Tonight, Sarah had her final Band Concert of the 2010 school year. They all sounded so good and we really enjoyed listening to all the bands in the brand new auditorium. Sarah played both the piccolo and the flute in the pieces that they played.
It is amazing to us every time we hear them play that they are only sophomore and freshman students. They will be absolutely outstanding when they get to be seniors! Great hard work, Sarah!
Today Brittany had her middle school Conference Track Meet. There were 14 teams there. Brittany ended up running 4 races… 1) the Medley Relay (where she ran the 2oo), 2) the 4 x 200 meter relay, 3) the 4 x 100 meter relay, and 4) the 200 meter dash. They really did well at the Medley Relay where the came in second.
Overall, I think that Still took 7th overall. They had some screw-ups with the timings and people were confused (i.e. the person named district champion in one particular event told one of Brittany’s friends that she actually came in 6th!) 🙂 Oh well, it’s all about having fun and growing athletically anyway!
Brittany is now looking forward to being a Lady Mustang and running track for Metea. She said she’s going to practice hard over the summer and throughout the fall so that she can be her best next spring. What a crazy track season, trying to juggle it with the Still Middle School Musical! It was nice of Brittany’s track coaches to let her still participate, even though she didn’t get to practice much.
Congratulations on a fun track season, Brittany! 🙂
Today was an incredibly busy day! Most of it was taken up by the District 204 Fine Arts Festival in which all of our kids (except Ben, of course) were involved. Zachary had art that was selected to be displayed. Kirstyn sang with her choir, played with her band, and had art selected. Brittany had art that was selected, sang with her choir, and played with her orchestra. Sarah played with her band. The Fine Arts Festival activities started off at 8 and we didn’t finish up until about 4.
During that time, I had to miss a couple of performances as Zachary and I had our soccer game. He did well and had a lot of fun there. After the soccer game, it was right back up to the Fine Arts Festival for more activities. Here are some pics:
Brittany's Photo She Submitted
Brittany's Art Project She Submitted
Kirstyn with Her Band
Another one of Brittany's Art Projects
Kirstyn Singing with her Chorus
Kirstyn's Art Project She Submitted
Another one of Kirstyn's Art Projects
Zachary with His Gator Art Project
Brittany Singing with her Chorus
Sarah Playing with her Band
As you can tell, it was VERY busy, but VERY rewarding to see our kids participating in such cool and worthwhile endeavors! 🙂
After the festival, we came home and had to hurry to get ready for our Ward’s 1st Annual Talent Show and Men’s Gourmet Dessert Cook-Off. I made a trifle that had layers of chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, angel food cake, vanilla pudding, and whipped cream. It looked really good and I actually one a $10 Dairy Queen gift card for the best looking dessert! 🙂 The talent show was AWESOME! We do have a lot of talent in our ward. There was much singing and performing. We had a great time!
We will also sleep good tonight as well! 🙂
Tonight, Zachary, Kirstyn, and I went to the Kane County Cougars baseball game. Tonight was one of the “Ozzie Reading Club” nights where school kids can get free tickets, free hot dogs and drinks, and free t-shirts for reading a certain number of books! 🙂 When we got there, we found our seats, which were about 3 rows up from the field on the right field line! We’ve never had seats that good before! We then went and walked in the parade around the field with Ozzie, the Cougar’s mascot. The kids loved being down on the field with all the crowd cheering for them! 🙂
We then went and got the free food for the kids (I had to spend about $12 for my stuff) and their t-shirts. The line was long and the stadium was crowded! The game was great and we had a wonderful time! The Cougars won by a large margin which made the kids happy!
What they liked even more, however, was the fireworks show after the game (first one of the season)! Every Friday night they do this and it’s quite the popular thing!
Tonight Brittany had her final chorus concert at Still. She sang both with the 8th grade chorus and her honors chorus groups. They sounded great! We’re not done with the Still Middle School music program, however, as Kirstyn will be here next year doing both band and orchestra.
Brittany sure has loved being in music at Still. She has learned a TON and has made a bunch of new friends! 🙂
Tonight, our family held its 6th annual Teacher Appreciation Dinner. It’s getting more and more difficult to coordinate now that we have 4 kids in school! 🙂 All the kids invite 1 or 2 teachers they feel have impacted their lives in a good way during the year and we invite them over for a dinner in their honor. This year, Zach invited Miss Kalvaitis and Mrs. Lent. Kirstyn invited Mr. DiNatale, Brittany invited Mrs. Pakkebier, and Sarah invited Mr. Devany. Unfortunately, there were other teachers invited who could not come, and that was sad for the kids. 🙁
We had dinner, and then held a “version” of family home evening with the teachers. We had opening and closing songs and prayers (it was weird for just our family to be singing with 4 music teachers there 🙂 – because we didn’t have enough books), and the kids provided the entertainment. Zach sang a song and read a poems that he wrote for his teachers. Kirstyn played her clarinet and also read a poem she wrote for her teacher. Brittany played the violin and read her teacher a letter she wrote to her. Last but not least, Sarah played her flute and read a poem she wrote for her teacher.
Zach and Miss Kalvaitis
Kirstyn and Mr. DiNatale
Brittany and Mrs. Pakkebier (and family)
Sarah and Mr. Devany (and family)
After the entertainment, we all had ice cream sundaes and took pictures (we missed Mrs. Lent because she had to sneak out early). When it came time for the teachers to go, we gave them all hanging flower baskets as an additional “thank you” for being our kids teachers. We love doing this as we know it’s important to recognize those people in your life that make a difference.
Thanks teachers!
Tonight, Kirstyn had her final chorus concert at Gombert. She loves singing, and will have a great time next year in Middle School both singing AND playing her clarinet.
She also had a speaking part which surprised me because I had no clue (normal). 🙂 They sang some pretty complicated songs which had multiple parts and interesting rhythms. We are very blessed to be in a school district that has so much talent. To be known around the nation for the music and arts is a great thing and it really forces the kids to work harder and be better than they may be otherwise.
Great job Kirstyn! 🙂
Tonight, Brittany had her final Orchestra concert at Still Middle School. She played in the 8th Grade Orchestra as well as the Chamber Orchestra (Honors).
They played Viva la Vida, Night at the Museum, Perseus, Farendole, and Shenandoah. They did a GREAT job! Sarah babysat the kids while Angela and I went and enjoyed the evening of great music. Keep up the GREAT work Brittany!
Today was quite the busy day for the family! Angela got up early and went shopping with some friends. It turns out that there is a new craze around coupon shopping and getting a TON of stuff for pretty cheap! Some call it “black belt couponing.” It takes some time to figure things out (where the coupons are, what stores are having the major sales on what you want, etc.) but once you do that, you can cash in big! Today, they went to Jewel and Angela came home with 44 boxes of various Kelloggs cereal, 12 bottles of Lawry’s marinade, and 4 boxes of Pop Tarts! She got all that (over $200 in groceries) for just over $40! That’s huge!
What you do I guess, is print out coupons for stuff that is on sale. You then go through and use a coupon or two, then get the “catalinas” that spit out of the register with your receipt. You then use those to go back through the line and purchase additional “stuff” with coupons AND your catalinas. You keep doing this and the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. If you’re interested, you can go to http://www.jillcataldo.com to see how this works. It’s pretty cool! We could save enough money in 1 month to cover Sarah’s car insurance! 🙂 We have a friend that told use she used to spend around $800 in groceries every month. She now spends around $200 for her family of 5!
When Angela got home, we went over to Zach’s soccer practice/scrimmage. He loves his team and loves playing! We love it because it’s fun to watch the pack of little kids running around in a big bunch kicking each other and occasionally the ball! 🙂 Plus, it wears Zach out and he comes home pretty tired.
After getting some work done around the house and yard (trimming edges, mowing, raking, vacuuming, dishes, etc.), Angela, Sarah, Kirstyn and I went to Waubonsie High School and watched their production of Les Miserables. What a FANTASTIC show! They had a rotating stage, just like the production on Broadway, and the voices and acting were amazing! It’s no wonder our school district gets Grammy Gold status every year at one of it’s high schools! Angela and I have both seen Les Miserables on Broadway and we both think that, with a few small exceptions, this was very close to 
Broadway quality! 🙂 What’s even more amazing is that the strongest voice we liked the most came from a Sophomore! Sarah knows him well and they went to school together for years. There was a young man from our ward in it, as well as a couple from other wards. Sarah knew many of them from high school last year. It was also amazing how many of the kids with major parts came from Still Middle School (where our kids go)! 🙂
Even though it was the school edition, it was still about 2 1/2 hours long and the music and singing never stopped the entire time (except during intermission, of course). Kirstyn was kind of confused at times about what was going on because she was not familiar with the book, so I talked her through the series of events and answered her questions. She even thoroughly enjoyed it!
Tonight Kirstyn and Zachary participated in the Gombert Elementary Variety Vortex show! Zach was a background dancer in a group number and it was so cute to see him in his shades doing his thing! 🙂 Kirstyn sang “You Belong to Me” by Taylor Swift. She did a GREAT job! The music she had was the karaoke version with no melody and no words (just background singers on the chorus). She is quite the talented little singer.
There were also a couple other kids with some great talent that sang and played the guitar! So far this week, we have had stuff going on every night and it will continue on tomorrow! Crazy week!
On another good note, Dad had his open heart surgery and everything went incredibly well! He was only in for 2 hours and the valve replacement went perfectly. The doctors couldn’t believe, however, that he made it through his knee and hip replacement surgeries, etc. and survived. He’s one lucky guy! All our faith and prayers paid off! Whew! He is still at the hospital and in the ICU, but will be moved to normal recovery soon.
Last night and tonight, Brittany was a shining star in the Still Middle School production of Guys and Dolls. She, along with all the other cast members worked very hard over the last couple of months and it really showed! There is a lot of talent there this year. Brittany was in the chorus and was also (as I mentioned before) the chorus manager. She had a great time. In the play, here stage name was Scarlett Sanders. 🙂
Angela and I also participated in the musical as well. Since we were in charge of all ticket sales, marketing, and distribution, we were there both nights at the will-call/sales and ticket distribution tables. On Tuesday night, I watched the musical with Kirstyn and Zachary while Angela stayed out in the hall and watched the door (we called her the door Nazi)! 🙂 Tonight, Angela and Sarah watched and I played guardian of the door.
Below are some of the pictures from the musical:
We wish that we could post more pictures here but I think the woman in charge of photography said that she took over 2000 pictures during the past two months! 🙂 Each night, there were about 400 seats max and Tuesday we had 360+ in attendance, and on Wednesday night, we had 310+ in attendance.
Brittany went to the cast party at Culvers right after everyone broke down the set and had a great time!
Great job Brittany! Way to really break a leg!
Brittany is participating in the Still Middle School production of Guys and Dolls, and Angela and I have been very busy helping prepare for this. We were assigned to be the chairs of the ticket sales and distribution committee. We had to come up with the order form to go out to everyone, a ticket tracking and payment tracking system, design and print the tickets, and distribute them the nights of the musical (April 27th and 28th).
It has been fun, but a LOT of work! Here are the tickets we designed…
We hope that they sell out both nights. Right now, things look promising, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed. The kids have been practicing very hard and Brittany is loving singing. Not only is she in the chorus, but she was designated as the Chorus Manager! 🙂 She gets to do all kinds of things from helping direct the chorus to taking and tracking attendance. It’s boosted her confidence a little, I think!
