Family and Friends

Good friends will drive from another state to see you rule Denmark. Great friends will bring you a couple dozen roses to celebrate your reign. Fantastic friends will take you out for Asian food the following day when your reign is over. And incredibly amazing friends will take a Queen to her favorite jewelry store and let her use their store birthday discount! Abigail is lucky enough to have those friends! 

I'm pretty sure this was Ryan's first purchase in a jewelry store, not counting shopping for Ms. Donna.  It was fun shopping with the kids as the boys took in the whole Kendra Scott experience.  In the end Abigail picked out a bracelet to purchase with Christmas money that had been burning a hole in her pocket! We also stopped off for Roy's favorite Asian food, Pei Wei.  It was so great to have the kids together.  I know our house hasn't been the same with the gone. 

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you

    with the oil of gladness with your companions

Psalms 45:7

A Stupendous Evening

Tonight's the big night, the PEACH Drama Club proudly presents, 'Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark' at the Courtyard Theater in Plano, TX.  The very best part of the evening was that the Gungan's came down from Oklahoma to cheer on their favorite sister.  They even came with a couple dozen roses for the Queen! She has missed these guys and loved having them here!  

The show was a sell-out and there were so many friends in the audience, it was great to see everyone! The photo to the right is the star of the show. No, it’s not Abigail! It is the humble, sweet spirited, kind, gentle director of our drama club, Mrs. Hansen. In six years of drama club I have never known her to seek glory for herself but work everything for the good of the group. I so admire her strength, humility and tireless efforts developing Godly young people. I'm fairly confident if the parents of PEACH paid her for her time and talents, we could not afford her!  

After the performance the kids went out to Braum's to celebrate a successful performance, so many good memories. 

The reward for humility and fear of the Lord

    is riches and honor and life. Proverbs 22:4

All the World's a Stage

Today was PEACH drama club's full-scale dress rehearsal for tomorrow nights performance of Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark.  The cast members were in full costumes and on stage were the backdrop and props. All of the kids rehearsals have been at Calvary Chapel church.  The church has been gracious in allowing us to use their facilities for free.  The kids have made quarterly donations to the church's food pantry in appreciation.  

Today's dress rehearsal was the first time for our group to rehearse in the lovely Courtyard Theater in Plano.  In years past we have rented the McDermott church building but we figured out that we could rent the remodeled 1938 theater with state of the art lighting, sound and even spacious dressing rooms for a comparable fee! The kids loved being in this new venue! Another great advantage to the Courtyard Theater is that the rental fee includes advertising, including ads in their e-newsletter, digital marquee and lobby screens.  Notice the fabulous digital artwork in the background! 

My Queen Gertrude wore a lovely burgundy velvet dress that was donated to The Resource Center's homeless clothing drive.  Needless to say, the homeless don't have a need for floor length formals, so Mr. Don set it aside for Abigail.  She thought it would be fun to wear to one of the English Country dances in the winter.  But when she got the role of Queen Gertrude she made a beautiful floral patterned sheer cape and 'voila' she was royalty! 

So much goes into making such a great performance come together.  There were moms organizing advertising; moms heading up concession stand duties; moms in charge of ticketing; students who gathered props and created the digital background transition screens.  So much work behind the scenes with no accolades, all done for the good of the group!  Can't wait to see the final product tomorrow night! 

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 6:1

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day was filled with church, softball, and vacation Bible school drama practice.  Somewhere towards the end of the day we were all able to call and check in with the grand mothers and then head out to celebrate. 

Jon and the kids treated us to dinner at MiCocina.  A new location just opened up this week in our town.  They have wonderful Tex-Mex food and one of my favorite spots for chips and salsa!  There was also a small yellow box with a turquoise bow from the Kendra Scott store.  

But my favorite item every Mother's Day is the homemade cards from the kids.  Each creates their own card, sometimes with poetry or artwork and sweet wishes.  It was a very busy day, but my heart is full.  Everyday I am reminded how fortunate I am to be their mom.  God has taken every thing Jon and I have done and magnified the good and minimized our mistakes.  I'm ever so grateful! 

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.  Parents, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.  Colossians 3:20-21 

Dirty Rotten Art Critics

With our PEACH Drama performance later this week, I realized I hadn't included this on the blog so now was the perfect time.

Contemporary art encompasses many different art forms, from traditional media such as paintings and drawings to more recently developed approaches that use digital and time based media.  This fall Abigail was fortunate enough to attend a Digital Art Class at the Dallas Museum of Art. It probably wasn't as in depth as the classes Digital Imaging and Design Technology that my brother took, but it was a great introductory classes for high school students. 

Each of the students were instructed to bring in existing digital art pieces on a thumb drive and then guided by the instructor they would transform it into their own art.  The instructor covered copyright laws and that if it was not a piece that the youth would profit from or intent for malice to the original artist it was lawful.

Abigail chose to bring in the logo for the Broadway production of Something Rotten! A Very New Musical and transform it into a logo for our PEACH groups upcoming performance of Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark.  

The original piece she started with is on top and Abigail's final version is below.  I'm amazed at the final result, I think it took her almost the entire two hour class to clean up the original image and add the changes.   There are art 'snobs' who don't consider digital art an art form, but after watching the kids in this class manipulate their images; copy, clone and edit microscopic pieces to create their masterpieces, I'm thoroughly impressed. 

Abigail entered her artwork in the PEACH art contest for the t-shirt design for the drama club shirts this year and although she didn't win I could not be more thrilled with her heart to learn a new skill and use it for the good of her PEACH group.  The art work was included on the Courtyard Theaters website, marquee and the box office tickets!  Clearly they approved of her skills! 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2:3-4

Softball is All the Rage

So you thought softball season was over, didn't you?  I don't know that it ever really ends, what has ended is the high school softball season.  Abigail's CHANT Chargers high school season has ended.   The high school players can't play on the select teams during the season, so the girls do conditioning and drills with their select team a couple of times a week but don't play games.  Now that the high school season is over, competitive ball begins.

Abigail is playing ball with RAGE and this weekend was the first of many tournament weekends.  Today she played three games at a tournament in Southlake.  Abigail played outfield in the first game, caught for the second game and was a relief player for the third game.   

Even though this was the first weekend for the girls to play together, Abigail has played ball with several of the girls on this team since she was in elementary school. Today Rage won one game and lost two. But, the girls have a good sense of team work and I think their game will continue to improve as they get more games under their belt. 

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,
as working for the Lord, not for human praise.

Colossians 3:23

School's Out for the Summer

Freshman year is in the books, for both of the younger kids.  Grade level is always tricky when their home schooled.  The boy has dual credit and the girl has higher level classes. But for simplicity sake, I've kept their grade classification consistent with their age.  It's silly, some home schoolers get upset at this usually well-intentioned question of, 'what grade are they in?' I see no reason to to be the parent that pontificates about Pookie doing Latin by age 4!  Generally, I’ve taught the kids to respond with whatever grade they would be in if we were institutionally schooled. When in Rome, blah, blah, blah. 

I wouldn't want to imply that my kid is smarter than someone else's child, especially having been the parent of a kiddo who struggled in school.   I’d rather exceed other people’s lower expectations, than fail to measure up to their higher ones.  So for generalization, both of the kiddos are Freshmen, one in high school and one in college.  

As their mom, I celebrate that they both had successful school years; actively lived out their faith in service and teaching to others; both found time for extra-curricular activities utilizing their God-given talents; and both were surround by supportive, like-minded friends!  Sound like a fantastic year to me!  

The boy drove home today after finishing up his last final yesterday.  His first stop was to check in at his summer job at Hawaiian Falls where he will be working in the office.  Next he headed to Abigail's drama practice to surprise her!  Abigail's friend Gracie took these sweet picture of their excitement to be reunited!  After drama practice the kids swung by the house and picked up Frankie to go get some ice cream and celebrate the beginning of Summer together!

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests.  Luke 14:8-10

Living in Perfect Harmony

'From the sublime to the exhilarating, Mexican, South American, and Spanish composers have given us a rich diversity of beautiful music,' is what the Educational page of the website read.  The Dallas Symphony offers several performances each school year for student.  Our awesome home school group, PEACH, has attended these events since long before we joined in 2005.  Many of the performance are geared toward an Elementary age group in that the dialog between songs is simplistic in nature.  But the performances themselves are always first class.  Even as a parent of older kids I found myself amused at the younger kids in the audience 'conducting' the orchestra and the sheer wonder of such musical masters! 

Today's performance was a celebration of Cinco de Mayo, and for posterity's sake the repertoire included: Revueltas: Sensemayá; Marquez: Danzon No. 2; Piazzolla: Oblivion; Chavez: Sinfonia India; Villa Lobos: Aria from Bachianas brasileiras No. 5; and Defalla: "Ritual Fire Dance" from El amor brujo. I'm confident I could butcher the pronunciation of all of those pieces!  Fortunately Abigail's Spanish is much better and she read the program to me! 

Music is so powerful and it invokes so much emotion and expression.  I find myself awestruck when listening to such talent.  Even when my own kids play the piano or sing, I swell up with pride; I've often wondered if that's how God feels when he hears us.  Maybe that is why He commanded us to sing!  

After a magical morning of symphonies, Abigail and I stopped by Klyde Warren Park for lunch.  I promise this was a school related event.  After all we used this opportunity to observe people in their natural habitat, milling through the food trucks and interacting with others. 

As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;

    I will sing the praises of your name.”

Romans 15:9 (2 Samuel 22:50 & Psalm 18:49)

Back to the Basics

Base running is probably one of the most under-coached elements of fast pitch softball. That’s a shame, because smart base running can turn the tide during a ballgame and generate more wins.

It certainly helps to have 2.7 speed from home to first. But some of the best baserunners I’ve seen had average speed. But what they were was smart. When they were on first, they would look to see whether the shortstop was covering second after each pitch, or even paying attention if the ball wasn’t put in play. They knew they didn’t have the speed to steal the base outright, but they knew they could pull off a delayed steal pretty easily. Knowing what to do and when a huge advantage on the bases.

There are other components to be considered besides the watching the shortstop.  Tonight Abigail learned the difference in running and particularly sliding on turf versus a dirt infield.  She had a nice hit and rounded first, headed to second when the coach yelled for her to ‘get down’ meaning the ball was headed to second and she needed to get there fast by sliding.  She got down sliding into second only to find she was sliding on turf, slick turf, not rough textured dirt.

When she finally did get stopped, second base was somewhere under her shoulder blades.  The umpire was laughing as he called her safe.  She was laughing so hard she had trouble calling ‘time’ so she could stand up on second without getting out.  The very next play, coach told her to steal third but the opponents player was in the base line causing another disjointed and amusing play.  She made it to third, again laughing with the coach shaking his head. The Chargers took the win 12-0 over Canyon Creek Christian Academy but both teams may return to the basics at their next practice. 

But may the righteous be glad

    and rejoice before God;

    may they be happy and joyful. Psalm 68:3

Taken, Framed, Exposed, Shot, and Hung all in One Day

Art takes so many forms and today our PEACH group explored nature at the Dallas Arboretum to explore the art of photography. The students investigated the basic elements of photography and analyzed what a photographer must keep in mind when capturing an image of nature by and Arboretum educator.  

After classroom time we were able to explore the Arboretum’s 66 acres by beautiful White Rock Lake. The kids explored the mist in the Palmer Fern Dell and investigated the fossils in the water walls at the Lay Ornamental Garden.   

The Great Contributors exhibit is currently on display, it is a part of Gary Lee Price’s renowned art collection. Price is a member of the National Sculpture Society, and recognized worldwide for his life-size bronze sculptures.  Throughout the gardens we were greeted by his sculptures including Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Claude Monet, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and the Wright Brothers.  

We had a great group of middle and high school aged students with all forms of personal technology like digital cameras, tablets, smart phones, etc. creating their own nature art photographs.  Abigail is looking forward to taking her photos and using some of the great tips she learned in the digital art class she took at the DMA.  

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

    but the word of our God endures forever.

Isaiah 40:8