All-State and Valley of Vex

Ole Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, 6 more weeks of “winter.” Since this winter hasn’t felt much like winter maybe that won’t be so terrible. Our family had two big events this week with Amelia at All-State and Everett’s State Robotics Valley of Vex competition on Friday. Amelia left for Lewiston Wednesday morning on the district’s travel bus. The choir director, Coty Raven Morris, is quite the legend. In person she is larger than life and a force to behold. Amelia loved every moment spent learning from Ms. Morris. She got her music autographed by the composer! I hear the college was not quite prepared for the amount of students and support staff that invaded the small town. The catering service ran out of food several times, Mia said the food was terrible anyway like soggy sandwiches and mushy main dishes. 

Josie wanted to have a special Mommy and Me experience Wednesday after dropping off the older kids to activities. She would not reveal what her plan was until the van was clear! Her plan? She wanted to drive out to a dark area and look at the stars! That’s my girl. I found a dark country lane where we pulled off and admired the stars for a good 20 minutes. We found all the planets except Mercury because it was set below the horizon already. 

I have 4 new foot accessories, 2 per foot. Lovely bunions are growing on the top and sides of my feet thanks to my Doc Martens. Darn it all! I had 2 days left to return the boots so they went back to the store. I couldn’t return the Mary Janes because Josie turned the box into a reindeer habitat and the heel protectors left a stain inside on the leather. Guess what? You can buy shoe stretchers with bunion pads. Guess my future footwear looks like ugly orthotic shoes. 

I had an attire zoom meeting Tuesday evening with Liz Porter, the costuming director, and lots of other attire coordinators. A month ago the attire lead said the coordinators would probably not have a major role this semester. The “probably” turned into the coordinators being the point for the attire receiving, sorting, distribution, and monitoring. Not to mention helping 676 participants finding someone to sew up the costumes. Liz said Idaho went from 500ish singers to 676 youth singers this semester. The costume crews in Utah and Arizona are busy cutting yards of fabric, assembling the patterns, and packing the items into bags for mailing. Once I get the packets my job will be to sort the fabric lengths into family groups depending on size and getting that distributed. The fabric should be to me by February 13th, with a week to sort and get it ready for pick up by the 20th. Folks will have a month to get the costumes constructed. Our costume check is not until, the 3rd of April, just 10 days before the technical rehearsals. I want to have a soft costume check before spring break so families have that time to make corrections. Sounds pretty crazy to me. 

Amelia was gone to Lewiston and Sara/Carson were gone to BYU-I for Carson’s cello audition on Thursday. I worked early and late all week so I could leave work early on Thursday to take the crew to MCO. I was able to field the costuming situation with my assistants and the other leadership, which was nice to get their input. 

Friday morning Everett needed to be at EVMS at 7:30 am for the VEX robotics competition. I dropped him off at 7:15 to get a photo of his bot before going to work. He was not very excited about the day. His team is not working like a cohesive team, they are struggling to involve everyone and get their bot functioning properly. I went off to work for 3 hours at school. I made it just in time to watch Everett’s second match. Everett is the driver and programmer for his team. They won the match thanks to their teammates, their bot was not able top pick up any circles for some reason. Everett looked really frustrated! Still their bot placed at highest 3rd and lowest 14th! That is not too shabby against 60 Idaho teams from both MS and HS. Phillip supported Everett the rest of the day. 

My weather curse is still active. I brought Evelyn and Josie with me for the 5 hour trip up to Lewiston, ID. We ran into a snow squall between Fruitvale and Pinehurst as we crossed over the mountains. If we had left 20 minutes later I am not sure the van would’ve made it through the 12+ inches of snow dumping over that area. I got behind a semi truck and slowly made our way using the truck as guidance. In spite of my white knuckles the drive was quite magical. It felt like we made our way through Narnia before the White Witch was defeated. Our 5 hour drive turned into 6.5 hours thanks to the snow and required 25 mph we drove to stay safe over the mountain passes. We arrived with time to spare for some dinner and to watch the Mixed choir performance with Amelia. She was bouncing everywhere with excitement! Love that silly girl. The Mixed Choir performed a number that depicted a walk in the forest. The choir performed that number to perfection, brought tears to my eyes! We shared a hotel room with the Beck family, got the hotel key from Emma because they wanted to watch the jazz ensembles. Once the Beck’s got to the room we enjoyed some conversations and laughed at Emma trying to burp. So silly. Next morning we had time to relax before leaving for breakfast. The girls wanted to play at the McDonald’s play place up the street. It was apparently the BEST play place in their memory. We headed to North 40, a store like D&B Supply to find Josie and cowgirl hat. She found her heart’s desire in the form of a felted black hat. She is so excited her birthday is in just 6 days. I got some activity books and a snack to keep them occupied for the next few hours. We arrived to the auditorium in time to watch the Becks perform with the orchestra. Eliza made it to 2nd chair in the entire state of Idaho! She is amazing. We are lucky to have their musical talents teaching Josie and Evelyn the violin and ukulele. Amelia’s choir was the last performance. I thought their performance was the icing on the cake, the girls really sang their hearts out. Amelia got to deliver her line during the last song, “What I Want to Be,” where girls read their dreams for themselves. Amelia said, “I am a Queen!” Slay. Our drive home was gratefully, uneventful. Just took forever as we did not leave Lewiston until around 4 pm PST. Amelia slept most of the way. She was exhausted. We stopped at a fun pizza place in New Meadows called Miss Kitty’s Pizza and Such. We played “Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza.” The girls kept triggering my startle reflex making me flinch so I lost that hand. Stinkers! It was fun to laugh and giggle.