One day while we were on our Thanksgiving trip, we needed to make a grocery run first thing in the morning. I was the first one awake, so I decided to leave quickly before anyone else woke up, accomplishing the tasks of maximizing sleep time while also facilitating an early departure for the day trip we'd planned.
It so happened that Luke had climbed into bed with us some time in the night, and he woke up while I was getting dressed. I knew that if I left him in the house with no adults, he'd immediately wake up the other kids, and the adults wouldn't appreciate that, so I asked him to come with me. He didn't want to, so I spent the next few minutes convincing him that it would be a good idea to join me on my errand.
Once I succeeded, the two of us walked toward the front door, where we saw that Eliza was also awake. I asked her if she'd like to come, and she did, but she insisted on wearing shoes and socks.
While she was looking for appropriate footwear, Whit came out and wanted to go with us as well.
Before we left, the other two kids were awake. One of them didn't want to come on the Grocery Store Adventure. The other was told to stay home by an exasperated mother.
Finally, I managed to leave the house with three kids in tow. And while we were in the car, Eliza told the boys that if they were good I would probably get them a treat. Which I didn't.
Then, shopping for 4 items at the grocery store, which would have taken approximately 2.5 minutes had I been alone, took much longer. I kept telling myself not to be annoyed. After all, we were on vacation and it's all about having fun together. And the kids really did. They had a great time pushing the cart, turning the blanket into a cape, helping decide what to buy, and laughing about the novelty of shopping in their pajamas.
If I'd gone to the grocery store by myself when Luke woke up, it would have been fine, and perhaps we would have even gotten an earlier start on our (planned) adventure that day. But I'm glad we had our crazy little outing and I'm thankful that I mustered a good attitude throughout. It was a great reminder that little things can be fun if we let them.
We decided while we were driving to St. George to take a little (2-hour) detour to Bryce Canyon National Park. The rock formations there are incredible. It really is one of my favorite places. We didn't stay long enough to do a lot of exploring, but we did take pictures at Bryce Point, a lookout where you can see the hoodoos in the valley below, and hiked a little bit of the trail to Queen Victoria, but didn't go far enough to see her (it - the rock formation that looks like a queen on a throne). The kids were reluctant to start hiking but in the end that was their favorite part of the day. The boys made us nervous with their rock-climbing since there were drop-offs all over the place, but everyone was okay, thank goodness.
Next time we'll plan better and stay long enough to get down by the hoodoos and really enjoy the park. But I was so glad to have the chance just to visit for a little while!
(Suz giving Cat an on-site lesson in iPhone photography)
Here are my scenic shots. They don't do the scenery justice, but I couldn't help take pictures anyway.
We had a great Thanksgiving. We went on a trip to Southern Utah with my sister and her family and had a jam-packed four days that included, among other things, hiking and picnicking at two National Parks, rappelling and exploring at another amazing park, eating delicious food, and watching movies. When we got home and I was talking to Jack at bedtime Saturday night, I asked him what his favorite part of the trip was.
"Being together."
It was an important lesson for me, as I too often get caught up in the things that didn't happen, or the things that didn't happen the way I wanted them to, and fail to enjoy the blessing of just being with my loved ones, wherever we are and whatever we're doing.
In that spirit, I'll share a favorite memory from our trip, which I'm so glad I caught on video.
My niece Dayna, who lives on the East coast, reported to the MTC in Provo last week and we were blessed to get to have her at our house for a few days beforehand, and to bring her to the MTC. It was so great to have her here and spend quality time with her. I asked her when she arrived if she'd rather be busy or just enjoy taking it easy for a few days before the busyness of missionary life began. She wanted to be busy, which was fine with us! We had some fun adventures, most of which are represented below. Things that are not shown are Cat's basketball game; a trip to Swig, per Dayna's request; and a trip to Shirley's Bakery, per my request, where I introduced Dayna to Shirley's raspberry rolls, which she said changed her life. It feels good to make a difference for someone.
We did have some good down time too, though. In addition to the girls' beauty salon (below), we decided to have some missionary-appropriate non-Church-sponsored screen time (Dayna was already set apart when she arrived) that included Victor Borge sketches (she hadn't seen any of them before so we loved introducing her to him) and The Sound of Music.
When the day finally arrived for Dayna to report to the MTC (she was getting anxious!), we ran a last-minute errand, then I took her to the (outside of the) MTC and the Provo Temple for a little photo shoot. These are my favorites:
Next we went home so she could finish up her packing and load the car. Then we picked the kids up from school and Ben met us at Cafe Zupas for lunch, per Dayna's request. Mmmm. From there we drove straight to the MTC. It was so exciting to be there, surrounded by other families dropping off their missionaries - 540 that day! Cat kept saying over and over again how she wanted to come back as a missionary.
Dayna had heard that getting dropped off in the parking garage would be traumatic, with missionaries grabbing your luggage and dragging you out of the car, without any last-minute hugs or anything. That wasn't at all what happened. There were lots of missionaries waving and greeting us along the way when we pulled in, with one Sister meeting us at our car. She told us we could get out and say goodbye and even take some pictures, so of course we did. After a few minutes, we watched Dayna and her helper walk away with the luggage, then we got back in the car and left. It wasn't traumatic at all (well, not for us, but I don't think Dayna was traumatized either).
It really was a cool experience, both the drop-off and the days leading up to it as we were talking about missionary life and missionary work with Dayna and our kids. What a blessing!
...last lunch without a nametag
Driving through the gate.
...last group picture
...last hugs
...last look
One thing that helped us not to be too sad when we dropped off Dayna, other than the fact that she's going to be a fantastic missionary and she'll have a great experience, is that she'll be serving in our neck of the woods, so there's a chance we'll get to see her around town. She'll be a Spanish-speaking missionary, so she'll never be in our ward, but we'll still look out for her!
Cat and her partner were winners in last year's ensemble festival and during the winners' recital they saw a piano quartet perform, and Cat loved the idea of being part of a quartet. So Sarah put this group together from her studio. Cat's piano partner was her duet partner last year and the two of them are the same age; the other two are siblings and are older. The group chose to perform two pieces Mack Wilberg performed for his American Piano Quartet (whom Cat and I saw perform at BYU this summer, though MW is no longer part of the group). They learned "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Sicilienne" by Bach. Stars and Stripes was the longer, harder of the two and the group spent months working on it. They began learning Sicilienne more recently.
Just like Jack and Eliza, this group competed in the ensemble festival the week after their studio recital. This is them warming up at Sarah's house before we went over to the competition, and a video of their judged performance, made by one of the other parents.
Alas, Cat's group was not chosen to participate in the winners' recital. But the fact that they worked so hard to get things together (and considering how tricky it was to get all four of them together to practice at a time) and that they memorized both of those pieces, and that they really sounded great, they should be very proud. I'm pretty sure they'll work together again next year and there's even talk of an entire quartet recital. We'll see.
...and since I have to include a picture of all my Hogwarts students at the end of their studio recital...
Alternate Title: Too Many Videos of the Same Two Pieces
Jack and Eliza started learning their duet pieces at the beginning of the summer. They initially chose two early-intermediate pieces but it soon became apparent that it would be hard enough for Eliza to learn one of them, so the second one was downgraded to more of a beginner level piece.
Jack was able to learn his (primo) part of William Tell Overture several weeks before the recital and consequently wanted to play it at hyper-speed. His biggest challenge was playing at a tempo that was doable for Eliza, or not accelerating once he began at a good tempo. Eliza was still learning her part the week of the recital, but still did a wonderful job of performing and just doing her best.
Clementine was much easier for both of them to learn, and despite the amount of time it took Eliza to learn the more challenging William Tell, she continued to be disappointed that they were playing the simple arrangement of Clementine. I told her that they could work on the harder one for next year.
In the past, the fall recital has been closer to Christmas, but Sarah (the kids' teacher) decided to bump it up so that it was closer to the date of the ensemble festival the kids would be competing in. (In years past, the kids would prepare their duets for the November festival, halfway forget about them, then try to resurrect them for the Christmas recital.) Since the recital fell the weekend before Halloween, she allowed students to wear costumes if they wanted to.
This picture makes me smile because Luke was occupying himself during the recital with about 8 LEGOS. Jack really wanted to join in the fun, and left the rest of the students who were watching the recital about halfway through. Luckily, he and Eliza performed near the beginning.
At the lesson following the recital, the kid were still perfecting their duet pieces in preparation for the ensemble festival. Sarah patiently worked with them, and managed to get through to Jack to help him keep a steady tempo. It made a HUGE difference.
The afternoon of Jack and Eliza's judging, I recorded them doing several practice performances. This one isn't their best performance, but it shows their personalities (Jack smiling and dancing a little bit and playing around, Eliza crossing her eyes a few times) and shows why it's a challenge to get young students to focus enough to perform well together - we tended to have one of both of them fooling around a lot of the time.
But all of those practice performances right before they performed for the judge must have paid off, because they did a great job.
There are some definite faux pas in the video. Jack got up too quickly after both pieces; he looked around while playing; the judge asked them to wait to begin the second piece until she'd told them she was ready, but they just jumped right in with it anyway; Jack didn't wait for Eliza to bow (she was following Sarah's instructions and waiting to bow until the judge looked up); Luke was with me and he was making some noise. What you can't see in the video is that we didn't have the music for the judge to refer to (I'd grabbed the wrong books); when Jack walked in he started touching the string basses along the wall and asked the judge about the "cellos," and as soon as they took their bows, Jack asked the judge if they'd be getting their money now.
In spite of all of that, Jack and Eliza were chosen to participate in the winners' recital a few days later. That meant that instead of taking a few days off of piano, they continued to practice! Here's a video where you can see their hands while they practiced the day of the recital:
They were only allowed to play one piece in the recital, so they performed William Tell, and they did a great job. But my favorite things in this video happen before and after they play.
Once all of the winners had performed, everyone was invited to the front to receive their ribbons and prize money. Jack and Eliza were really excited to win actual money! (Though I was surprised that the money they received was less than the cost of entering the competition.)
