Myrtle Beach Music Trip

Daniel and Julia went on a 4-day trip to Myrtle Beach for music competitions. Dave was one of the group chaperons. Here is the scoop from the school newsletter on how they did. (I am only including awards that involved Julia and Daniel.)

1st Place with a Superior Rating went to the following groups!Symphonic Band, Jazz Band,  Orchestra, Concert Choir, Madrigals, Women’s Choir, Men’s Choir,

 Specialty Awards:
The Symphonic Band , Jazz Band, Orchestra,  Concert Choir, Women's Choir and Madrigals all won Best Overall for the festival regardless of group size or division.

Grand Champion Awards were presented to the Men’s Choir and Madrigals for the Vocal Grand Champion.  Symphonic Band and Orchestra received the the Instrumental Grand Champion for the highest overall score combining two performances averaged together.

Congratulations to Daniel as Madrigal's student director and Trombone Section Leader in Jazz and Symphonic Band, and Julia as Clarinet section leader in the Symphonic Band.

Baby Jacob

Kara's baby, Jacob Michael, arrived Wed, March 18th. I flew into Denver on Monday, the 16th. I was with Kara on Tuesday and she started to go into labor that night. We (Kara, Luke and I) arrived at the hospital at 3:20am. Jacob was born 9 hours later at 12:18pm. I was allowed to cut the cord.

Jacob weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces--just like Kara did and was 21 inches. He's healthy, cute, and doing well.

Make a Smilebox greeting

ART GALLERY

For our 'President's Day-Valentine's Day' long weekend, to combine our PATRIOTISM and LOVE of art, we went to our nation's Capital and by it's Capitol

to the National Gallery of Art. Daniel, Julia and Andrea went with Dave and I. I like being able to take pictures of the works. I felt like cropping some this time, and just collected my favorite women's portraits.

At the At the Modern Art building next door, we saw the Pompeii exhibit.
In college I studied art for a semester in London at BYU's center, and remember a Pompeii exhibit I saw then. I found it fascinating that the city of Pompeii, Italy, largely populated by the elite of the Roman empire was suddenly engulfed by the lava of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. This preserved things exactly as they were at the time.

An interesting but morbid detail is that archaeologists were able to shoot plaster into cavities in the lava where bodies had been (and have now deteriorated.) However the plaster casts accurately depict the people who were there.

Many artifacts like plaster paintings, tiles, mosaics, marble statues in courtyards and atriums, jewelry and glass bowls show the advanced civilization and love of the arts and lifestyle of the Romans as well as the culture of the Greeks who they conquered.

This is a mosaic of Plato and two closer views. The tiny pieces of colored rock are about 1/8 inch cubes!



Another reproduction depicted a mosaic that involved 1 1/2 million pieces!

Obviously the people of that place and era loved beautiful art, architecture, the Italian agriculture and temperate climate--all things that we value now as well. But it is a reminder to have our lives in order, because we don't know which day might be our last.

Wood Badge Court of Honor

Dave's Court of Honor for earning his Wood Badge was held on February 18 th, 2009.

It had to be completed in 18 months and required doing a lot of work at the District level to improve the program in our area. He completed 5 tickets in areas like increasing levels of community involvement, lleadership training, fundraising, etc. You can see the blog for June 2, 2007 when he started.



He got a new neckerchief, slide and other memorabilia.

He made his cool belt at Philmont last summer.

We're very proud of him!

Andrea's belated celebration

ALthough Andrea turned 11 on November 28, she just had a little get-together with a couple friends to celebrate. Julia and I went with them to see the movie, 'Inkheart'.

A 'Picture Perfect' 2009

We took some family portraits at home while we had Erika, Kara and Luke with us over Christmas break.

We had everyone but James, who is California on his mission.

Happy Birthday, James

To let James know we were thinking of him--while he is on his mission in California--on December 28 we made brownies, sang for his birthday, and we all helped blow out his 20 candles.

We also sent him some things to open--hoping it didn't blend in too much with his Christmas package which probably arrived at the same time.
Happy Birthday, Elder Meiners!

Our Bowling Team

Dave and I went bowling with Kara, Erika and Dan, Julia, Andrea during our vacation. We're pretty good bowlers--yup, we didn't even have the bumpers up. :)

Christmas Day

The hardest present to find was the "soda hat" Andrea had wanted. I made Erika's hat.

I also made Kara's slippers--to wear to the hospital for her baby.




Kara and Luke. Kara is 6 months in her pregnancy.

Christmas brunch.
We had a great time being together.

Traditions

One Monday night in December we made cookies for our Family Home Evening--some of which found their way into plates for friends and neighbors.

Yay! Erika returned from her semester in Idaho. What an angel.

Making gingerbread houses has become one of our traditions so we made those on another Monday night when Kara and Luke had arrived.

Good enough to eat!

What other traditions did we continue this year?

Christmas Eve--We discontinued our live pageant last year, but we read the Christmas story and Luke and Kara shared a true story of his ancestor who rode 8 hours in freezing Canadian weather in a horse and carriage to bring supplies to a needy family for Christmas.


We had something like a Danish dinner with the red cabbage that we have purely because it's tradition.
We had our rice pudding with the almond. The winner no longer gets the Danish marzipan (almond paste) pig, but a large almond chocolate bar. We further bend the rules and let everyone else split a second bar.

Another tradition is to help a family or two who are in need. It is always wonderful to see how much it is appreciated--though sometimes we do it anonymously. This year our family was also on the receiving end of a special gift.

On Dec. 19, Luke's birthday, Kara came home to their apartment to find it robbed and ransacked. All of Luke's wrapped presents and their Christmas presents were taken from under their tree--along with their two computers and other electronics and items. That was pretty "Grinchy", but we also saw the Christian compassion of people in their ward who made a collection a couple days later of several hundred dollars that they presented to them--as well as a new computer! That was so kind of those people who mostly anonymously gave to them because they consider them part of their ward family.

Of course we hung our stockings. This year James' stocking was out but unfilled--although Santa did find him in California. We got to talk with James for about an hour on Christmas day. We were surprised by his Spanish accent, but it was great to hear his voice! We are very proud of the work he is doing to tell others the glad tidings of Jesus.

Ward Christmas Party

Our ward congregation has a Christmas party each year.

Andrea was one of the older children this year in the nativity and singing.



I was recently released as our ward Relief Society (women's group) President after serving 4 1/2 years. This party was the first time I directed in my new calling as choir director.

Decorating the Tree

This is about the 24th year we have gone to the same nursery to get our tree. Sometimes Santa is there with candy canes, and a firepit to stand by and get warm and bags of popcorn, but this year we went in the daytime--just two days after Thanksgiving. That is a bit early for us, but I wanted to have the house decorated in time for a Christmas party we held.



Andrea got to put on the star this time. Again, it's tradition to have this plastic star--although we got it at a yard sale the year we got married, so we don't even know how old it is.



Julia was disappointed because we had to cut off a couple limbs on the bottom for it to fit in our stand--thus making it seem too high off the ground for her taste.

Daniel was with us--though we missed James, Erika and Kara. We usually listen to Christmas music and once the lights are on everyone helps with the ornaments. I thought back to our decorating session a few years ago when the whole family danced together to, "All I want for Christmas is you."

RS Party

I hosted our Relief Society Christmas party at our house. That's one way to get our decorations up at the beginning of the season. :)
It was lots of fun. I played my guitar for a sing-a-long of a couple carols, and Julia and I did a family favorite duet--'Baby, What you going to be?' with Deborah Hirschi accompanying us--among other music and stories.

Winter Concerts

Our winter concerts started this year with Andrea performing on the flute in her middle school band. They are very good! and performed a nice concert at the high school.


Daniel and Julia--leaving the house one night of their 2-part concert.

On their first night Daniel performed on the trombone with the orchestra,

and Daniel and Julia performed in Concert Choir.

Daniel played with the Jazz Band where he is first chair trombone.



Daniel sang with the Men's Chorus.

Dan is part of the Men's Quartet.

Then Daniel performed with the Madrigals where he is the Student Director.




One song about food ended with a hilarious burp from the basses. For some reason everyone seemed to think it was all the great work of Daniel . :)

Julia did a nice job singing with the Womens' Chorus.


To cap off the evening, Daniel and Julia performed with their fantastic Symphonic Band. Daniel is first trombone and section leader.
Julia is also section leader, just bumping up (several bumps!) to first chair clarinet.