Broadway Showcase!

One of the songs performed at this weekend's big Broadway Showcase production was Stronger from Finding Neverland and it became a bit of theme for this group of 43 middle and high school drama students this year!  After the middle school play got cancelled twice, and the Showcase got delayed once, and one discouraging matinee to a group of peers went badly...they all indeed came out stronger and better having gone through the trials!

We're once again feeling thankful for the way our directors and school crafted a safe way for our kids to still perform.  This time it was an hour long, 12 song show full of favorite movie and musical numbers.  Either one or both of our girls were in ten of the numbers.  To keep the audiences small for social distancing, they ended up performing EIGHT times!  There were many hurdles and some exhaustion, but the end product was something they were all proud of.

So, here are way too many pictures of most the numbers that one of the directors (a great photographer) snapped and shared with us:

Another Day of Sun from La La Land.  Super cute and catchy!

Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat from Guys and Dolls.  So full of color and fun choreography!  And featuring Ella's good friend, Ben, a senior who has never sung or danced on stage before!

She's in Love from The Little Mermaid.  A crowd favorite, and the song Ella had her big solo in!

The first of Delia's four Aladdin numbers-- Babcack, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim.  This song tells the story of the four friends who "pound the pavement" and "pass the turban" in Agrabah.  Delia played Kassim and, in my biased opinion, stole the stage.  She is a strong singer and dancer and she captures the eye of the audience with her confidence and joy.  We were SO proud and SO happy to see her and her middle school castmates finally getting to bring parts of this year-long Aladdin production to life!

Aladdin had the most amazing costumes already, so Jasmine and the Genie got to show them off in the famous Friend Like Me and I Can Show You the World numbers also.

Stick to the Status Quo from High School Musical had both girls getting to sing, dance, AND act as part of their respective cliques.  Ella had fun being a skater girl and dumbfoundedly asking her buddy if her cello was "A SAW?!" (Possibly one of her favorite lines ever.)

Loathing from Wicked had both girls in the chorus also, hilariously fangirling over Belinda.

One of my favorites, One Day More from Les Mis, gave me chills with how good the solos and vocals were!

And then the big finale was the whole cast on stage dancing their hearts out to Believer from Shrek.  Incorporated into the choreography were the bows and, though the audiences were intentionally kept small, the cheers were abundant for these talented and resilient kids!

My good friend Donna (Ben's mom) was my date to 4 of the shows.  Our kids log hours together as the Robotics team programmers.  We giggled watching them exercise the other side of their brains dancing on stage together, and calling them QUADRUPLE threats-- they sing, dance, act, AND write code! :)

Some pictures of the kids with their friends-- above Delia with BFFs Kate and Cailyn, below Delia with two of her favorite little fans from church, Jade and Selah.

Delia with someone she really enjoyed getting to know through this production, senior Abby.  One of the very best parts of this endeavor was seeing the friendships form across the grade levels since middle school and high school was mixed together.  It is such a blessing to see my kids find good, solid mentors and role models in the classes above them and drama has always afforded them that opportunity.

Above, Ella with boyfriend Evan and below with some of her best friends, Ben, Ruth and Marina.

And some proud family shots after the closing show!

Since August we've been tied up with twice weekly play practices.  My kids have ripped through pants and scraped skin sliding across the stage for the choreography; they've filled in for others countless times; balanced drama practices and Robotics meetings happening at the same time; and even learned how to pick themselves up and shake it off when one performance goes badly and the next one is an hour away.  Drama comes with so many life lessons that have nothing to do with the actual performance.  This one was all about perseverance and strength!  And while learning to sing, dance and persevere, they also made some pretty special new friendships.  Delia received this amazing note, from Emma and Liam, the two senior emcees, that meant more to her than all the applause, flowers and praise!  How does this kind of earnest encouragement and affirmation of talents not just make your heart soar?!  These drama kids, so full of goodness, kindness, and the desire to glorify God with their immense talents, are the salt and light of the school, I believe.  They are the best of our student body.

Lots of Love

We had a great Valentines Day weekend!  It included gifts, special foods, various friends over, babysitting, and a successfully passed Driver's Permit test for Ella at the DMV!

Delia was pretty excited about this funny shirt I found for her!  She's Ivy's favorite member of the family!

Ella babysat for our friend Ms. Katie, who makes the amazing cookies, and was sent home with this darling box of Valentines treats!  I asked, "Did you get paid in cookies?" and Ella said, "No, but I would totally accept that as payment!" They are that good.

Dave spoiled us girls with pretty roses and chocolate covered strawberries.

 And, as is becoming our weekend custom, we have Ella's boyfriend Evan over for a few hours after their Saturday Robotics meetings.  This Saturday they exchanged sweet handmade cards and cute gifts, then I made Ella's favorite enchiladas for dinner.  The happy couple then baked Hershey Kiss cookies and went night rollerblading.  Neither drives or has money yet, so dates at home are just fine with me right now!  We're enjoying getting to know Evan better as we force him to eat dinner and play games with us! ;)

True Beauty

Ever since Delia and her classmates have been in 4th grade, I've been leading them in a twice monthly Bible Study at church.  Eighth grade is the last year of this ministry for girls this age and I wanted to be sure it was a super special year for my girls, who've been listening to me for five year now.  After studying Esther and learning how she was a woman of "True Beauty", both inside and out, these girls have been immersed in a year of special guests encouraging them to take care of their character and their bodies.  

Ms. Jetta visited our class to teach us about hospitality.  She told us her story of taking care of foster babies and how she keeps her home always open for anyone.  We made her special S'mores Bars with her and then practiced hospitality ourselves by assembling care packages for all the young ladies of our church currently away at college.

Another night, Ms. Melinda came to talk to us about "the hairs on our head" and to teach us about hair styling by giving every girl in the group a fancy, formal hairdo.  This night was one of our favorites, as our class of middle school girls, from different schools and different friend groups, really bonded over fellowship, looking up fun hairdos on Pinterest, and curling one another's hair.  

(These adorable girls all slept sitting up-- or so they told me-- so they could keep their fancy hair for school the next day!)

Ms. Beth, a professional cosmetologist, came to teach us how to take care of our hands.  She taught us the legit 12 step manicure process and painted intricate designs on everyone's ring finger.  We discussed how our hands can be beautiful with colored polish, but even more, with service.

Ms. Mikaela, who sells Rodan and Fields products, came to teach us how to take care of our skin.  She gave us lots of good info for keeping our skin clean and safe from the sun and things that might damage it.  Then we all got to do masks-- the fun kind! ;)  Fun fact: when we first moved here and I taught this girls' group the first time around, Mikaela was one of my 4th graders!  She is now a mom to 3 kids.

 Ms. Denise came with a special service project for us-- card stamping.  She brought TONS of amazing supplies that she had labored over preparing and walked us through making 3 original hand-stamped cards.  One of those cards we used to send notes of encouragement to the lonely residents at our local rest home.  

Next week we look forward to another church friend, who works at our local pregnancy center, coming to talk with us about relationships, purity, and making wise, heart-guarding choices when we're online.  A bit more intense than nail polish and face masks, but SO important!

It's been a great year so far!  I have LOVED watching my 8th grade girls soak up all these fun lessons and act as gracious hostesses themselves to our many guests.  How cool that the ladies of our church, with their many gifts, have been generous enough to come share their time and talents with this group!  They have modeled "true beauty" in a way that I hope my girls remember forever as they grow into young women.

A Cozy Christmas at Home

Appropriately, our 2020 ended with a little self-quarantine at home.  When our other pastor and his family went down days before break started, Dave was really feeling the pressure to stay healthy and make it through all the holiday services.  To ensure he could do his job, we all took one for the team and decided to lay low for Christmas.  And you know what?  It ended up being a very nice Christmas break-- cozy and relaxing and full of fun and family time!

2020 teacher gifts be like...

A couple times we left our house to view some Christmas lights.

We also had coffee drive in dates,

Banket baking lessons, 

And lots of delicious, special food!  We picked up a fancy pie for Christmas day and redeemed a generous gift card to a super fancy restaurant by ordering their family pick up meal.  Right from the comfort of our own home we savored Chef John's truffle risotto, broccolini, Fiscalini mac and cheese, wedge salad, filet mignon and chocolate mousse.  

Ivy got SO much love and spoils!  We'll all moan when we remember 2020, but our dogs will be like, "That was the best year of my life!"

We made our home a warm, cozy place for us to be-- with good smells, good food, fires, games, movies, and comfy clothes every day.

Then there was the joy of Christmas present opening!  Some highlights were the sweatshirts from the girls' favorite YouTuber.  I learned a new word this holiday-- "merch". ;)

When I showed the family that funny "I got a robe!" SNL skit, they hilariously thought it was my way of asking for a robe!  This luxurious, plush robe ended up being my favorite gift!  In fact, we ALL got robes from different people!  2020, the Year of Robes.

The girls loved sweet, hand knit hats from their Auntie Heather.

The big gift was a Nintendo Switch!  I'm not much of a video gamer, but I do love a good family board game, so it was a blast getting some Jackbox games to play together through the Switch.  We'd log on from our different devices and play this together for HOURS, laughing sometimes until we cried.  Jackbox games combine creativity, drawing, writing, and humor and are totally my jam!

We met the goal of making it through the holidays healthy!  So, come New Year's, with school restarting just days later, we were still feeling like being cautious and not taking the risk with our big annual NYE party.  Instead we had just one other church family over-- friends that have stayed in our bubble and who we'd had daily contact with already.  It was a night of more good food and Jackbox games and it was super fun.

Christmas Break ended, as it always does for me, with the writing of tons of thank you notes for all the kind gifts I receive from my students.  Spending the last few days of break intentionally thinking about my kids always gets me ready for the transition from home life to school life.  It's been a great January too!  I have not missed a day of school yet, getting to be there for my students and teach all my favorite winter units myself.  And the girls have been able to finish their first semester strong also, surviving final projects and exams, while staying busy with friends, Robotics, and play practices.   These things are so precious to us now, we were fine with taking a little 2 week break from life to protect our ability to keep doing them.