Busking Girls

Life is a whirlwind right now with band, theater, music lessons, and just regular life stuff. This week was Homecoming for Columbia HS. The weather turned chilly just in time for the football game. Phillip’s voice was rather scratchy for a couple of days due to excessive screaming! Ha ha. This weekend CHS Marching Band swept the Kuna Marching Invitational with 87 points, the next place band scored 78 points. I believe there were 5 bands in their division for the Kuna competition. I am so proud of the band’s extremely dedicated work, Mr Blakely is doing an excellent job as well. Everett is performing in The Hound of the Baskervilles this week. He’s been busy with theater practice each evening after school. I can’t wait to see what he’s been working on.  

Mrs Sene convinced Phillip to try out for All-State Bass this year. He had 4 days to get all the tracks memorized and recorded. RaShel helped him create practice tracks for the scales and chorale on Wednesday during voice lessons. Phillip let me know he still needed to record the chorale sometime on Friday. I was under the impression he would record this with Mrs Sene at school while he was at band practice. I got a text at 11 pm from Mrs Sene asking if Phillip was going to submit his last track before the midnight deadline. We raced through the chorale a few times and recorded a track with fingers crossed that it would suffice. I will say the chorale was very tricky as it was penned by Bach. It is used because it has tricky accidentals, rhythms, and note jumps. He had the first 4 lines memorized but the last two lines were on the weak side, plus his voice was scratchy from screaming at the football game. All we can do is wait now. 

We got a fun package from Amelia this week with souvenirs from the Mexico CTM and New Orleans. Evelyn was so excited she opened the box and brought Josie and I our wrapped gifts. The wrapping was especially resourceful, brown paper bags and tape! Made me smile. The little girls love the fans with scenic art from New Orleans, a hymnal keychain, and a missionary tag in Spanish. The boys are delighted and slightly grossed out over the alligator claws. I love the post card and angel voodoo doll. I just hope the voodoo is good juju. I now have a wooden disk of Jesus laser cut watching me work on my computer. I better be using my best behavior. Justin has a t-shirt to wear from New Orleans. Justin was very inspired in a very ADD manner to create AI art of Amelia and her companion posing as Joans of Arc, Maidens of Novo Orleans.   

Everett and Keiran finished their Renaissance fair costumes of Chester the Chess Jester (Everett) and Dexter the Chess Bester (Kieran). Justin and I helped them add wire to their jester hats, it was quite the production helping them use glue guns and sewing supplies. The boys were gone most of the day at the Ren Fair. Everett said they did not purchase any food because it was too expensive. They amused themselves for 9 hours going on quests, still not sure if those quests were side-quests. LOL. So nerdy! 

We met up with the Beck family at the Meridian Farmer’s Market for a busking adventure. The girls earned $10 for just showing up! Tuesday’s practice was very fun as they practiced Boil Them Cabbages Down, Rubber Dolly, and Edelweiss. Evelyn and Josie requested they sing for Rubber Dolly and Edelweiss. We practiced that with Andrew several times through. The girls were nervous about performing in public until we showed up and saw that the crowd was very minimal. It was a low-key introduction into busking. Evelyn played her Cabbages part guitar picking, she is doing an amazing job. We celebrated with freshly baked sourdough bread and a box of Japanese buns from vendors at the market. After the first set both girls went a bit goofy as they expended their nerves with silliness! They performed a second set after Andrew and two of his friends performed 3-5 songs. Josie went with me to the botanical park in the Islands where I had two photo sessions. The first family has 3 boys, the second family has 2 girls! The sessions were dramatically different. The leaf situation was perfection for both sessions. I adore the Bullard family, they are good people. Their girls are about the cutest girlies ever. Isabelle threw peace signs for her signature pose, Emma had a darling shy smile with a glimmer of sparkle in her eyes. 

Stake Conference was this morning. Elder Teixeira visited our stake for the weekend. The youth were invited to a 7:30 am fireside meeting with Elder Teixeira. He spoke about defining experiences in life that shape our testimonies. One of the speakers this morning was a young man who was baptized last year. His talk was exceptional, he understood the gospel better than most adults. He just graduated HS last year! President Hansen spoke about a football game experience where the star athlete was injured, the team decided to run the ball 80 yards protecting the young man’s brother as he delivered the ball. The phrase delivered during the huddle was, “We were made for this.” That phrase popped up over and over. We are made for this! Elder Teixeira spoke about a landscape photography project he had using just 2 photos near antelope island. Most landscape story projects need 5-7 photos in a series to tell the story. His first photo showed Antelope Island, the second showed on the horizon tiny islands rarely seen reflected in the water at the horizon. The concept was Heaven and Earth, and we are never alone. His gist was we are closer to heaven than we realize, the way to get there is finding and serving those who are alone and need to be found.