Fine Arts Festival

Another fun thing we enjoyed this season was both girls' participation in the Fine Arts Festival.  It is fun to watch both Ella and Delia find and grow their love and abilities in singing, memorizing, speaking, writing, and creating art.   The Fine Arts Festival rotates around a variety of private schools in our state.  This year our host school was in the Bay Area.  When both girls were chosen to represent our school for their performances, we decided to make a small family outing out of it.  I got a sub and Dave had a lighter load this week, so we found a fun hotel and enjoyed an afternoon and evening in the hotel pool and at a nice restaurant.

Our hotel was within walking distance of the mysterious and impressive Apple Park too, so we swung in here to check out the Visitor Center.  It was SO COOL!  The campus offices are set up in a huge circular building called "The Space Ship".  While we couldn't tour it, we could use an iPad rigged with Augmented Reality and aim it at this aluminum model of the campus.  We could then swipe around and see what was happening in each building (except the Research and Development buildings).  We saw people working out in the gym, we saw the underground Steve Jobs theater, and we saw the solar panels on top of each building converting sun rays to energy that runs 100% of the operation with left over energy to share.  And all these things we were seeing were explained by a very friendly Apple Tour Guide, walking us through this virtual tour.  Neat, huh?  Worth a stop if you ever find yourself in Cupertino!  Below shows a pretty lookout spot we enjoyed as the sun set.  The next morning, we slept long and enjoyed a fun breakfast since we didn't have hours of Bay Area traffic to battle!  This bit of quality family time was so refreshing as we feel some end of the year weariness.  Just the taste of summer we needed to recharge and conquer our last few weeks of school.

The next day was the festival and this was great too! Every representative did a wonderful job using their gifts for God's glory.  Delia sang in an ensemble.  They sang a song called "Heroes of the Faith" and Dave and I were so impressed with how legitimately GOOD it sounded.  They nailed the parts and dynamics and got a lot of good feedback from the judges.

Ella had a short story entered and a piece of art.  She also went to sing with an ensemble.  They sang "Cannon of Praise" and it was lovely.  My favorite thing she did was a memorized monologue called "When Life Gets a Bit Testy".  It starts with a line that goes something like this: "Well, it's that time of year again.  The time when your teachers want to find out what you've picked up in their classes, besides a stomach bug and two eye infections..." and goes on to tell silly jokes and stories about studying for and taking exams.  The judges said she was a natural with perfect timing and that she may have a future in stand up comedy!

Our girls don't play sports, so we spend zero hours going to games.  This was a big day, with an overnight in a hotel attached to it.  But, it was so worth it to see our girls shining in areas they have been gifted!  I can't wait to watch how these loves for writing, singing, and performing continue to grow in the future!