was still more dolled up than she usually gets, and she had fun both showing off to her friends, and complimenting them on their lovely outfits too. It filled my heart with several emotions sending Lorelai to this dance. I was so amused and pleased that she wanted to get dolled up; I was happy that she was able to dance & have a fun time with her friends. I was also relieved that there was no "pairing off" at this dance...it was just for fun! I don't think I am ready for her to date and be interested in boys...but I suspect that pretty soon, it won't matter if I'm ready for it or not. My "duckling" is turning into a swan, and her metamorphosis is fascinating to watch.

March was a busy, busy month, and I'm sure I'm going to forget about some parts of it during my blogging, but I'll do my best. It started off, as many months do, with a school field trip.

 

 

I don't get to go to as many of these field trips as I used to, but I was lucky enough to not be working that day. Aurora and the rest of her first-grade class visited the Tucson Village Farm (a local growing project sponsored by the University of Arizona). It was a fun way for the kids to learn about fresh vegetables, and they had a lot of fun exploring, trying foods, and learning about farming.

 

 

Trying some fresh-picked broccoli

 

 

 

If January was the Month When All Our Appliances Broke, then March was the Month When We Had A Lot Of Projects To Complete. Most of those projects involved work around the house, but one of these "projects" was somewhat happier...

...we got to see Grandma's wedding! That's right, Sandra Barrett has a new beau, and his name is Owen. They dated for several months, and finally decided to tie the knot in March. Nathan's dad passed away in 2014 after three years of battling cancer; it was rough for a while afterwards. We have loved having Grandma around more, but we knew that living on her own was very lonely for her. That said, we were still a little surprised when Owen became her "boyfriend/fiance," but only because it was difficult to imagine her with anyone besides "Grandpa." But Owen is a good guy, and he has treated Sandy well. Most importantly, the two of them are very happy together and we are happy to see Grandma happy again.

 

 

 

 

Sandy and Owen had a simple wedding in the courthouse. Nathan acted as one of the witnesses, and it was a sweet, intimate service. We went out to dinner afterwards with a few close family members.

The next night, the Green Valley Country Club hosted the wedding reception. It was a really fun party, with delicious food, lots of music and dancing, and great company.

 

 

 

 

 

March 14th is informally known as Pi(e) Day for our family, and for lots of our friends as well. Can you tell we live in an area with a lot of engineers & math lovers? Anyway, Lorelai will be attending our LDS Stake Girls' Camp this summer, and the girls need to do a lot of their own fundraising. I thought it would be a great idea for Lorelai to bake & sell pies to celebrate Pi(e) Day. We would bake whatever the buyer requested, and we would add a little onto the price if the pie was "a la mode." We advertised our nascent "business" on our LDS ward's Facebook page; within 12 hours, we had enough orders to pay the entirety of Lorelai's Girls' Camp fee! Hooray for us!

Of course, baking 12 pies is a lot of work. We spent one whole Sunday afternoon making all the crusts! Then, the day before (blessedly, this was during Spring Break), we whipped together all the pies. With both of us working together, the work was hard but manageable. We were very proud of our handiwork! Altogether we made five apple pies, three mixed-berry pies, one cherry pie, two chocolate-banana-cream pies, and one Virginia peanut pie (think a pecan pie, but saltier!). We also made two pies for our own family--a second peanut pie, and a "grasshopper pie" (mint fluff & chocolate crust). The results were both profitable and delicious!

We also did multiple house-painting projects in March. The first project was our stairwell; it was finally time to paint it! For years now, I have been forced to stare at the ugly walls of our stairwell, with their flat-white cheap paint, and the years' worth of smudges made by countless little hands. No more, we declared! But since we had gotten so busy, we decided to ask for some help with this project. We found several willing hands from our LDS ward. We ended up "hiring" several teenagers to help us paint, and then donated their earnings into their summer camp funds!

I didn't really get any pictures of this project, because I was too busy either painting or supervising our young painters. But I was so happy to have their help, and so pleased by the result! They worked steadily, never complained, and did their very best, while remaining in good spirits. Nathan and I still had minor touch-ups to do, but most of the "heavy lifting" portion of the painting was done by the kids. It would have taken a lot longer to do that project without them, and it was so helpful to have them around! It makes me wonder if we should enlist the help of teenagers every time we need to paint in our house. Hmmm...

 

But that wasn't all the house-painting that happened in March; we repainted the whole exterior of the house as well! In this case, our hand was forced...we would have been happy to ignore the exterior paint for several more years, but our vigilant HOA sent us a note informing us that we either paint our house or risk a fine. Oh well...it was unlikely the house had been painted since it was built, and the summer sun in Arizona does a number on house paint! So we hired a local company that came recommended to us by our friend, who is a realtor. They offered a very reasonable price, for which we were very grateful!

The painters were small in number, so it took them a few days to finish the house (a windy day delayed them a bit, too). However, they were always polite and tried very hard to stay out of our way. When they were done, the house looked great. It was a relief to have it all done. Hopefully the HOA will leave us alone now for a while! (Not likely.)

We had one more fairly major addition to our house in March: solar panels. Way back in December, we spoke to a friend who was a sales representative for Solar City. We have been interested in "going solar" for a while now; we reasoned that it could be a wise investment in a place where the sun is shining brightly just about every day of the year! After learning a little more about the system, we signed a contract to purchase some solar panels and have them installed on our home. Buying the panels is a bit more expensive than just renting them, but the payoff is set at a fixed rate for the next twenty years...that's a better deal than the electric company could offer us!

It took a while for the financing to be cleared, for the company to get our account set up, and for all the red tape with the local electric company to be dealt with. But finally, at the end of March, the installers came, and got right to work sticking a bunch of panels on our roof!

It was slightly noisy work (I even had a piano student at the time; the poor thing had to deal with a bunch of drilling!). But the workers were polite & helpful, and did their best to not be a bother. A few weeks after the installation, Solar City called me and instructed me about how to turn on our panels.

The solar meter...IS RUNNING!

All it took was the flip of a few switches, and bam! Just like that, we were a "solar family." According to Solar City's calculations, our panels should be able to generate nearly all our household's power. It is exciting to think about! We hope this investment pays off.

That's about it for all our house upgrades...for now! I'm sure we will have more in the next year or so. But it was nice to get some of these repairs out of the way all at once (even if it may have cost us more out of pocket). But springtime wasn't all hard work; our kids had some fun performances as well. I'll tell you all about them in the next couple of blog posts.

Until then...Aloha! *spoiler alert: that's the name of one of Aurora's dance numbers from this spring!*