I enjoyed having Jennifer home for her spring break. She used her time catching up with her TV shows, and generally relaxing. She came to my Melodrama rehearsal on Tuesday night, so she got to see us rehearse the 2nd half where all the craziness happens (well, I guess the whole thing is crazy, but it all comes to a head at the end). Anyway it was fun to have her come watch us. I wanted to do something fun with her while she was here, and she said that she'd love to go downtown Portland and explore some art museums. So we spent most of the day on Friday (10:30-3:45pm) at the Portland Art Museum. http://portlandartmuseum.org/home/ We really enjoyed ourselves. I have no idea why we have never done this before! (I did go once with my mom to see the China exhibit long ago once when I was pregnant.) The big exhibit going on at the time was titled: La volupté du goût: French Painting in the Age of Madame de Pompadour. It was nice, but I think we both liked the contemporary exhibits the best. It was exciting for me to see real works by artists that I had studied and taught about in Art Lit over the years. I liked the huge Monet - one of the Lilly pond studies. There was also a Louise Nevelson's collage all painted black- just like we did with the kids! I loved Frank Stella's huge work- it is definitely not the same as looking at it in slides or books. So big- and our little miniatures looked just like his! I liked the Calder mobile, and they actually had a Deborah Butterfield horse statue- and I touched it! It was a fun and fulfilling day. I am so very glad that we went. Thank you Jennifer for suggesting on going!
Wednesday morning came early as Brian took a carload of winter percussion kids (including Kevin and Jessica) to the airport to fly off the Dayton Ohio at 3am. They had a real fun trip. We watched their performance online Thursday morning. Somehow things got messed up and they were announced with the title of their show 3 years ago "Amazing 7s". Other than that it all seemed to go fine. They looked good, but as they came close to the end my heart sank as one of their team members fell. (I found out later that they don't get docked for that, but judged on their recovery.) It was fun to text back and forth with the kids as we watched the scores come in. There were 70 groups in their class, which were divided into 4 rounds, 15 groups in each round. The top 3 of each- plus 4 top scoring groups got to go to semifinals that night. Since I paid for live stream for the day, we had shows going on the computer from 8am-10pm! What a variety, and mix of shows and skill! Westview ranked 10 in their round, so didn't make it any further in the competition. They scored a 82.875- the top three groups in our round getting a 91.950, 91.375, and 89.488. The group that ended up winning in the finals had a 94.875 in their first round. We were hoping the kids wouldn't be too bummed, but when they came home their spirits were high and they were bubbling over with all the fun they had, and stories to tell. They attended the professional final competition on Saturday and LOVED it! Kevin and Jessica definitely love what they do! It was good to have them home on that Sunday.
Here are some good youtube links of them performing/practicing:
The Family and Friends performance last performance before leaving for Dayton. It has some new elements added: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij0MIuP6fwI
This is a fun run to watch. It is taken by one of their leaders in the parking lot as they practice. It is cool becuase he walks around so you can see the kids faces and hear their instruments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBB5yaVSrTA
Here is another good practice cam shot - you can see Jessica in this one a little better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUl3KoCR9s
Saturday the 18th I had Melodrama practice early in the morning- before leaving I said my goodbyes to Jennifer as Brian took her off to meet the Wiseman's for a ride back to school. At rehearsal we all got pretty nervous and decided to add 3 more rehearsals before the performance the next week.
Melissa had a violin concert at the Cedar Hill Crossing Mall that afternoon. Turns out our camera batteries were both dead so we didn't record the whole thing. We got part of the duet she played with Savannah called Ragtime Special. (I have no idea why the lighting is so bad). 
No comments:
Post a Comment