And Back Again

I am nearly recovered from my trip to Boston with The New Dawn Singers. I have included some pictures of interest. One is of the old State House and site of the Boston Massacre. The State House stills bears the symbols of Great Britain. If you look closely at the corners of the roof you will see a lion (England) and a unicorn (Scotland). The site of the massacre is in the median of the street in front of the building. Being with students who are involved in theatre we had to reenact the incident. I played the part of Crispus Attucks. OK history buffs why do you think I was cast in that role? Also is the tower of the Old North Church. Question #2: What important part of the revolution did it play? That is a really tall tower and can be seen way out in the harbor. Another shot was an impromptu performance for Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill aka Brother Blue. He specializes in the African-American tradition of storytelling and oral history. We sang him a Negro Spiritual which, as you can see, he greatly appreciated. Lastly as I was walking through Cambridge (Yes I went to Harvard, so to speak) I saw a display of root beer bottles. This is my beverage of choice. This picture is 1/5 of the display, all root beer drinks unopened from antiquity! The highlight of my trip.

A Tribute

A little over a week ago we said farewell to someone who had become a special part of our family. She challenged and stretched her three students here with humorous stories and antidotes that gave purpose as well as understanding for how and why you perform with certain accuracies while playing the piano. She often drew me into the lesson with her contagious laughter that could be heard throughout the house whether upstairs in the schoolroom or downstairs in the basement she often put a smile on my face while here in my home. Although I find myself still listening for her voice as she passed on so easily her love and passion for music, she does in a very real sense remain here with us as her spirit of joy and enthusiasm is a special gift that remains with us. We give thanks to the Lord for our season with our special friend: Mrs. Bev. Studderheim.

Secrets

Recent discoveries have shown that whoever last lived in our house was a smuggler. Probably the builder purposely bought the house to be used for his own evil purposes. The other night my mother and brother while preparing to lay carpet on the back steps found two secret unknown compartments. One was completely empty(he took his money with him when he moved.) While the other had ancient artifacts probably worth thousands of dollars. Possibly even family heirlooms which they hid to protect from robbers.

For those of you who are gullible please just look at the pictures and decide for yourselves. The second compartment in the last step was found after I took the

picture.

Bon Voyage

Tonight is the last night in my own bed for a few nights. My singing group The New Dawn Singers will be embarking on a performance/sightseeing tour of Boston. We will drive to Kansas City tomorrow night to spend the night. Our flight departs at 6AM Thursday and we should be back in Salina Sunday about 11PM. My next blog will have a report of the trip. I hope to have some great pictures as I have been pressuring Michaela to lend me her new camera we gave her for graduation.

Record Time

My news for this week is that I finished a book. Not any book, but Lord of the Rings. True, I have read it three (or is it four?) times, but this time is special. I finished it in record time, approximately three weeks. When my dad first read it to us, it took him three years. You can see my excitement. I will admit I skipped a couple of songs, but for good reasons. Either it was in Elvish (which I don't understand) or I already knew about the song from reading the Silmarillion. Anyway that's my news.

If you were at my graduation you saw this quilt on my table. It's official name is my "high school quilt" due to it taking my entire high school career. It's unofficial name is "the quilt of mistakes due to the fact that I made numerous errors sewing it. I completed it on May 8 and here are the pictures. Many thanks to my mom who suggested it and the Kountry Kroekers for providing three fourths of the material to make it
Now to the fun subject of this post. If you have read my earlier post called "Whoops" you knew that my cat Silky was expecting kittens. She had them in our neighbors yard and he found them on the day of the Vocal Festival when I wasn't home. He wasn't happy. So my mom and sister moved them to the garage. Well that same afternoon Silky moved them away, but then I found them in the exact same location! I hastily had my dad help me move them to our garage before our neighbor found out. He drove up as I was carrying away the last kittens (whew).
Here they are! They're absolutely adorable I know.
This one Grace is holding is everyone's favorite. She's really pretty.
Some of the names I've been considering for this kitten have been Tattletale and Squealer. She has faithfully sounded the alarm every time I go to pet them. Several times mama has heard and come running in not too happy. She then proceeds to hop in the box and attempt to hide the fact that kittens are there by sitting on them. Oh, well I won't name her Tattletale but we're definitely not naming her Blaze like Grace wants.

Growing Pains

For most of our family's life we have had 2 cars. One mainstay has been a '93 blue Olds Achieva that we call "Trusty". I have been the main operator of Trusty. I have always sat in the seat to find the seat and mirror perfectly adjusted for my leg length and torso height. Lately, as a result of the emergence of a new driver (aka Michaela), when I get into to the driver's seat, I find my legs terribly cramped, my head touching the interior ceiling and the mirror pointing somewhere at the lower section of the rear passenger section. (sigh)

I'm sure several of you have been waiting to hear from me so without further ado, a short post on what happened last week. First as you see above and below my parents signed my diploma which is beautiful. Also I had my grandma and aunt from CA. and my grandparents and aunt from TX come to see me.
This picture is right before the ceremony when I convinced and dragged Joshua away from preparations to take a picture. This is our pear tree out back which is the same age as me. What better place than this to take my before graduation picture?
Both my aunts liked taking lots of pictures Auntie Sherri from TX is in the navy blue and Aunt Mel from CA in the green and white. We had a great time together.
This is my graduating class in it's entirety. I don't know about them but to me the ceremony seemed to go so fast I wanted it to be done again just so it would sink in. During the ceremony I played a piano piece but five minutes before I couldn't find my music. With a very quick and urgent prayer I went to play it by memory which went okay. After the ceremony more than once my relatives remarked on my looking like a zombi but it had been a long great day. Thank you to everyone who came! Also I must add that one of the highlights was seeing Stephen Correll and Ethan Greene in caps and gowns, both looked very scholarly.
My parents words almost made me cry except for one reason. Last year at the graduation several girls were crying right up on stage. After watching that I told myself for a whole year that I wasn't going to cry up on stage(but maybe later). So my goal was successfully achieved but my parents heartfelt words really tempted me to up there. So it's done and right now a week later I'm ready to do it again!

Taming Kittnes

I am glad to announce that our kittens are getting tamer! We hold them and pet them almost daily; and the enjoy it. We haven't had a tame batch of kittens in a long time. So I'm very excited!!!!!!!!!!! I have expectant hopes that they will be tame.

Over&Out
GRACE

Creer Academy Class of 2009 Valedictorian

The Play

My sister and I have just completed the third performance of a play were in titled The Complete History of the Old Testament in Twenty Minutes. As is obvious, it is a short play and I have enjoyed it to a slight degree. How I became involved in this project is a long story. It began when Mrs. Newcomer announced in our geography class that she would be directing a play. She asked if I wanted to be in it and I said no. After much pleading, urging, and threatening, from my classmates I still said no and the play continued without me. Yet after the first practice Mrs. Newcomer asked one more time and I relented. She told me all I had to do was be the voice for God, I decided I could handle that. Fifteen minutes later I was told instead of being God I was Solomon, now I actually had to be in front of people (oh boy!). The next day I had the following conversation

Michaela: Oh, by the way, now your also Cain.

Me: Cain?

Michaela: You know, in the play.

Me: What?!?!

Michaela: It's not that bad you don't have to say anything

Me: But I'll just get more and more parts in this play, and I don't even want to do it!

Michaela: Well it's probably good for you. (how's that for a compassionate sister?) Besides you get to stab Jacob!

I'm still not ecstatic about the play, but it's not too bad, and stabbing Jacob is fun.