Halliday Family Blog

Tonight we went to Sarah’s Baccalaureate at Metea and it was great!  It was a little strange for us because in Utah and Idaho, the event is much more religious and takes place on Sunday.  Everyone dresses up in Sunday dress as well.  This evening, there were people there in shorts, tank tops, jeans, and all kinds of other outfits.  There were some who were dressed up in dresses, skirts, dress shirts and ties, so that was nice.  There’s nothing bad with it.  It’s just different than we were expecting.  🙂

The program was great and there were many words of reflection and contemplation.  The musical selections were also wonderful!  Mr. Simon, Sarah’s English Teacher her Junior year, gave a wonderful (and also religious) speech.  I’m going to try and get the text of it if I can.  It was impressive and made everyone there think.

After the service, we took some pictures and Sarah let us take a picture with her as well.  🙂

Only a few more days until graduation!  It really seams surreal that time has gone so fast and now we’ll have a little one going off to college!  Yikes!

Tonight we had two back-to-back events.  Sarah and Brittany had their Metea Music Awards Ceremony, and Kirstyn had her final chorus concert of the year.  We all went up to the high school where Sarah and Brittany got their music awards for the year.  Brittany got her letter award, and Sarah got a Senior Award Plaque.  Sarah got to sit up on the stage with all the seniors and all the seniors were recognized for their outstanding achievements.

Right after they got their awards, I left with Zach and Ben to hurry down to Still Middle School for Kirstyn’s final chorus concert of the year.  It turns out that Angela joined us just before Kirstyn started singing, so we wouldn’t have had to leave early anyway.  Kirstyn did a great job!

She really loves chorus and is very excited to be in it again next year.  She doesn’t know yet whether she wants to stick with band or sing in high school.  We’ll see what she chooses!  🙂

Today was the  District’s Fine Arts festival for all the activities we were gone ALL day!  Not only did we have the kids in all the activities, but Angela and I had a table for the ARTSpeaks group we participate in.  We are hoping to get momentum going for the arts in the district!  There were a LOT of people that stopped by, filled out a question about how the arts have helped them in their lives and given them an edge.

While we weren’t at the table, we were watching the kids do their thing.  We first went and saw Kirstyn perform with the combined middle school 7th grade choirs in the auditorium.  As usual, they sounded great and we were very entertained!  There were over 100 kids singing!

Right after Kirstyn sang, she went and got ready to play in the 7th grade band performance.  This sounded great as well.

She’s really torn right now between band and chorus.  She likes singing better right now, so we’ll see what she decides to do in high school.  With all the combined bands together from the middle school 7th grades, there had to be over 200 people playing with her and they sounded awesome!  It’s really fun to see how much progress they are making over what they did in 5th grade!  🙂

After we listened to Kirstyn play, we went back to our booth for awhile longer until it was time to go and see Brittany play in the orchestra.  They combined her high school orchestra with the middle school 8th grade orchestras.  This gives the middle school kids a chance to work with the high school kids and gives them some performers to look up to and see what they can become.

She did a GREAT job and the music they played was great!  Brittany has come a long way and we are very proud of her.  She auditioned to be in the upper orchestra for next year, and this year, SHE MADE IT!  Yea!  She’s so excited.  It was a big struggle for her to be in the regular orchestra this year when last year she was in the higher one.  She committed herself to practice more and it paid off!  Go Brittany!

We then went and saw Kirstyn’s and Zach’s art that was displayed for the festival.  They were very proud of their artwork.  It was funny…  both of them had pieces selected that were pumpkins!  We had to chuckle about that.  🙂

While we were waiting for Sarah to play (the final performance of the festival), we went around and viewed a lot of the other artwork.  It is a amazing how much talent we have in our district!

Sarah did a great job in her performance as well!  She has really enjoyed playing in the band and will continue to play the flute at BYU.

What a great fine arts festival this year!  Having all the kids at Metea really was awesome!  We got to see all of the performances and didn’t have to jump back and forth between high schools!  Whew!  We are so exhausted now from all the day’s events that we are going to take the evening off and just relax and do nothing!  🙂

Today, Angela helped out in the classroom and did Super Science with Zach’s class.  Mr. Farrell said that she could bring Ben and that was also a hit!  🙂 They had a great time and Zach is always so proud to have his mom and little brother there with him at school!

Tonight, Sarah had her last official band concert.  Everything from now on out is really bittersweet because it is closing a book on high school and everything that goes with it.  All the kids are excited, but also sad to see this great run of opening a new school, and making new traditions come to an end.

Sarah had a solo part in this concert and did a great job.  She doesn’t like individual attention much, but she tries to smile it away.  🙂  She has really come a long way since she picket up her first flute in 5th grade and started “tooting” away.  🙂  She plays so beautifully now and we love listening to her.

Great job Sarah!  We’ll miss going to your concerts!  😐

Tonight, Brittany had her final orchestra concert.  She has done so well and she is very excited to again be in the upper orchestra next year!  She has practiced much more and it shows.  She and the rest of the orchestra played wonderfully and we totally enjoyed being there.  Although our schedule is completely hectic and nuts in May, when we are in the middle of events like this, it’s great to forget all the other 1000 things going on and just enjoy great music!

Awesome job, Brittany!  You are a great violinist!

Tonight, we attended the first annual Metea Valley High School Black and Gold Senior Awards Ceremony.  All the seniors receiving awards were honored tonight, and Sarah was the recipient of the 2012-13 Illinois State Scholar award which honors students for their outstanding academic achievement during the year.  Way to go Sarah!

She has also received many other awards for her academic work such as recognition for achieving standards in Math and Science by the State Board of Education, and school achievement certificates for earning a 3.8 or higher in multiple semesters.

Way to go Sarah!  Only 6 more weeks to go!!!!!  🙂