Violin Virtuoso

The girls' school year is wrapping up rapidly, and that means a flurry of activities for all of us.  For Maggie that meant her spring orchestra concert, which took place last week.  Here she is at home before the concert, warming up:

And here is the full sixth-grade orchestra playing the same song.  Maggie is on the left, closest to the edge of the stage, although it is hard to tell who anyone is because of the brightness of the stage lights. 

The song is Rite at Stonehenge by Elliot Del Borgo.

Maggie (and the orchestra as a whole) has progressed a lot since learning their first scale at the beginning of the year.  Way to go, Maggie!  You've stuck with it, and we are very proud of you! 

The Golden Week(s)

After 20 straight months of graduate schoolwork, my summer vacation is here!  These first two weeks I am referring to as "The Golden Week" because I am out of school, but my kids are not.  Time to get refreshed and ready for the remaining twelve weeks of rousing choruses of , "I'm bored!", "She's won't leave me alone!", and "She won't play with me!"  But that's still a week and a half away, so I'm not thinking about that now!

This semester was grueling.  Everyone keeps saying how quickly graduate school has passed for me, but I have to tell you, it's been moving like a snail for me these last few months.  I think this is partly because of the lack of summer break last year (I took a summer class) and the pressure of taking the comprehensive exam this last April.  I passed my exam, by the way, if you hadn't heard me shouting joyfully from the top of the roof last week.  Here's a wordle of my comprehensive exam essay:


(Click to see a larger version that you might be able to read the small words on)

Can you guess what the topic was?  The question was quite broad, and many of the folks I talked with later took it in a completely different direction than I did, but there wasn't really a right or wrong answer.  I'm just glad it's finished. 

The weekend I wrote the exam ended up being a severe weather weekend, so Jerry and the girls stayed close to home / storm shelter and had a Harry Potter movie marathon (8 films in 2 days) while I wrote away in the next room.  It wasn't what we planned, but it worked.  One of my classmates in Norman had to leave his computer as the tornado came through - it blew out his windows, but once it passed he was able to go right back to typing.  The only casualty we had here was a result of the exam and not the weather:  my brain - it is officially turned to mush.  My next paper after the exam was just gibberish - I have reached my maximum brain capacity, so it is good that I don't have classes again until the fall.  In fact, I don't plan on using words made up of more than eight letters all summer long if I can help it.  I've got to let those neurons recover! 

So, what do I plan to do this summer?  I'd like to catch up on some scrapbooking, of course.  I am going on a scrapbooking retreat with my lovely sister in August to make sure that something gets done, but I hope to get started well before then.  Cleaning out closets is also high up on the list.  I'm feeling a massive clean sweep coming on.  I think we are going to participate in swim team again, although that will be held pretty loosely this summer.  We want to make plenty of time to see family.  We put a down payment on family camp in Colorado so we can get away and relax together out of the summer heat.  It promises to be more relaxed than last summer - and should even allow some time for (dare I say it?) blogging!

Freedom From (orthodontic) Bondage!

This past week Maggie broke free from her braces.  We had two appointments with the orthodontist that day, the first one to remove her braces and take impressions, the second to get her retainers.  We headed off and I even remembered to take the camera.  I had thought that it would be a quickie appointment, just pop off those brackets and let's go, but it took an hour and twenty-five minutes to get those braces off. 

Hurry Up Mom!  I gotta be on time to get my "punch"!

Feels wierd, but I like it!

By then Maggie had missed lunch at school, so we headed to Cici's pizza for lunch and then to
Pinketzel's for taffy at Maggie's request before returning her to school. 

I've always wondered what this tastes like!

Look at all the pretty colors!

I'm as happy as. . . as a kid in a candy shop!  (Oh, wait. . .) 

After she got home from school we headed back to get her retainers, which didn't take nearly as long.  Before we left, Maggie got to spin the prize wheel at the orthodontist's office - a system to reward desired behavior (e.g. being on time to the appointment, good dental hygiene, good grades, etc.).  At one spin for every ten punches, this is her fourth time to spin the wheel, I think.  There's about twenty different prizes, but she has almost always gotten a gift card to Sonic or Coldstone Creamery.  Today, however, she hit the jackpot - literally!  She got a $25 Visa gift card, and she was over the moon.  All the way home I kept saying, "Ooh!  I know what you could get with your gift card. . ." Finally she said, "Mom, could you stop that!"  So much for dreaming.  Oh well - she's free from braces, and I'm free from orthodontia payments. . . for now.

A Post

Today is good Friday, and I am at Maggie's violin lesson, and I have nothing to do.  Well, that isn't exactly right - I have a ton of things to do, only I forgot to bring anything with me. Usually Gracie and I both sit and work on homework, but Jerry had today off, and he and I went to check out some of our new grocery stores and got home just in time for me to grab Maggie and run out the door. Gracie went to run errands with him, so I don't even have anyone to talk to. What better time to write a blog entry!

This semester has been tough. I am so tired of school, and need someone to remind me daily that I was not totally insane to take this on. I am learning a lot this semester - practical stuff this go around rather than all that theory that came at the beginning. I can't get too far from the theory quite yet though - my big end of program assessment, the "Comprehensive Examination" that I must pass to receive my degree is now less than a week away. I started having nightmares about it a few weeks ago. In fact, Jerry and I went out for Chinese food the evening after I had my first dream where I failed the exam. My fortune cookie said, "Relax and enjoy yourself."   Jerry's was, "A dream you have had will come true.". I am certainly glad the fortunes weren't the other way around!  

I am not nervous about my ability to do a good job on the test - it is a single question that I get on Thursday, and by Monday morning I have to turn in a 2 to 3 thousand word paper on that question. The reason I feel pressure is that if you don't pass the exam, you don't get the degree, even though you've spent six semesters of your life and $18,000 at this university. That just doesn't seem right to me, but I don't make the rules.

In other news, both girls are ice skating now. Gracie is on her 2nd series of lessons and is working on a one foot glide. Maggie is only on her first set of lessons and managed to work up the courage to let go of the wall last week. Maggie had been participating in Upward basketball again this year, and made a lot of progress. She made her first basket in a game, and got stars to recognize her emerging skills in all areas - offense, defense, effort, sportsmanship, and Christ-likeness. We are very proud of her.

The next month promises to be packed, with Easter, my exam, an overnight at the science museum, and a trip to California for Jerry and I to attend a family function.  The girls wish things would slow down a bit, because they are ready to get a dog, and one thing after another seems to slow that process down.  One of these days though, we will make it to the pound and pick one out.  

Well, the lesson is over, so it is time to move on.  This post is the first that I've written on my smart phone, and I guess it went okay.  My thumbs are tired though.  Perhaps I better go ice them!  

Happy Easter!   

Where'd my Winter Break Go?

Alas!  Less than six hours of Winter Break left, and I didn't manage to make a dent in the list of stuff that I wanted to get done this break!  That's not to say that is wasn't a good break - I did get several things finished, and I had a nice time with family, I just wish it could be a little longer! 

Putting up a blog post before the end of the year was one of the things on the list, and it didn't get done.  I am a bit disappointed in myself as a blogger, having not posted anything since October.  And I signed up for blog statistics about six months ago, which lets me know that I have about 12 faithful people who pop in every Monday to check and see if anything is new.  So to you, my faithful dozen, I apologize. 

So. . . are you ready to hear about all the excitement there has been since my last post?  Too bad, there hasn't been much!  Not to say that there hasn't been ANY excitement.  Let's see. . .  Oh yes, the great rodent adventure came to an end, but not before we had a rodent escape.  We were so close to the end - the rodent owners were due to pick up the critters the first week of December, and all was well.  The weekend before the pick-up, Jerry, super nice guy that he is, decided to clean out the cage so the owners would have a nice, sweet-smelling rodent habitat to take home.  The gerbils were relocated to a five-gallon bucket, and as he was sudsing up the aquarium he asked Gracie to check on the gerbils.  I was busy in the back of the house, reading research articles for my final paper of the semester when I heard a shrill, "There's only one!"

Jerry: "You're KIDDING!"

Gracie: "NO, one is MISSING!"

I'm alert, thinking, "Uh oh!  Surely they aren't talking about a gerbil."  I'm fighting every instinct to get up and run in there, thinking, "Jerry can handle it.  It's not like it's a gerbil loose, right?  Whatever it is, Jerry's got it."  Then I hear my full name hollered along with, "WE NEED YOU IN HERE NOW!" 

I jump up, zip in there, and Jerry and Gracie have the gerbil trapped under a wicker chest that we keep extra afghans in.  We manage to box it in (literally - with cardboard boxes) and Jerry lifted the chest, we shooed him into a box, and put him back in the bucket with his buddy, and promptly covered it with a 10 pound ceramic bowl.  The crisis was ended, but Jerry didn't think his heart rate would slow down for several hours.  He had visions of the gerbil getting cozy in our sleeper sofa and turning it into a chew toy.  Who knew that gerbils could vertically jump 24 inches?  Apparently, not Jerry ;-) !  Well, he knows now! 

Let's see. . . reaching even farther back in our memories, the girls and I went to Texas for fall break:

They played with Nana and the goats, and I worked on schoolwork. 

The girls carved their pumpkins this year completely by themselves:

For Halloween Gracie went as Hermione Granger, and Maggie went as Athena:

Thanksgiving was extra-special this year.  It had been a year since Brad, Amy, and the kids were in their horrible accident.  It has been an year full of stretching experiences for them, and we were extra grateful to all be together with everyone on the mend.  Everyone made it to GGma's for turkey dinner with the trimmings, and we were all smiles:

The next day at Dad and Terri's we all attempted to take our Christmas card photos, but we were still pretty silly (and we found out just how far Crazy Uncle Jerry would go to get Carissa to smile!) 

Of course, Crazy Aunt Amy pulled some tricks out of her bag too:

 

But we finally got a good one:



Now I've really waited until the last minute to get stuff done, because now it is only one hour and three minutes until my Spring 2012 semester starts!  Wish me luck!

The State Fair

September means the State Fair here in Oklahoma, and once again, we attended. We got a bit of a late start this year, partially due to the cookie-making antics of my mother and I as we tried to put the finishing touches on a cookbook I've been working on. I'm happy to say it is very near completion!
Last year we left before we had used all our midway tickets, and the girls were ready to make sure that did not happen again. We hit the midway first. The traditions were upheld.

We slid on the slides:

Maggie

Gracie

We played in the fun houses:

We swung on the swings:

We hit the roller coasters - Gracie wasn't tall enough for the big one, so she rode the kid coaster while Maggie and Jerry rode the big one:

Gracie (third row)

Jerry and Maggie (fourth row)

The big thrill this year was the hang-glider ride. The girls rode this one at least three times:

One new thing we did this year that we had not done before was to go see the sea lions. The girls were enthralled, so we had our pictures made too.

Pretty soon it was time to eat our dinner and head to the Disney on Ice show. See if you can guess what show was playing this year:

Did you guess Toy Story 3? It was pretty good. The girls were still on the edges of their seats, still waving to the characters, still gasping in surprise at Buzz flying through the air. Each year it brings tears to my eyes to see them so enthralled, and each year I fear it is the last. After the show we had a few midway tickets left, so we used them on the way to the car. Here's a parting shot:

Until next year!

The Heartland Flyer

Ever since we moved to Oklahoma City, I've wanted to ride the train down to Fort Worth on one of our trips to visit family.  Amtrak has a route, The Heartland Flyer, that makes a round-trip from OKC to FTW each day.  We finally got the opportunity on Labor Day weekend. 
The train leaves OKC bright and early at 8:25, so we got up early and headed down there.  We were able to park right next to the station, so it was pretty easy.  We had gotten there early in order to 'check bags' as instructed on the web site, but that was not necessary.  There is no checked baggage on this trip - you either take it up to the seat with you (plenty of overhead bins) or leave it downstairs in a small baggage area as you pass by. 

Jerry and the girls and our train

Our engine next to the station

Once we got onboard we found seats together (it was crowded because of the holiday weekend).  The seats were nice and large, and and footrests and reclined quite a bit.  There was an electrial outlet by each pair of seats, so you could recharge your devices or plug in a laptop if needed. 

Enjoying the roomy accomodations

Our ride was leisurely, thanks to the extreme heat of the summer.  It affects the rails, so the train can't go as fast as it normally would.  Still, it was quite nice to be able to relax and not worry about the road.  Jerry and I both got quite a bit of reading done.  The girls enjoyed moving around the train, visiting the snack bar and the restrooms several times. 

One humorous moment was provided by the ladies sitting behind us.  We were facing the end of the car, and you could see the adjoining car through the windows in the doors.  After watching the adjoining car moving on the tracks, she said to her companion, "Look how much that car is bouncing around!  I guess we got the good car."   

We enjoyed our weekend, and then reboarded the train on Monday in Fort Worth, arriving back to OKC around 9:30.  It was a stress-free way to travel, but with its limited schedule, I can see why people don't use it more.  It's a shame, because it is a pleasant way to get from point A to point B.

Rodents on Loan

Back in May or June, the mother of one of Gracie's classmates called me and asked if we would be open to hosting two gerbils while they took an extended trip across the world.  Although they weren't leaving until September, she was trying to be proactive in finding the critters accomodations.  Since Gracie has been longing to have a small furry critter of her own, I thought this might be a great opportunity to see how she did with the responsibility, without actually having to purchase a pet, so I said that we would be happy to care for the gerbils. 
Then came June, July and August.  And I have to admit, I totally forgot that I had said we would be rodent caretakers.  Until I got a call asking, "Can I bring the gerbils over today?"  I only hope I didn't sound too confused when I said, "Um.  Gerbils.  Oh.  Yea, sure, bring them on over!"

So now we are introducing two gerbils into our family.  Literally.  Here's Gracie introducing the gerbils to her Lego minifigure collection:

Now, I'm pretty sure the gerbils had names when they were dropped off, but the girls have declared (after several trial choices) that the gerbils are now named "Harry" and "Ron".   I'm sure no one has thought of those names before!

Welcome to the family, Harry and Ron!

Our Big Apple Adventure

Our summer wrapped up with the girls spending time with grandparents while Jerry and I headed up to Michigan to take part in a short-term mission, helping to put on a Vacation Bible School at a small church there.  We were part of a team of twelve, and the first step of our journey was the roughly 1000 mile drive to Hastings, Michigan.

Our Team

We stayed at a small campground in a hotel-style building with a big common room where we could meet and eat breakfast. Once we settled in a bit we went to see the church where we would be working.

Community Baptist Church

Our first day there we helped with a block party - to create interest for our VBS. My assigned task was face painting. My designs were super simple, but the kids seemed to like it.

That afternoon we explored the town's center.
It is quite a pretty little town. They still have Kip's Big Boy's up there, and I suggested going there for lunch, and the group agreed.
 

I have such fond memories of eating there with my Aunt Jane when I was a little girl, but it never occured to me that I had only ever had a hamburger or grilled cheese off the kids menu. I really didn't even know what they served!

Sunday we attended church at Community Baptist, and they had a potluck afterwards where each member of our team stood up and gave their testimony. I was a wreck. I'm not sure why giving my testimony affects me the way it does - I don't get nervous speaking in front of groups in general, but this is different. Every time I do it, even in front of groups of people I know, I just about have a panic attack. That day was no different. By the end of the meal I was a shambles. I wondered why I thought I could be on this team, because I was certainly nothing special! But that's the point isn't it? God can take anything, or anyone, and use them. I'm special in His eyes, and he wants my availability.

The rest of the week was a blur. In the mornings we did survey work in the neighborhood (one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life!) and then we did our VBS in the evening. After a somewhat paltry turnout at the block party, our group got bigger and bigger each night. We reached over 65 kids in all. It will be a real growing opportunity for CBC to pastor those kids - they are a small church with an older congregation - but they are committed to making a difference for their community.

When we got home, I made a video from everyone's pictures to share with our congregation.  I've paid for a license for the song behind it so I can share it with you.  Enjoy!

Music: Big Apple Adventure Theme Song

©Lifeway Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention

Used by Permission

Crosstimbers Camp

This summer was the first summer both girls were elegible to go to our church's summer camp. Maggie has been eligible for several years (you must have completed third grade), but she didn't want to go unless I went as a sponsor. Our week always seems to fall on Gracie's birthday, and I didn't feel right about leaving for her birthday so. . . this year we could finally all go, and so we did!

Camp ran from Monday to Thursday this year, but Jerry and I were scheduled to depart for Michigan before daybreak on Thursday, so I needed to come home early from camp. This necessatated taking my personal car. The day before we left, my low-tire indicator came on in the van, so late, late the evening before our scheduled departure, Jerry checked on it. There was a nail in the tire - UGH! We used the air compressor to fill the tire, and then he took it to the shop to have the tire patched early, early the next morning. We made it.

Ready to go

The chariot awaits

Found a seat

Camp was fun, if tiring. They kept the kids going from about 7 in the morning (get up at 6:00!) until past 10:00 at night. If the kids had to shower before bed, which they usually needed to because of the activities, it might be 11:00 before lights out. I'm not sure about the kids, but the sponsors were ready to drop pretty quick!

Our first day the girls went to missions as soon as we got there. We learned about Haiti, and tried our hand at digging a well, and building a cinderblock house. 

Well-drilling

Cinderblock buliding

After dinner the kids were broken up into groups by age for the aptly named "tribal chaos". Their tribe was also their small group for Bible Study. This week they focused on how to hear God.

Gracie's Green Tribe	Maggie's Blue Tribe
Gracie at small group	Maggie at small group

The next day was Gracie's birthday, and our church's day for the Ropes Course. The group was divided into two, with one half of the kids working on the low elements, and the other half on the high elements, and then they switched.

Maggie was in the first high group, and she chose to do a biggie - scale the wall, walk the tightrope, and then down the zip line. She did great on the wall, but fell on the tightrope, which scared her. The staff was super with her, and they talked her through getting back on the tightrope, and eventually got her down the zip line. She was, as usual, hard on herself, and just wanted to go home right then! I told her she was brave - and when she dissagreed and said she wasn't brave, she was frightened, I told her that being brave doesn't mean you aren't afraid, it means you are afraid, but you choose to do it anyway! Here's my brave girl:

On Belay!

Climbing!

Almost there!

Going across the tightrope

Speeding down the line

At this point Maggie was not very happy about camp - but I refused to give in to her demands to be taken back to our cabin, or even better, to go home right now.  Once she began participating in the low elements, and got her focus off her fall, she began to enjoy herself again.  She may not try a high element next year, but she seems to like the low ones just fine:

Next Gracie's group took their turn. Gracie chose just to climb up to the zip line, skipping the climbing wall and the tightrope.

Ready to go!

Climbing like the monkey she is!

Here she comes!

Ready to go again!

Gracie wanted to know if they would let her go twice, since it was her birthday. I told her I didn't think so, but here is what they did do for her birthday:

Gracie on her Birthday Throne - carried to dinner!

That night was water fun night. The one thing I was woefully underprepared for was the sheer number of messy, wet activities there were at this camp. Next year, I may pack two outfits a day - maybe three! The camp had set up this foam machine, and each team had to dive into the foam, one person at a time, and retrieve balls that matched their team's color. Boy, they were a mess by the end of the game!

I was too chicken to take my camera anywhere near this activity - I used the throwaway waterproof one we purchased in St. John, and the pictures were pretty bad. Still, you can get an idea. It also came in handy the next morning, which was our lake front day. Pastor Charles started us out on the right foot by capsizing as he was entering his canoe:

Once he was upright again we set off down the river, and had an interesting adventure with a fish that jumped in the lifeguard's boat and swam up his shorts. I'm sure the poor fish needed therapy by the time he was done with our group!

Wednesday morning I headed back home to pack and get ready for our trip to Michigan, but the girls stayed until the end of camp and came home tuckered out to begin another adventure with Nana and Granddaddy.

Our Church Group

Heading home tuckered, but happy!